<Offers Tom a lozenge>

It was a lovely day in Sang Sacre, no toads or pancakes or suchlike falling from the sky, so I rode my bike to work. It's been quiet in town lately, but that's fine with me. I like the quiet.

As I push the bike in through the side door, I'm surprised to see that we already have a customer. I can only see his back from where I'm standing, but I can see the bottle of Old deNyalle standing on the bar next to him. That's some pretty cheap whiskey for this early in the morning. Actually, it's pretty cheap whiskey for any time of day or night. It's most often ordered by folks keen on regurgitation. Charpe's orcs love the stuff.

I head down the corridor to the back room and stash the bike. Phred's back in the office, so I ask about the guy out front.

"He wandered in just after we opened up," Phred says. "Asked for whiskey, and told the bird to leave the bottle. He said something about losing his job, and that he'd been some kind of general or something. In the artillery, I think he said it was. Blames it all on the media."

"Don't they all. Maybe we should send him over to Charpe. He's always looking for new recruits. Or new practice dummies."

I take a peek around the corner. The guy still has his head down, hunched over his drink. He's already made a pretty serious dent in the bottle, and seems to be spilling his guts to the bird, although it's hard to make out what he's saying because he's slurring his words a bit. The bird seems properly sympathetic, nodding at the proper times and refilling the shot glass as it empties. I have to admit that old herring breath is a good listener.

Finally they seem to come to an agreement of some sorts, and both lift their glasses, one a shot of Old deNile, the other a juice glass full of herring juice (don't ask; the blender has never been the same) in a toast to Casper Weinberger. And then I recognize him.

I duck back into the office. "Phred? Is it possible that the word he used was 'Attorney,' rather than 'Artillery'?"

"Yeah, boss, that was it. How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess. And Phred?"

"Yeah, boss?"

"No tab. He pays cash, or finds another bar."

(Hee!)

Having heard that coming unexpectedly out of cryogenic storage is all the rage these days, the members of Grooveyard have once again defrosted. Except the drummer, who was last seen tooling around sometime in the 1570's, mumbling something about a malfunctioning clock.

A slightly befuddled band meanders, apparently with no memory of anything that happened in the entirety of Sang Sacre since, well, 2005. And they're auditioning drummers. Please report to Dogtown between the hours of 10pm and 2am. Must have own gear and/or levitation device. Ability to rapidly adjust to changing temperaments, skill levels, and sobriety without losing the groove a must.

Oh, and it would be good if he could play drums. Last guy we got was a little despondent, fresh out of a job. We couldn't really use him, so we aimed him at the nearest source for alcohol.

Man, they're always trying to preserve drummers in alcohol. And it never works. When will people learn?

Where have all the drummers gone? Gone to Grooveyards, every one. When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn?

I hear a haunting melody and lyrics in my head, pretty sure I didn't generate it myself. It's odd and it makes me feel....

makes me feel...

I dunno what it makes me feel, but I don't like it.

A klaxon alarm starts crying out as steam billows from the machine.

"Hans! Quick close the secondary valve!"

I flip the switches to shutdown the tachyon flux generator. The green lights on a nearby panel start turning red one by one. Damn, it didn't stop the overload.

"We've got to shut it down, hit the button Hans!"

"Vat button?!" I can barely hear the voice of my assitant over the din of the alarms and the hissing steam.

"The red one! The big red one!" I shout. Almost all of the lights are red now.

"There are two of them!" He shouts back.

A can't remember which one is the emergency stop and which switches to full power. I really should have ordered more than one color of big buttons.

"Just pick one!"

Electrical arcs start flashing between the parts, there is an ominious whirring sound coming from the photonic quantimizer. More tubes burst sending more multicolor steam into the lab. The whole room starts to vibrate. The last light on the panel turns red.

"The other one!" I yell at the top of my lungs.

I don't know if Hans can hear me, but he must have. The vibrations and arcs stop as all of the panel lights turn to amber standby. There is a horrible shrieking sound of metal against metal and everything falls silent.

"Vat happend?" asks Hans.

"It might have worked this time. It went a lot smoother this time."

"Vat does it do?"

"It changes reality just a bit. I was inputing a web page with a bunch of pie recipes (http://www.pastrywiz.com/archive/category/pie.htm and yes I can talk in parenthesis). Turn on the news there should be pies appearing everywhere." I tell him.

Hans presses a few buttons and the news appears on a flatscreen suspended from the ceiling.

The newscaster is getting a new stack of papers as we start to view in. "This just in, we now have multiple cases of people waking up in bathtubs full of ice with their kidneys removed. We have a reporter at the local hospital but we are having technical troubles, from phone calls there appears to be an unprecedented number of computer viruses appearing everywhere."

