Fur Wars - Chapter 34

Neither Derek nor Albert had been prepared for what they’d seen as Darylena led them through The Workplace. Row upon row of cells lined the cavernous space, each with a Doe chained up surrounded by chocolates, cakes and grooming products.

In the corner of each cell was a showerhead above a trapdoor. The whole place hummed and whirred, ticking over relentlessly, the entire subterranean eco-system an idling hellish machine whose sole purpose was the systematic slaughter of millions of Bunny Does for pelts. If PETA ever finds out about this place, there’s going to be trouble.

Eventually, the gang found themselves standing at the bottom of a ladder clinging to the wall, going up into the black unknown. “I’ll never make it up there,” said Albert, “not with my big fat arse.”

Darylena smiled and reached over to the wall besides the ladder, there was a grimy panel with an alphanumeric keypad. “We don’t have to climb the ladder, we just need to put the code in and a secret door will slide open leading us to a teleportation unit that’ll take us anywhere on Nob,” said Darylena.
“Go on then,” said Derek.
“…ah,” said Darylena, “slight problem there. I’m afraid I can’t actually remember the code.”
“Think,” demanded Albert. “Can you remember anything? Anything at all about what that mad cow with the earmuffs did?”
“Well no not really, she just kind of came up the panel, stopped still for a sec, said ‘oh bollocks’ got out her phone and then just punched in some numbers. A second later we were in the teleporter.”

Albert looked at the number panel of his phone, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0. “Hmmm, maybe it’s 0 80110245, that looks a bit like ‘o bollocks’ to me,” he punched in the digits.

BING! Incorrect pass code. You have two more tries before The Workplace self-destructs. BING!

“Bugger,” said Albert, “Anyone else got any bright ideas?”
“Well, maybe each of the numbers stands for one of the letters on the keypad of your magic talking box,” said Derek pointing at Albert’s mobile phone.

Albert considered this for a second, turned on predictive text. “Hmm, let me see. So, oh, now that’s six and four. B, two. O, six. L, five, five. O, six. C, two. K, five and S, seven.”

He punched in 6426556257.

BING! Incorrect pass code. You have one more attempt before The Workplace self-destructs. Be lucky. BING!

Albert fell to the floor, eyes welling up with tears. “It’s hopeless, it’s all been for nothing,” he said blubbing away.

“It’s never hopeless,” echoed the voice of Skoda inside Albert’s head, “You are Captain Flash Albert, Jud Space Cadet Extraordinaire. You left Jud in the Year 281071. Your mission is to discover new and exciting planets with excellent parking. You must complete your mission, it is your density.”
“My density?”
“That’s not what I said,” argued the voice inside Albert’s head.
“Yes, yes, you definitely said ‘density’.”
“Maybe you misheard?”
“No look, I know what I heard all right.

“This isn’t really helping all that much,” interrupted Derek, who are you arguing with anyway?”
“Skoda. He says it’s my density.”
“No I didn’t,” argued Skoda, but Derek didn’t hear that.
“What else did he say?” said Derek.
“He just told me who I am, I know that already.”
“If you’re not Dragon Dragonson. Who are you?” Demanded Derek.
“I’m Captain Flash Albert, Jud Space Cadet Extraordinaire. I left Jud in the Year 281071. My mission is to discover new and exciting planets with excellent parking,” said Albert.

Derek looked at Albert and back to Darylena, “well, if we don’t get out of here, Mong’s going to destroy the place anyway,” he said reaching over to punch in the sequence 281071.

Albert’s mobile phone rang. He looked down, and saw the number. Grabbing Derek’s hand he said: “it won’t be my number, it’ll be dad’s!”

Albert called up his father’s number on his mobile phone and punched it into the panel.
BING! ….whooshswish. BING!