Night on a Bare Conurbation, Chapter Three

The Interplanetary Broadcasting Service was promptly on the scene. Roving reporter Blonghé Bliggs impressed upon everyone the vital importance of getting this story out there, and rushed Mini-Flash Meteor through minimal make-up while smoothly allaying any concerns that might have been raised as to the condition of her clothes. Blonghé Bliggs knew ratings when he saw them, and that was as good a word as any for what he glimpsed through that gaping tunic-rent. He himself may have been a bright blue orb which supported itself on several stringy feelers, but he didn’t get where he was today by not paying heed to the peculiar tastes of bipedal vertebrates.

Cameras rolled. Six billion holo-screens tuned to the local news presented Mini-Flash Meteor standing before the wreck of the burned-out space-car.

“I speak to you this evening from the aftermath of a decision,” she commenced. “A decision made during the Nereynis Incident by my fellow Mini-Flash and one-time friend, 4-H-N.”

The button-nosed features assumed a mood of unutterable pathos.

“Dear 4-H-N,” pronounced Mini-Flash Meteor. “Poor, dear 4-H-N. So much promise, so much potential, and yet ultimately, so misguided. Our galaxy is at last ready to learn I have chosen of late to distance myself from the girl-gang with whom she has become all too associated. You will have heard, I am sure, of their doings. And now we have tonight.”

Briefly Meteor held out her hand, to indicate three disconsolate-looking male Mini-Flashes behind her.

“Boys. Grindoes. The helpless among us, living in fear.”

She planted her fists on her hips. Good, good, thought Blonghé Bliggs.

“The perpetrator here is Schiss-Zazz,” Mini-Flash Meteor affirmed. “My memories of 4-H-N are still so precious that I will not hear a word against her even now. Nor do I neglect for a nanosecond that I too bear some peripheral complicity. True, I have elected to take ownership, whilst 4-H-N has so far been conspicuous by her absence. But I pray, blame her not, much as it may be due. Surely suspicion and doubt enough have been heaped upon our kind.”

Meteor sighed poetically. That wasn’t going to hurt those audience-numbers either.

“Might my actions, in some small way, suggest that not all the second gender are deserving of these?” she appealed. “That is more than I know. My thoughts this night run less on politics, and more the time-honoured Flash Club responsibility to protect the puny and weak. That much I have done, and I dearly yearn to assure you our troubles end here. Yet I hesitate. For it would not surprise me if at some date soon, evidence were to emerge of more reprehensible transgressions yet on the part of 4-H-N.”

Mini-Flash Meteor looked directly into the lens.

“It would not surprise me in the least,” she repeated significantly. “Mark my words. The worst is still to come.”

Flashbee’s underpants had proved unsalvageable, so he was getting by on good posture and avoiding sudden movements. Flashsatsumas meanwhile had patched himself up with a bicycle-repair kit, and Flashslip was decent again.

All of which was just as well. After all, no-one wanted to run the risk of feeling a bit silly.

Each of the trio guessed he’d be giving out a long low internal groan at least until the next lunar cycle. It wasn’t that they’d had to be rescued by a girl one grade below them. Male Mini-Flashes were well used to that sort of thing by now. Immeasurably worse was that they’d been aiming to please their beloved 4-H-N, and had ended up contributing only to the furtherance of Mini-Flash Meteor’s mysterious vendetta against her.

Flashbee was fidgeting. This wasn’t uncommon in insects or boys without any underwear on, but no sooner had Meteor left than he turned to his friends and whispered:

“Guys, it’s not over. Schiss-Zazz hasn’t struck yet.”

“Say that to your pants and they’ll probably disagree,” Flashslip remarked.

“Trust me,” insisted Flashbee. “He’s a predator, and that’s a perspective my people know all about. He didn’t butcher the Grindoes. He could have killed us, but he, um, just had a bit of fun instead,” and turning rather pink Flashbee gave his hemline another firm tug. “Then lastly he didn’t gut Mini-Flash Meteor, even though he had the chance.”

Flashslip could perhaps be forgiven for what he said in reply to this.

“Schiss-Zazz is stalking a victim,” Flashbee pressed on. “There’s somebody out there we still have to save.”

“But who?” Flashsatsumas implored him, scared.

“And why the space-conurbation, at night?” added Flashslip. “Schiss-Zazz doesn’t strike me as the type to go overboard on preparatory research, but whoever he’s after must be someone he knows is here at the heart of town. So we’re talking about a person who makes the general public aware they go out every single night on the conurbation, and who does that?”

It was meant rhetorically. Then a second later it dawned on all three male Mini-Flashes at once that for their kind, it could never be so.

They exclaimed as one:

“Petunia!”

END OF CHAPTER THREE