Right, you guys should know by now that I don't nearly write at the same pace as some of the rest of ye, but when I do, I make sure its good. Anyway, seeing as the rules here cut a little more slack to violence then I'm used to, I'll be able to post my latest work.
1: Moldavite
“I know you’re watching me.” The boy in the raincoat stated to no one in particular. He was standing on a busy Dublin city street with people bustling past him. The rain was pouring down heavily. The boy looked 13, with striking blue eyes. “I have a question.” He stated, keeping his gaze fixed squarely ahead of him. In the heavy rain, when most people were just looking to get in doors was the perfect time for this. The boy was leaning against the pedestal of a statue of an old politician. The statue was staring in the same direction as the boy. “The day you died,” the boy continued, “November 17, 1909, correct?”
“Obviously a smart lad.” A disembodied voice stated. The voice belonged to the late farmer known as Paddy-James Flaherty, or Parsnip, as his friends used to call him.
“Yes, and, on that same day, did you happen to see something unusual in the sky?”
“Yes, but I thought it must’ve had something to do with them flyin’ cows.”
“Flying cows?” The boy looked bemused. Maybe the man was a dead end. The statue then turned its head slightly downwards. “Yes. In my day, I bred flying cows. They only had small wings, but managed to stay up. Sort of like bees, they were.”
“Ok. Well, would you happen to know where this object landed?”
“Yes, in one of my fields. When it landed I was knocked right off me feet and-” but the boy walked off, having no more desire to listen to this statue babble. He had all the information he needed.
From a very early age, Christopher Stone was believed to be insane. His remarkable talent, talking to statues, had first emerged when he was very young. His Grandmother had had lots of little stone animals in her garden, and instead of playing with children, like Christopher should have been, he was talking to garden ornaments. His first real friend, oddly enough, was a little stone robin which he had managed to yank off its pedestal. His parents dismissed this as him having a strong imagination, but when he did not cease speaking to stone, by the age of 8, he was sent to a psychiatrist. He was then branded, “utterly deranged.” He was sent to a mad house after this, where he stayed for only a short period of time before (with the help of the before mentioned stone robin) managed to escape.
There is something no one but Stone and a few others know about statues, they hold dead souls. They find a statue that either resembles their previous body, or has some resemblance to their spirit. Another thing unknown to the general public is that, statues carrying souls can move. The only thing is, the statues cannot move when someone his looking at them. It is a great mystery why they cannot move, some believe it is a subconscious reaction, others believe it to be a law much like gravity. It is to prevent discovery of their life, that is the only absolute in the matter. The only people who can look at statues and see them move are Stone and a few others, labelled “Statue Conversers” or Conversers for short. Stone was also an extremely bright boy, with an uncanny knack for over-analysing. Ask him what 100+100 is, and he’ll say: “Well, its not 101, or 102, or 103 for that matter…”
After Stone’s escape, he was taken in by a private investigator who, after some rather unsavoury misdeeds, had changed his name to Cornelius Revolver. Revolver was a fat, stumpy man who wore a bowler hat and always had a sour expression on his face. He called himself Revolver for the fact that he could shoot a man in a car in such a way that it would hit a specific nerve and his leg would jerk and press the brakes, he was just that skilled. You would never find him without his old-fashioned six-shot single action army revolver.
Revolver had recognised that this boys extraordinary talents would come in handy. He could ask the statues for information on their murders. There was only one problem with this technique, Stone could not pinpoint the location of the souls, and so they mostly roamed around asking random statues if they were murdered, or if they had any treasure they would like to pass on. On this particular occasion, Stone had found out from a very famous astrologist’s statue that almost one hundred years ago, an asteroid containing a type of stone, moldavite, may have landed on earth not to far away. The only witness to this occurrence was Parsnip, who was killed in the initial impact. After some more investigation, Stone located the farmer who had supplied him with the information that he required.
Christopher Stone climbed the stairs that led to Revolver’s office. It was quite inconspicuously nestled between a newsagent and a hairdresser’s. Revolver even went as far as to put a “for sale” sign on the door, so as to stop anyone wandering in. He stopped at the top, removed his green raincoat and hung it on a hook, brushed his sopping black hair out of his eyes, and entered.
