Patchwork Universe

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

[OOC: continued from "Bad New for Zookeepers"]

" . . . the nuts that hold it in place. And it's a real bear to clean! I mean, one fellow has to grab it like this! and lean back like this! so that another fellow -- or maybe a girl, you know -- can get in there to dust the top of the metal disc that nobody's going to see anyway! And that! I once cleaned that! Once it came back from Restoration it was as good as new! Of course, it's supposed to be five-hundred-fifty years old.

"Well, sir, have you seen anything yet you want me to tell you about? Only, I've never been a Guide before, and that must be why I was called to the foyer! This must be my big chance!"

They were easily a hundred yards down the hall from the foyer by now, and George stopped and turned a hopeful grin on Trubshawe.

Trubshawe · Good Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 155 Location: The Zoo

Dr Odom had been perfectly correct in his assumption that George's sunny disposition and eagerness to please would drive Trubshawe to the verge of uncontrollable rage. As he strode along at George's heels, grinding his teeth and staring at the back of the neck that it would be so easy to leap forward and throttle the life out of, Trubshawe was shocked to find himself almost nostalgic for the dulcet tones of Larkin Quickgrip.

To keep his cool, he recited the somewhat self-deluded mantra: only a thoroughly gimcrack institution would hire pinheads like this onto the staff...

When he saw George slowing and - Dawksamercy! - stopping, threatening the possibility of more of this inane chatter unrelieved by the possibility of arriving any minute at their destination, blind panic seized Trubshawe.

"WHILE WE'RE WALKING, GEORGE!" he shrieked, grabbing the young man's arm and marching him down the corridor. "Dr Odom is very keen that I should have my rope without any delay whatsoever. The continued welfare of the Museum may well depend on the success of my experiments."

As long as they were maintaining a good pace in the direction of the receiving bay, Trubshawe supposed he could afford to be a little lenient on George, who he supposed was feeling a bit hurt. He decided to ask a question - after all, he could recite a complicated list of genera and subgenera in his head and so avoid having to listen to the answer if it became too painful.

"So, George, what exactly is this Museum, and why is Dr Odom so absurdly proud of all this random junk?"

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

George's shoulders squared and his pace became more brisk at the "continued welfare" line, but the moment the words "random junk" emerged from Trubshawe's mouth George's arm was yanked suddenly from Trubshawe's hand by the young man's petrification.

George's eyes seemed impossibly wide and his lips moved soundlessly around strange words. He stared at Trubshawe with horror. No, not horror. Bewilderment. Disbelief. Frantic holy terror.

"Oh, no, sir," he finally managed. "No, no, no, no, no. It's everything It's the world!" His eyes began to fill and overflow and his face turned the color of a peach -- not a supposedly peach-colored crayon but a real peach, sort of yellow in some places and dark orange in others and a little bit fuzzy and likely to ooze a lot if hit. "If it wasn't for the Museum none of us would be here! We wouldn't have anyplace to live! We wouldn't have any purpose" He managed to wail the last word and stumble over it at the same time so that, out of context as people working in nearby exhibits heard it, he might have been howling "porpoise" instead.

Trubshawe · Good Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 155 Location: The Zoo

"Steady on, George! Look, just calm down!" exclaimed Trubshawe, a little taken aback at the effect his seemingly uncontroversial words had had on the young man. He wondered how long it was polite to wait, after such an injunction, before repeatedly and viciously belabouring a hysteric about the face.

George seemed to be regaining control of himself, but Trubshawe kept his slapping hand poised, just in case.

"Look here, old man. I'll grant you this is a sizeable museum, as they go, but the world? What about all the trees and flowers and meadows and babbling brooks and plashy fountains outside this building? All the things that make life worth living? You should get out more!

"It's not even as if museums are a prime career option these days. There are a number of financially and spiritually more rewarding alternatives. For instance zookeeping..."

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

"But the Museum has all those things!" George pleaded.

