Ketchup Ch. 3 Finished

Here's the third chapter, whole and complete.


3. Home

Jack's home was extraordinary, and yet plain. It was a small, abandoned apartment building outside of the main city. To him, it was valuable, not only because such things were rare in his town, but because he did, in fact, call it home. He lived alone, yet he had several pets which were quite good for him.
The apartment that he primarily lived in was fairly large, and, over the years, had become as well-furnished as any five-star hotel would be. In the manner of such, there was, at a certain place, a large screen TV. However, Jack had, with his own hands, made it. It was a few feet across and seemed to have a very large block of wood behind it. For your woefully uniformed readership, I'll reveal it's purpose quite simply. It was a computer.

Around this time, I ran out of time describing his house because Jack decided to go find something to eat.

He made scrambled eggs with more minced bacon than any pig could live through seeing. He also had more oil in the pan than would be healthy for just about anyone. However, he'd done this multiple times and wasn't dead yet. That was, in a good bunch of areas, his philosophy for defining what to do. In a good dose of others, though, he put sense and morals into a decision.

In a few minutes, he had some steaming yellowish matter stuffed into a tortilla which could only be home-made. Jack was incredibly industrious.

"Hands up!" a voice said in a voice which couldn't exactly be identified as anything in particular.

"Not with breakfast, Xink. I could use some orange juice, though, thank you," Jack said.

Xink was a computer. Yes, you probably guessed by the time that you read this, that she was the large block behind the screen. I only say "she" because it's a term used quite admirably on ships and countries. Xink's gender had never been accurately defined, and, I, as the author, see little reason why robots should be so mercilessly segregated as we humans have been.

"I don't have any more orange juice, sir," Xink replied in a tone which suggested with almost painful obviousness that it wasn't true.

"Oh, quit your bawling, you great brown blockhead," Jack said mercilessly.

"Yes, mastah," Xink said, sniffling a bit. A clear glass glass full of fresh, cold orange juice popped out of almost nowhere and landed on his table. Sadly, orange juice is fairly transparent, so, me saying his table was splattered with orange liquid would be just plain evil. However, it was true that there was orange juice all over the table. Jack licked the juice off of some of his more reachable areas. Xink sighed, the table was wiped up in a second, and Jack drank his orange juice. He might have drunk it, but I haven't tested the Hangoverer's Guide to Hanging Over with orange juice.

Anyway.

He was drinking his juice when a bullet made a uncannily clean hole through his glass. It also made a bit of noise, but it's most important that it made a clean hole, and that it was remarkably uncanny. Though his expression would convince anyone who didn't know him well that he was totally unbothered by this occurrence, he was rather surprised and slightly worried. He was aware that his bones wouldn't have set perfectly yet, and, for this reason, he didn't enjoy the idea of another bullet in him. Especially outside the main city, where the nearest doctor professed ardently that he was a reincarnated gorilla king. On most occasions this wasn't a problem, thankfully.

Jack's instinct would have been to miraculously jump onto the ceiling and release a gas which would only effect his unseen opponent, but all this ballyhoo was entirely unnecessary. Jack's hand was covered in orange juice. Dramatic effect would demand that I say blood there, but, in this case, there is no such reality. Orange juice dripped down his arm and onto the table, which he had been utilizing to browse the internet and occasionally check his security cameras. And, one should know, spilling Jack W. Rabbit's orange juice on a bright morning like this was considered by the general public to be a suicidal action. In reality, however, Jack would only imprison the intruder for a few days.

Anyway.

Jack was surprised. The intruder stepped from the shadows which not even I, the author, noticed before, and stepped up to Jack. If Jack hadn't trained him himself, the intruder would have been on the floor with up to five broken bones. As it was, Jack had trained him, and, by some insane change in motion, the intruder sat across the table from him, quite unhindered by Jack's attempt to put him into awful pain.

"Socks!" Jack whispered, looking, as well as humans can imagine, like a ghost. Socks was, in fact, the chap's name. Why was not as obvious. If I decide to, I, the author, will crank out some insanely impossible story of how he was noted from Jack's other friends by his socks, but, for now, I need only mention the phrase "North Pole", and the words, "really", and "cold".

"Jack!" he thundered, shaking Jack's hand as if he still needed to warm his up, "You've grown, old sock!"

Jack attempted to gather his wits a bit. He seldom doubted that Xink had hidden some of them under the TV stand. In reality, however, most of them had been stashed away by his part-time housekeeper in a suitcase in the attic. Jack had a fairly large supply, so he wasn't keeling over yet.