The office was somewhat what you’d expect of a private investigator’s office. It was painted brown with a wooden floor. There was a coat stand to one side of the door and a bust of Revolver’s bald head on the other. At the other side of the room was a wooden desk piled high with papers. There were three large windows behind the desk which were always covered by the blinds. The sign on the door read: “C. Revolver, P.I.”
He was faced with the Revolver in a white suit and bowler, feet on his desk with his single action army pointed at Stone’s head. Stone fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a less shiny twin of Revolver’s gun and pointed it sloppily at Revolver.
“Too slow, boy!” Revolver barked, putting his gun back inside his jacket. “If I had planned to shoot, you would have been dead the second you came through that door!”
“Arah, how’ya doin’, Chris?” the bust of Revolvers bald dome greeted Stone
“Well, its difficult to concentrate when the bust of your head in the corner is giving me Irish slang left right and centre!”
“That’s the problem with you conversers. You have to concentrate on what matters!”
“Enough about this. I found out where the moldavite is.”
“Excellent.” Revolver said, raising from his desk. “In one of his fields, I trust.”
“Exactly.”
“Right, lets go.” He smiled, striding out from behind his desk and making for the door.
The rain had stopped, leaving the countryside that the old gangster-ish car wove through damp and muddy. “I shouldn’t have worn my white suit.” He confided, weaving along the narrow roads.
“Concentrate, remember?” Stone grinned.
The white car stopped suddenly beside a rusted gate. “We’re here.” Revolver sighed, hopping out of the car. “Get the shovels from the boot like a good lad.” He said sarcastically, stretching. Stone climbed out and took out two shovels from the boot, and followed Revolver into the field. “I wore my new shoes, too.” He sighed, making a big squelch in an exceptionally damp patch of earth. “No exact directions, I presume.” But Stone wasn’t listening. Instead, he was talking to half of a stone woman’s head that he had found in the earth only moments ago. “Thank you.” Stone muttered, and dropped the half-a-head. “Its over there.” He pointed.
As they dug there shovels into the wet earth, they noticed tiny granules of green crystal. This was most certainly where the moldavite was buried. By the time Revolvers tan shoes were ruined, they hit the moldavite deposit. It gleamed grass green in the late afternoon sunlight. “Haha!” Revolver shouted, joyously, “We did it, my boy, we’re rich!”
“Er…I told you that I couldn’t find the value of moldavite on google, so we really don’t know if we’re rich.” Stone stated, queuing an annoyed look from Revolver.
“Its from space! It must have a value as high as diamonds!” he began hopping around the hole, spattering mud on his white trousers.
“Stop your happy dance right there!” a rather unintelligible sounding voice shouted. Revolver did just that. Stone turned to see two huge men and a rather weak looking one, all in suits, glaring at them. The two huge men brandished guns that Stone couldn’t label. “Step away from the stone.” The skinny man smirked. “No! We found this first!” Stone shouted.
“Very well, as you wish.” The skinny man stated, before tapping both muscle-bound men on the arms. The man hoisted up the guns to point them at Stone and Revolver. “RPGs.” Revolver breathed. Stone’s breath caught in his throat. RPG stood for Rocket Propelled Grenade. They were capable of firing unguided missiles. Obviously, firing them in field didn’t seem like such a smart course of action, but the duo weren’t going to take any chances. Revolver was already off as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him. Stone followed, but didn’t make it 5 steps before he was blown off his feet by a relatively large explosion.
Stone landed face first in the mud. Temporarily deafened by the blast. He hoisted himself up to see Revolver taking pot-shots at the trio while running. The men seemed unfazed, and braced to fire another rocket. Stone got to his feet and dashed for the fence from which they had come alongside Revolver. Another rocket was fired and flew (luckily) right in-between the duo.
It did, however, knock Revolver’s gun out of his hand, and if he stopped to pick it up, they would pick him off. Stone reached into his jacket and pulled out his own revolver. He glanced at the human Revolver and skidded to a stop. If he missed this, he was a dead converser.. He relaxed his muscles, took aim at his target, and waited for the opportune moment. The right muscle-man took aim
Time seemed to go in slow motion and fast motion at the same time. Everything blurred, and Stone fired. The bullet whizzed through the air, and punctured the rocket. The goon yelped and hunched over, as if that would protect him from the immanent explosion. There was a boom and three rather girly yelps, and the three assailants were blown to bits.
