Bionic Basil® home of Basil and The B Team

Welcome to

Tuesday Tales

this is going to be one crazy-insane rescue oppurration!!!

The Clockwurk Labyrinth

If mew missed last weeks thrilling start to our latest adventure, here are the catch-up links...

Chapters 1 ~ 3

Chapters 4 ~ 5

>^.^<

And now here's this weeks chapters...

~ Chapter Six ~

Things Just Got Even More Complicated

The assembled B Team stared at the screen. Gasps, cries and a couple of shrieks sounded as they saw what I saw.

I reached fur my telephone and dialled C.J.'s direct line. He answered on the furst ring. "Basil?" was all he said.

Taking a breath to steady myself, I stood up straight and growled into the telephone. "Mew lied to me C.J."

There was a long pause and I wasn't sure if C.J. had hung up on me but then I heard his all too familiar wurld-weary sigh. "Don't tell me," he replied in a rather jaded tone. "Mew fast-forwarded the video didn't mew!" Not a question, just a point of fact. "And now mew know what I've been keeping from mew fur all this time."

"How long have mew had that confounded clock?" I snarled.

"Eight years."

"Mew told me 5 years ago that my old team..." I couldn't say the wurds, but I gave myself a mental shake and organised my thoughts. "That... my old team... were wiped out on a covert mission in the Congo trying to save the gorillas and mew said to me; Basil, if mew had been with them they'd all still be here!" I was shaking so bad, my anger boiled, rage surged through me and I screamed into the telephone. "MEW FILTHY LOW-LIFE LYING SACK OF CAMEL EXCREMENT! MEW TOLD ME THEY WERE DEAD AND IT WAS MY FAULT! MEW DIDN'T TELL ME THAT THEY'D BEEN TRAPPED IN THAT FLUFFING EVEEEEL DIMENSION ALL THIS TIME..." I took a breath through gritted teeth. "AND MEW PUT ALL THAT GUILT ON ME FUR ALL THESE YEARS!"

Humphrey put a calming paw on my shoulder and it was then I saw the looks of abject horror on The B Teams faces. I closed my eyes tight-shut and turned my back on them as I continued. "When I get in that fluffing place and retrieve Fudge and my old team, if they're still alive plus anypurrdy else that mew cowardly top-level freakers from the F.I.B have sent in there I'm coming fur mew... there won't be a single place in the known universe where mew'll be safe!"

I hung the phone up and took another gulp of my medicinal Nip Scotch and focused on my breathing until I peeled myself off the ceiling and came back down to floor level.

"Dude," Smooch said softly. "Don't get excited, we can fix this."

"Yeah," Parsley agreed. "Mew've got the most formidable fighting force on the planet Basil and If we can't save them..."

Humphrey cut him off. "We can save them, we can save them all."

"HOOAH!" Smooch, Parsley and Humphrey paw-bumped.

"We're the freaking B Team and there ain't no-purrdy like us, that can do what we do and do it again!" Humphrey cheered raising morale. "We're the greatest, the fastest, the bestest, the most armed, the most dangerous and skilled team of elite kitty commando's this time-space continu-nomnom and this universe has effur seen, HOOAH!"

I looked at my team and knew they were right. "HOOAH!" I shouted. "Let's go do this!"

~ Chapter Seven ~

Lock'n'Load

Fudge had been in that eveel dimension one hour and 43 minutes when we reconvened outside BDR 1.

"Status on supplies?" I asked Parsley as we stood outside the sealed doors of BDR 1.

"Basil dude, we've got the hamburgler with the lot!" he grinned passing me my tactical vest and belt.

I stared at it and said. "But where is effurything?" I held up the belt and vest, turning them around but no visible supplies were there.

"Ah, well Humphrey and I had a bit of a convo and decided that we wouldn't be able to take anything in there other than what we could carry."

I nodded.

"So Humphrey suggested that we use the miniaturizing ray gun to make all the equipment, guns, ammo, extra weapons, surplus just-in-case weapons and food plus water," Parsley explained. "And anything else we may need to fit in here." He pointed at all the pockets on the tactical vest. "Dude, mew've basically got half the bunkers weapons and ammo in your top right pocket. Food and water in your top left pocket..."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yep really."

"So why haven't we done this shrinky-make stuff really small before?" I queried. "Could have saved a fortune on extra baggage charges on our last furmilly vay-cay when we made the mistake of travelling via conventional means!"

"Dude, Humphrey had hidden the ray gun in his secret safe as he didn't want it falling into the wrong paws but now he's back, we're all good to get our mittens on it!" he laughed.

"Nice, so how many ray guns are there?" I asked.

"Only 3 right now, Humphrey has the original and he's just made two more in the 3D printer which he's calibrating and loading up the software on now, he's leaving the printer to make more while we're gone and Snowie will have the blueprint and upload codes to finish the oppurration, so if we need more she can send them through the clock in a trojan cat."

"But how do we know that it'll wurk right in that dimension?" I wondered. "What's to say that it doesn't wurk and then we're stuck with no weapons or anything?"

"Ah that’s the clever bit," Parsley replied. "Humphrey reckons that as the camera feed from the last agent was ok that the basic rules of physics apply there too, well if it didn't there'd be chaos and we'd neffur have seen the footage."

"What mew're really saying is, we're going to wing it?" I laughed bitterly.

Parsley nodded. "Don't we always?"

Humphrey appeared wearing his tactical vest. "I just added 6 ATVs to my inside pocket should we need transport."

"Won't they be too noisy?" I asked.