"So why are you here?" said Jack, seeming, only partly, to cope with his good friend and student's return from the far away and desperately cold upper regions of Earth.

"I'd like to borrow the Flycatcher."

"You want to borrow the Flycatcher?" Jack said, incredulously, "That thing's almost older than I am!"

"But it's fast," Socks retorted, smiling, "And fast is what I need."

"Well, you can have it, but it's been a while since it worked properly."

"What do you mean? It worked perfectly back when..." Socks trailed off, looking troubled, "When it wasn't in pieces, right?"

"Right. I took it apart a while ago. Needed the parts for a new thing. What do you need it for?"

"I want to plant a second base on the South Pole," Socks replied, looking slightly nervous.

"Ah. Why didn't I guess?" Jack said.

"You've been too smart to mess around with that stuff for years, Jack. Face it."

Jack coughed.

"I've had to do a lot mobe guessing than you'd care to imagine in the last few weeks."

"Ah, well. It's what humans do."

"That is so cliche."

"Sorry," said Socks, quickly putting on an accent which seemed to mix both Texan and British with a smidgen of Microsoft Sam.

"Anyway," said Jack, "I've got something else that ought to serve you at least as well, probably better, than the Flycatcher."

"Okay..."

"Come on. I'll show you it," Jack said, standing up. He walked over to a tattered-looking grandfather clock and took a large sledgehammer, aimed it carefully, and, despite Socks' startled cry, smashed the clockface in a full foot. It was whole and unharmed. Jack slid the grandfather clock to the side, revealing a passage roughly four feet tall and two feet wide. The clock face remained, sticking out of the wall. It let out a sad note that indicated it wasn't perfectly protected by the plexiglass cover on its front. Jack led the way, on hands and knees. Socks followed, and, at Jack's order, slid the grandfather clock back to its original place, blocking all light from the passage.

Or that's what it looked like, to one so constantly exposed to places entirely covered in snow and ice. To Jack, it almost looked bright, mostly because of the amount of time he spend outside at night.

Jack flipped a switch and, though Socks never guessed, they'd exited the passage several seconds ago. They were in the middle of a large hangar, hundreds of feet wide and deep, and over twenty feet tall. Jack started walking over to a small blue ship that looked capable of high speed chase, not only in the air and on wheels, but on artaficial legs.

"I can't use this," said Socks, "It looks like it can only fit one person! Two, at best."

"That's right. Only one person," said Jack, looking a bit proud, "but its cargo hold can carry more than the cargo hold of your everyday commercial jet."

"How?" Socks said incredulously.

"Um, trade secret," Jack said, looking a bit nervous.

"Ok, so, how much do I have to pay?" Jack walked around the ship for several seconds.

"Well, I'd charge you fifty thousand," Jack said. Socks winced. "But you're my friend. Because of that, I think I'll lower it to a straight forty nine thousand nine hundred ninty nine and ninty nine cents. A whole copper Lincoln to take home with you." Jack handed him a penny.
"You know, I don't carry that kind of money around. In fact, I've only got twenty thousand in my bank account."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "You thought I was serious?"

"No. I was just making sure you meant what you said."

"Oh. Ok. Well, feel free to borrow it, but it'll still be forty thousand if you want to buy it. Considering what it can do, that's very, very cheap."

"Thanks. I'll be sure to bring the regular load this November. Use it well," said Socks.

"Ah. Yes, thanks for that, too. I hope you know how to use it, because it can do one blinkin' unbelievable pace."

"Oh?"
"Yes. More than four times faster than the Flycatcher."

"Right ho. Toodloo."

"Toodles, Socks," said Jack, shaking his hand, "I hope you find one of those crazy monsters one of these days."

"Sometimes I wonder whether I should just sit back and wait for one of them to find me."

Jack grinned. "You'd know best, I guess," he said, waving. Socks jumped into the pilot's seat and flipped a fairly large green switch. The machine hummed to life in a manner not unlike the roar of a well-revved twelve-cylinder engine. The only difference was that, though it did move the spirit as a car would, the noise was much less. The Hyperjet had been designed for much more than speed. Stealth had also been a major factor.

The cockpit closed, and the Hyperjet hummed off the floor. A wall-wide door on the other side of the hangar opened up several feet, and, playfully, Jack thought, Socks threw the throttle forward. Jack thought he could hear him screaming with unrestrained glee over the low hum of the craft while it rocketed off.


After about a week's thinking, I think I might have chapters in the introduction, explaining why I'm doing what I'm doing, or something. Just a thought.


Your somewhat happy, overly horrible, and hectic writer,


!Noah!