Revolver stepped cautiously around the crater and ran back to the moldavite, where he resumed his happy dance. Stone, on the other hand, fell backwards into the mud, laughing.
As they wove there way back along the country roads, used a laptop to further his search into the value of moldavite. Soon, he found his answer. He looked up at Revolver and grinned. “Turns out…” he stopped and braced himself . “Turns out moldavite is almost worthless!”
2: Dwarves, Moles and Risks.
The tiny man shuffled nervously down the corridor. A woman in a suit passed by him, not paying any attention to him. They rarely did. The mans named was Vincent Grunt, but he was known as Gnome. Gnome had a thick beard and tiny, black eyes. At the end of the modern corridor was a grand oak door, like that of a church. No-one ever wanted to be called through that door. However, that was Gnome’s exact destination. He stopped at the door, gulped, and knocked three times. “Enter.” A voice boomed. This gave Gnome the task of pushing the door open, which wasn’t an easy task for his tiny frame.
He pushed and he pushed, and with an awful creek, the door gave way enough for him to slip through. There was, in fact, a mechanism that automatically opened the door, but the owner of said door was in a particularly foul mood. The man behind the door’s name was Mr Spondulicks. That was his name because over the past year, he had hosted numerous hostile take-overs on some of the biggest companies on the planet. Apparently, he also controlled around 5% of the worlds currency in one way or another.
Spondulicks seemed to have the girth of at least 3 mean, making him immensely tall and immensely wide. He wore a custom suit that seemed to be tearing a seem every second. He also wore a black toupee. He had almost catlike whiskers that shot out of his face, which added to his comical appearance. Slap a white beard on him and he could pass as Santa Claus, but his persona would give him away.
“Gnome, its about time you showed up!” Spondulicks growled from behind a desk.
“You have a job for me, sir?” Gnome asked sheepishly.
“Yes, people that need bumping off.” He gestured to a piece of paper on his desk and Gnome had to leap to grab it. He studied the names. “Sir, why these people, none of the data supplied here gives any indication of a threat.”
“It is not your place to ask question, after all, all I need of you is your right index finger.” Gnome gulped. His trigger finger. He then decided best to get going, after all, Spondulicks seemed to have just come up with an idea. He power-walked out of the room, heaving the door behind him.
After Stone had broke the news to Revolver, he had almost as literally exploded as the RPG-wielding goons. He had continually cursed all the way back to the office. Once at the office, he had lit a cigar, which was one thing that calmed him down, and used some apples as target practise, which was another. Stone had retired to his living quarters, a small room adjoined to Revolver’s office in which was a bed, a bookcase, an armchair and a pedestal on which his best friend stood.
Rose, the stone robin hopped off the pedestal and landed on Stone’s shoulder, greeting him with a high pitched “Hi!” Rose had been hit by a truck when she had been 6 years old, killed on March 21st, 1972. Being a light-hearted, care free little girl, her spirit took to an antique robin-shaped garden ornament.
“Any luck?” Rose asked.
“Lots of luck.” Stone sighed sarcastically, slumping into the armchair despite the fact that he was still covered in mud.
“Cheer up, it couldn’t have gone that badly. Though you do look like you had to wrestle some pigs.” Rose said, hoping off Stone’s shoulder and onto the chair.
“I almost had my head blown off.” Stone smiled. There was a muffled bang as Revolver picked off another apple.
“Revolver has the hump too?” Rose giggled. Revolver and Rose never got on very well, mostly because Revolver stared at Rose just so she couldn’t move, which he did solely to annoy her.
“I’d stay in here if I were you.” Stone smiled. “He might blow you apart too.”
“Well, you should go and get cleaned up, you smell awful.” Rose chirped.
“And how do you know that?” Stone asked, bemused.
“You don’t need to be able to smell to tell.” Rose laughed. Stone decided to heed the advice, so he went back into Revolver’s office, stepped over the pile of apple remains and entered the bathroom.
The bathroom was filthy. Neither Stone nor Revolver had a knack for cleaning, so they just left it as it was. Stone had a quick shower, dumped his clothes in the laundry and dressed again. When Stone was done, Revolver’s apple supply had depleted, so he was sat, feet on his desk, puffing on a cigar.
“Are you sure we can’t hire a maid?” Stone asked Revolver. The question went unanswered however, as Revolver’s mobile started to ring. It played the Soprano’s theme song. He answered.