Hans looks at me, "Vhere are the pies?"

I look at my computer, it is showing a list of pie recipes. I trace the cable going from my USB port to... nothing. Crap.

"Hans trace that silver cable there from the machine."

The reporter drones on... "Startling new evidence that the moon landings were faked..."

Hans finds the computer the cable leads to. "Here it is"

"What is on that computer Hans?"

"It is running a ved browser." He replies.

"What site?" I ask, worried.

"Snopes" He says.

"Well shoot, it looks like we've made all the urban legends come true."

"Hey, Phred, why's the bird lying on his back out in the middle of the street?"

"It's the airplanes, boss. Every time one flies over, he falls over onto his back trying to watch it. The pilots call it bowling for penguins."

I just shake my head. Then I glance at the TV over the bar, and see that an agitated news anchor is going on about some breaking news over on Hy-Brasil. Apparently a frelling aircraft carrier just ran aground next to the lighthouse there.

Phred says, "Now there's something you don't see everyday..."

"Yeah, unless you're us. Mind the fort. I'm going to run down and have a look." I head into the back to grab my binoculars and my bike. And my camera.

I paused in the hallway of the Folly, outside my door. Mrs. McGregor's doberman was standing outside her door down the hallway, looking like he was trying to cough something out. Bob the Vampire appeared at my shoulder (he does that).

"Dogs don't get hairballs, do they?"

"Well, not shorthairs like Dobies--oh, euw!"

Several little sausage things hit the carpet.

"That's what happens when you wolf your food, Fluffy," I told the dog. "Heh, wolf the food."

Bob looked at the sausages. "If that's Fluffy's food, we're going to have to have several words with Mrs. McGregor."

"What do you mean?"

"Those are somebody's fingers, and they're fresh."

We looked at the door to Mrs. McGregor's apartment. It was partly open.

Bob grinned. "Can I? Just to check, you know, being neighborly and all that."

"Sure. Don't wolf your food."

"You're working that pun to death, you know."

I ride down to one of the piers near the Central Trade Zone, just across the passage from the island of Hy-Brasil, and stash the bike. There's a pretty good crowd watching the goings on. I see Capt. Charpe, the head of the City Watch, near the end of the pier, so I thread my way through the crowd towards him. I can see the carrier now. I pull out the binoculars. It's aground, all right. The bow is completely out of the water. I look further back, and can make out the number "60" on the carrier's island. "The Saratoga? I thought she was in mothballs."

Charpe sees me and calls me over. As I get within earshot, I point at the little tugboat moving towards the beached monster and say, "You're gonna need a bigger boat."

"Very funny. Bloody lovely day, eh?" His Orcshire accent is especially strong when he's sarcastic.

"Why? What else has happened?"

"What hasn't? The hospitals are full. We've had a bunch of involuntary organ donors, dogs snackin' on burglars' fingers, people breakin' ankles from trippin' over penguins in the street, and a couple of guys claimin' that their burnt, broken noses were caused by bein' hit by flamin' flyin' gerbils, whatever they are."

"They're like hamsters." He gives me a blank look. "Big mice. People keep 'em as pets. They don't fly, though, as a rule, and you don't usually see them on fire, either."

He rolled his eyes. "You soddin' humans continue to amaze me. Flamin' vermin, then, although Grife knows how they came to be on fire and movin' fast enough to break bones. The victims were a little reticent about that bit. And then there's the person or persons unknown runnin' 'round town fillin' up luxury automobiles with concrete. We haven't had the time or the manpower to track them down yet."

"You know, this all seems familiar, like fairy tales come to life. Except not."

"That's not very helpful. Although I do need to thank you for sendin' over that 'general' lummox. He has been very helpful to the situation."

That was surprising. I had to ask, "How so? You didn't use him for a practice dummy, did you?"

"No. Chopper wanted to, but then all this came up and we found a better use for his talents."

"What talents?"

Charpe displayed a mouthful of pointy teeth as he grinned. "He's good at screamin' and flailin' his arms about. Chopper's usin' him to troll for some giant alligators that have, by uncanny coincidence, shown up in the sewers this very day. Ties him to the end of a long rope, drops him down a manhole, and then Chopper and the squad wait for a gator to show up. All the screamin' and flailin' does a terrific job of attractin' the things."

"Nice to see he can be of use. Anything else?"

"Well, there's been some good things, too. There was a man sellin' a terrific steak and kidney pie just up the way. Haven't had kidneys like that in years, not since the massacre at..."

He started, then thought for a second. "Well that's one mystery solved. Corporal Harrass!"

"Sir!"

"Find the pie vendor, and take him in for questionin'. I think is name is 'Dobler.' Somethin' like that. And bring all the pies, er, evidence to my office."