Trubshawe · Good Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 155 Location: The Zoo

The zookeeper frowned: getting through George's thick skull was obviously not going to be easy. What was this nonsense he was spouting - meadows in museums?

And then it struck him with a terrible clarity. Odom's brainwashing them! He's pumping them full of these lies to make them easier to control for his sinister power games!

It all made sense. No wonder now that someone like George had been "hired" onto the Museum staff. He was just the sort of nincompoop who wouldn't be able to resist the evil wiles and hypnotic gaze of a charismatic cult leader. Already the picture of Odom in Trubshawe's mind was altering, becoming more satanic, with a definite hint of goatee. And was there a suggestion of horns in the way the man styled his hair?

"Dawkins!" muttered Trubshawe under his breath. It was his duty as a crusader for truth and justice to deprogram this man, indeed all the museum staff who had fallen under Odom's sick sway. But it was a task of such magnitude - where to start? First things first. It would be important not to let Odom know he'd rumbled him. And that meant playing dumb for the time being.

"Yes, of course, you're right," he now purred at George. "I'd quite forgotten about all those. Up on one of the higher floors, aren't they? You're right, it really is a fantastic museum, one of my personal top 3 already. You can tell me more about all its wonders on the way to the rope."

Trubshawe reached surreptitiously into his pockets for something malleable he could insert into his ears...

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

George hesitantly turned and resumed the tour, his voice less ebullient, darting occasional glances over his shoulder to make sure he was no longer in arm's reach of the impious madman. Eventually, though, he seemed to forget the incident and resumed his cheerful rambling.

"That's the last exhibit on this floor. Well, and that one across the hall. And all the ones right behind them. Here's the main stairway. It goes up. Except that little bit that goes to the basement, but there's nothing to see there. That's where I take all the empty cups and plates, except that sometimes they aren't all-the-way-empty and then I have to be really careful on the stairs, because if I've got a whole lot of teacups that aren't empty and I'm not careful on the stairs then there's a big mess. I wish I had a cart like they use in the Museum Library to take big heaps of books from one collection to another. They have these sort of long, skinny wheels on the backs so they can roll up the fronts of the steps. Wouldn't that be just spiffy? And we're really, really past all of the exhibits n-n-n-n-ow! So now we're in the back half of the Museum and there's nothing to see, really. That's what I told the other folks I've found back here. Oh, that's Dr. Sanderson's office. She takes sugar in her tea, but not as much as I do. And that's Mr. Arzekian's office. He takes milk, but not as much as I do, except he's hardly ever there, anyway. This hallway gets really crowded sometimes when a whole bunch of people from a whole bunch of offices decide to go down to the commissary all at once."

It went on like this. And on. And on. George led Trubshawe through a dozen or so turnings, rarely going very far north or south before continuing west. And then he stopped at a four-way intersection. He looked north. He looked south. He looked north again. And south.

Trubshawe · Good Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 155 Location: The Zoo

Trubshawe reached into one ear, and extracted the moist wad that he had been able to construct by chewing up part of a zoo flyer. There was a dangerous edge to his voice when he spoke.

"George, I have been listening to your commentary with great politeness and forbearance for some time now. I thought we had an understanding, to the effect that I understood how important it was to you to practise being a guide, and you in turn recognised how absolutely crucial to myself, to Dr Jewel, to Dr Odom, to all of us, getting me to a place capable of providing rope was. As such, as such, George, I very much hope, for your sake as much as anyone's, that we. Are. Not. Lost."

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

"Oh, no, sir!" George did not just laugh -- he actually guffawed. "Lost! No, I'm just trying to think which way to go. It's just that Dr. Odom said to take you by a way that doesn't go past the taxidermy workshops. I'm pretty sure he didn't mean 'go right through them' when he said don't go past them, so I'm trying to figure out which is the best way around."

Trubshawe · Good Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 155 Location: The Zoo

"He did, did he?" said Trubshawe grimly. Probably alarmed by the idea of his paltry collection coming under the scrutiny of an actual expert, he thought.