“Revolver P.I.” he answered. After a few seconds, his face became even glummer, if that was possible.
Soon, he hung up. “We’ve got a case.” he sighed. “Moleface’s been murdered.”
Moleface had been, like a lot of other people Revolver and Stone came into contact with, aptly named. He had had a huge brown mole in the middle of his forehead, like a massive coffee stain. He had been a Converser too, and had thought Stone how to reason with statues. His real name had been Daniel Ivory.
Revolver and Moleface had been good friends. Sometimes , Revolver had gotten him to help him with some of his cases, until Stone came along. Moleface had been a very tall man, which was his second most striking feature. Really, the man wasn’t exactly made to be a secret agent.
However, that was his exact job. He had worked for a top secret organisation, the I.D.A, or Irish Defence Agency. Of course, Ireland doesn’t exactly need a lot of defending. He had only ever been on one mission in his life, and that was to make sure that Kellogg’s weren’t placing mind-control devices in their free computer games.
“Why would anyone kill Moleface?” Stone asked. They were stuck in traffic on the way to Moleface’s apartment. That was certainly a large question. Moleface hadn’t been involved in any criminal or government activities in more then 10 years, so what could anyone have against him?
“It could have been a random killing.” Revolver stated. He had been shaken to the core by this recent development. “Theres a lot of that going around these days.” Revolver and Moleface went way back. They had been childhood friends. It had been Revolver, Moleface and Moleface’s two brothers.
After half an hour in mind numbing traffic, they arrived at a rundown apartment building. Illegible graffiti lined the walls in the underground carpark and the stench of gasoline hung in the air. Stone and Revolver made there way through the carpark in silence. It was getting late. Police tape lined the perimeter of the building, but Revolver casually ducked under it as if he owned the place. That was Revolvers motto, act like you own the place and you own the place. No police officer could not let in a smartly dressed man with a good explanation.
As you may have guessed, they hadn’t actually been given a job, but they were determined to investigate none the less. The lift ride was almost as agonising as the car journey. Stone still havng no luck coming up with even a feasible reason for anyone to murder Moleface other then it being random. Moleface had been a perfect example of mild-mannerism. Plus, he was quite a recluse. And he would have told Revolver of any crime that he was involved with, as Revolver was completely open to that sort of thing.
The lift pinged and the doors slid open. The crime-solving duo stepped out. They were in a dank hallway. The wallpaper was torn and faded and the carpet stained. They strode down the hall, and stopped at a door with the numbers “666” on it. Revolver didn’t bother knocking, he just swung the door open. Inside there were half a dozen people clad all in white, wearing surgical masks and rubber gloves, bent over various pieces of furniture, dusting them.
Revolver just strode past them, Stone following behind. It was easy enough to spot where the crime took place, as there was a big chalk line around it. It was in the bedroom. The bed closed were balled up and covered in blood. Stone flinched at the sight.
Revolver stepped over the chalk line and took a glance at the bed clothes. He the hair out of his eyes and said, “Looks like the dog…” Revolver removed his sunglasses “…took a dump in the chowder.”
There was a lot of ooing and ahhhing and clapping as Revolver stepped back over the chalk line. Then, 2 bikini clad women rushed out and put there arms around him. Suddenly, Revolver’s shirt pinged out of existence, revealing his six-pack. His hair blew in the non-existent wind.
Yes, that was one of Revolver’s fantasies. Really, Revolver glared at the scene for a moment and sighed. “I have no idea.”
“Wow, that quick.” Stone commented.
“Well, there must be some sort of clue.” Revolver sighed, annoyed.
“I think we can be sure that it was his blood.” Stone joked, momentarily forgetting the magnitude of the situation.
“What was the cause of death?” Revolver asked, turning to one of the CSI’ers.
“They found a deadly toxin in him, but he was shot numerous times as well.”
Revolver leant over to Stone. “Go snoop around, see if you can find any ornaments.” He whispered, and Stone was off.
Stone checked every keyring, ornament and statue he could lay his hands on, which was only one. He found a small statue of Mickey Mouse in a drawer in Moleface’s bedroom. It didn’t speak, however.
Stone sulked his way back to Revolver. “Nothing.” He sighed. Revolver cursed.