"Nope," Humphrey grinned. "I've made them fully electric, self-charging and they're completely silent running, plus I added a rather nifty feature, there's a new button on the top of the speedo, hit that and mew're instantly inside an invisible force field, cool huh? Did I say how much I love 3D printers!"

"Furry cool dude, and can mew still travel at speed while invisible?"

"Dude, mew really have to ask!" Humphrey laughed.

"Just checking!" I grinned back.

Amber, Pandora and Smooch appeared. "Are we ready dudes?" Smooch asked as he strapped another full-sized holstered Glock to his tactical belt [that made 4, he likes to be purrpared].

Snowie and Posie appeared and handed out our latest comms units, plus back-up headsets. Then we were each given a small tracking chip, plus spares. I stuck my tracking chip to my chest and Snowie said. "Basil mew're now active, hopefully I'll be able to monitor your progress through the 3D render of the labyrinth, and mew'll all be able to keep tabs on each other with your iPaw's. I've uploaded all the new software so if anyone gets lost mew'll be able to track them easily enough and all the iPaws are synced so mew all have exactly the same info all the time."

I held up my left paw and hit my iPaw screen with my right claw, it pinged into life and the small screen depicted 5 pulsing dots plus my own making 6. Each dot had an initial on it so it was easy to see who was who, though Pandora and Parsley had P1 and P2. "Nice Snowie, mew did a great job!" I said and suddenly realised how much I'd missed all my older fursibs offur the last year. "What about the 3D map?"

"Oh just double-tap the screen and it will change to map view, and as mew travel through the maze, the software will remap should our interpretation be a little off. So essentially the existing map will become more comprehensive as mew traverse the labyrinth and it will keep the exact route should mew need to backtrack at all," she said. "I also added an extra feature where it will log any unusual activity at a precise point or place, so the further mew travel the more info it collects and the better mew'll be able to deal with whateffur is in that heinous place!"

"Jeez, mew think of effurything don't mew!" I smiled at my older sisfur.

"One of us has too!" she smiled grimly thinking about those heinous nightmares again.

Posie appeared and asked. “Are mew guys ready to launch?”

I nodded gravely. “Mew take care of Horice ok and we’ll be back before mew even know we’re gone!” I gave her a tight smile, and she gently patted my arm and replied. “Basil if anypurrdy can do this, it's mew and the guys and gurls of course!”

I took a deep breath and turned to face my team. “Dudes and dudettes, it is time, are mew ready?”

“HOOAH!” came the collective reply.

Then I shouted with all the gusto I could muster. “ARE MEW READY?”

“HOOAH!” came the raucous reply.

I felt happier at the second response, as team morale and confidence are key to a successful mission. We went in fur the obligatory group paw-bump and then broke apart, though in all honesty I could feel the tension rising faster than the SpaceX rocket launch.

Snowie suddenly said. “Oh and before I furget mew’ve all got camera’s placed in the top button of the tactical vests and don’t wurry about battery life, Humphrey has installed his new Kinetic Battery, so they’ll last fureffur.”

I gave her a nod and then had an offurwhelming impulse to hug her tightly, letting her go I hugged Posie next... something was making my fur bristle in ways that I couldn’t explain and I knew that this was not going to be like any other rescue mission we’d been of before.

“Open the doors and let’s go get Fudge!” I said resolutely.

>^.^<

We stepped into BD1 and the doors swooshed closed behind us, I could see Snowie and Posie’s wurried expressions through the glass portals and I gave them a nod, I could feel my legs trembling and I gave myself a mental shake before I said. “Alrighty then, how the fluff do we get this confounded, ugly clock to do its thing?”

Pandora, Amber, Parsley, Smooch and Humphrey all shrugged their shoulders and then Smooch said. “Why don’t mew try knocking on the door?”

"Why don't mew knock?" I shot back.

“Oh no dude, that honour is all yours!” he replied and then pulled on his full-face mask.

‘Typical,’ I thought as I edged towards the ticking monstrosity and pulled my own mask down. I gave my team a cursory glance and then rapped lightly on the clock door.

Nothing happened. I rapped harder and still nothing happened, by this time I could feel the adrenaline surge and I squared up the clock and snarled. “Mew wurthless, fluffin’ piece of cack!” I growled. “Call yourself an inter-dimensional door, I’ve seen better doors in a public lavatory!”

I was just about to ask fur a crow-bar to prise the door open when purple smoke began to billow from the eveel thing, then the door burst wide open; I saw inside and my entire being lurched side-ways as though the ground beneath my paws just melted away.

BD1 was full of smoke in seconds and I shouted. “Dudes here we go!”

The eveel gnarled hand reached into our dimension and opened wide, claw-tipped fingers out-stretched. It was the strangest sensation as I felt my body being pulled towards the hand and I glanced around to see my team being drawn towards it too. If I could liken it to anything, it was like we were iron filings being drawn towards a powerful magnet.

Amber started to scream as did Pandora, Smooch pulled one of his guns. I could feel Parsley and Humphrey’s energy change from moderately chilled to all-out action as the hand began to close around us all.

I was so thankful to be wearing a full visor mask as without I’m sure I would have been gagging and puking at this stage. The purple smoke was thick and acrid and although the mask kept most of the smoke out, I did get a sniff; it was like death and all manner of really unpleasant things, that in all honesty mew don’t want to think about.

The hand had us all in a vice-like grip as we were lifted off the floor and pulled into the clock. Time and space started to do really weird things and it felt like a roller coaster ride of doom, and one that would neffur end. Yet in the next breath I felt myself falling and falling and falling, then I hit something hard and began to slide down a greasy, stinking wall.

**AND CUT**