"Well, George, this only proves that Dr. Odom wants us to get hold of the rope as swiftly as possible. You see, I am something of a recognised expert in the zoological field: he doubtless feared that, seduced by the marvellousness of the local collection, I would desert the task at hand. He needn't have, of course. A good zookeeper is absolutely singleminded when he has a job to do. So to the north of these wretched workshops, to their south, or right through the middle of them, it matters not an iota. Let us go to the stores by the quickest way there is, or you personally will be held answerable for the delay!"

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

Positively beaming at this obvious high praise, ,George arbitrarity chose to turn left. He continued his monologue, consisting mostly of the snacking habits of assorted staff, until he and Trubshawe reached an are that opened up almost as much as the foyer at the front of the building.

Two stories tall, decorated in the traditional exposed-beam-and-ductwork style and dominated by two gigantic doors on the west wall, the receiving dock consumed stray light, creating shadows where the Museum's omnidirectional lighting normally would not have allowed them. George threaded his way easily through the maze of shelves, ladders, dollys, carts, wagons and curious devices like primitive siege engines until he found a man in a battered wool overcoat and corduroy overalls oiling a large floor jack.

"Um . . . excuse me!" George called. "Dr. Odom said to get this gentleman the biggest coil of rope he can carry."

"He did, did he, huh?" the man grunted.

"Yes." George twisted his face around in a few different directions before settleing on one that could dislodge his instructions. "'Please take this gentleman to the receiving dock and tell them to lend him the biggest coil of rope he can carry.' His words."

The man studied Trubshawe for a few seconds, then his face split into a sly grin. "Oh, he did, did he? Well, then, we'll have to do just as he said, won't we?"

The man slouched off and returned a couple of minutes later with a large coil of manila rope slung over his shoulder. The rope was about an inch in diameter and there must have been two hundred feet of it. A couple of feet of much smaller cotton rope kept it tied in a coil.

"That should about do it, shouldn't it? I could get a bigger, but we don't want to overdo it, do we? We wouldn't want to find out you're not up to the job and have to get George to bring you back here for a smaller, would we? That'll about do it, then, will it?"

Trubshawe · Good Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 155 Location: The Zoo

All his suspicions about Dr Odom's malevolence were confirmed as Trubshawe took possession of the rope. Of course, he did not articulate them in company - confining his comments to a simple "Oof!"

"Yes," he continued, when the breath that had been knocked out of him returned, "this is indeed... about the biggest... coil of rope I can carry." He staggered around slightly to prove the point.

"And as such... it should certainly... be sufficient for our... experiment. Well done, George. As I have now been... loaned as much rope... as I can carry... if you would now... carry it back to the good Doctors for me."

He lunged at George in the hope of offloading his burden before the lad could react.

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

"Oh, now, the gennleman wouldn't be wanting to overestimate himself, now, would he?" the grinning man said, coming to the willing George's defense. "I mean, sure, you can lift it, but you're sure you can carry it, are you? You don't think that's more than you can handle, do you? I'll just get something more suited to your age and size, shall I? I mean, we know old George can handle this one, but h's younger and stronger, isn't he?"

Trubshawe · Good Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 155 Location: The Zoo

"What?" cried Trubshawe. "We'll see about that, dash your confounded impertinence! Bring me another coil of rope, the same length and weight as this one, and we'll carry one each back to Odom and Jewel! We'll see who stops for a rest first!"

(The gentle reader must forgive the lack of an attempt here to replicate the effect that stertorous breathing from unaccustomed physical strain was having on the Zookeeper's conversation. Rest assured though that he was just about intelligible and did therefore manage to get the message across.)

Dr. William T. Odom · Good Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 220 Location: The Museum

"Sounds like a fair request to me, George, doesn't it? Man has to show he's still got it, doesn't he?"

The man winked at George, who nodded enthusiastically although he was squinting with the effort of keeping up with events. He left and quickly returned with another coil of rope which he handed to George.

"Keep up the good work, boyo," he said, pounding George on the shoulder, and then turned dismissively back to the jack.