“I think its best if we head home, boy.” Revolver sighed, turning towards the door. He was not met with his ideal sight. Two police officers were blocking the exit. One of the CSI’ers pointed to the duo. “That’s them, they’re trespassing.” Revolver put on am exasperated face.
“What?! This is my friends apartment. I just came to see how he was doing.” Playing the innocent didn’t suit Revolver very well. He played it as if he was a 25 year old woman, with his wide eyes, open mouth and hand on his mouth.
“Get’m!” one of the police officers grunted and they both walked towards the duo.
“Run!” yelled Revolver, and they both feigned one way and sprinted past the officers, out the door.
4 days passed with no news about Moleface’s death. They had attended his meagre funeral and had given their gruff condolences to the 2 out of 3 brothers of Moleface that showed up. They had hoped to hear about a will, but had no such luck.
But, while Revolver sat, puffing a cigar on the afternoon of the fifth day, there came a brisk knock on the door. Revolver grunted as to signal permission to enter. In came a smartly dressed man holding a briefcase. “Are you Mr Revolver?” the man inquired. “Who wants to know?” Revolver asked gruffly.
“Well, I represent the estate of Daniel Ivory.” Revolver’s ears twitched.
“The estate of Daniel Ivory, hmm?” Revolver smirked, stabbing his cigar into a glass ashtray.
“Yes. Mr Ivory mentioned you in his will.” The man began looking uncomfortable.
“Is that right?” Revolver was full on grinning now. Nothing better to lighten the mood then all of Moleface’s worldly possessions.
“Yes, he left you one of his most prized possessions. I had to leave it in the car though, because it was too heavy.” Heavy. Revolver liked the sound of heavy.
Revolver sat, once again with a cigar in his mouth behind his desk. This time though, he looked extremely annoyed. On the desk, staring at him with its glistening silver knob, was an ugly grey safe.
Unfortunately, Moleface hadn’t left him the code. There had been a note on the will for him as well. It had read: You will find the combination if you need it. Revolver let out another exasperated curse, and whacked the safe, only to draw his hand back in pain.
“Damned Moleface…” Revolver muttered. At this moment, Stone walked in, Rose perched on his shoulder. “Whats with the safe?” she chirped.
“Shut up.” Revolver muttered.
“Aw, was the safe mean to you?” Rose said, and burst into fits of laughter. Revolver shot a hard gaze at her, and she froze mid-laugh.
“Seriously though, what is with the safe?” Stone asked, coming closer to the desk.
“Some suit dropped it on our doorstep. Said it was Moleface’s, but I think he was full of crap.”
“Whats in it?”
“Dunno. He didn’t leave the combination.”
Revolver cast his eyes down at the safe, and Rose began moving again. “If you can’t open it,” Rose piped up, “why not just do the only thing your actually decent at and take your gun to it?”
“Don’t you think I thought of that.” Revolver growled, pointing to the tiny dents on one side of the safe. “Point is,” Revolver continued, “Whatever’s in here must be really valuable. This thing must have more armour plating on it then a tank.”
“Right, well…” Stone trailed off, using the phrase as an end to the conversation. He glanced at the newspaper that was on Revolver’s desk. “HE’S DONE IT AGAIN!” was printed in bold letters on the front page, followed by: “Clive Risk has successfully predicted, with extreme precision, the full contents of the news one day before it’s broadcast.” Stone immediately went to his quarters and used his laptop to research this “Risk” fellow further. It turned out that he was a recent success, becoming well-known only recently. Apparently, he had spent 20 years of his life perfecting his illusions. The man was 30, with a goatee and a bald head. Apparently, he managed to persuaded his whole television audience to donate 100 units of whichever currency they used to charity in his first televised performance.
But the strangest thing of all, which occupied most of the more recent articles, was that he predicted 3 murders and 2 hit and runs, and yet, these things still happened, even though he specifically said the names of the victims. It didn’t add up. But then again, when Stone considered it, it was all like a big circle. If these deaths weren’t going to take place, then Risk wouldn’t have predicted them, so when he predicted them, he was essentially sealing their fate…it just went around in circles. Could time paradoxes really exist?
Of course, he also predicted the smaller news, such as an anonymous donor giving 10’ 000 euro to a small charity, the farming industry taking heavy losses, and so on.
Thats it so far...
