The Fourth Chapter by The Cheeseburger Saint (Susie)

Considering the circumstances – those being that two aliens from the planet Nyarl-Nyarl Incy-Fustular had come to the Thatchers’ island and enlightened them on the fact that Fordarvians from the planet Oharg and their leader Bernice had invaded Earth, and brainwashed the entire human race with the purpose of turning them into soldiers devoid of independent thought – the Thatchers’ lives actually didn’t change much.

I’m joking, of course they did.
Now, back to the staggering conversation in the living room.

In the middle of a rather pointless remark Thatcher was making on the quite peculiar way Quadenhaden and Tibsen were drinking their tea, Violet turned towards Florence with the sort of loud gasp that abruptly ends all current conversation in the room.

“Florence!” she burst out and stared at Florence with a haunted look in her bright eyes.

“Violet?” Thatcher asked with a worried-father-tone in his voice. “What’s the matter?”

When looking into her sister’s familiar and troubled eyes, Florence was instantly struck by the same thought and gasped as well. They turned towards their father with bewildered faces.

“Harrison”, was all that they said, and there was no need to say anything else.

A silence entered the room. It was the kind of silence that makes you oblivious to if it has lasted an eternity or the quarter of a second. I can tell you though, if you're curious, that it certainly did not last the quarter of a second.

Finally, someone had enough. And quite naturally it was Quadenhaden, who had no idea who this Harrison person was – in fact, he wasn't entirely sure of what a Harrison was - and he was undoubtedly the most impatient and eager character in the room.

“Happen what is?” he asked curiously and eagerly, but to his defense he did try to keep it serious, very much aware of the warning glare Tibsen shot at him as she cleared her throat.

“If you do not mind me asking, what just happened? What is this 'Harrison' you are speaking of?” Tibsen asked Thatcher with a confused look.

“Harrison,” Thatcher started, “is our... Well, butler, I suppose you could say. He is more of a helping friend, though”, Thatcher said with a miserable look on his face; one that Quadenhaden genuinely recognized from own experience.

“Buttlah?” Tibsen asked curiously.

“Butler, yes,” Florence said gloomily. “It is someone who helps us with cooking and cleaning and such. Well… at least that’s what our butler does.”

“Really? You actually use humans for that purpose?” Tibsen asked, apparently stunned.

“Well, you make it sound so appalling, but yes, for many things...” Thatcher started but was interrupted by Tibsen.

“Back to the point,” she said. “What about this butler?”

“He – Harrison – is...” Thatcher’s voice broke and he cleared his throat before he continued. “You see, a couple of weeks ago he went away to gather the usual supplies we need to stay here on the island – food, paper, clothes, books, equipment…”

“And he hasn’t come back yet”, Violet interrupted. “He’s late, and we can’t reach him on his telephone.”

“And as you two have just made clear”, Florence went on anxiously, “Earth – with the exception of our island – doesn’t seem particularly safe, does it?”

“No”, Tibsen agreed. “You are quite right. Just as we said; not particularly safe for either life or sanity.”

Quadenhaden sighed.

“Make help for something is?” he asked.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Tibsen translated. “Chimey patinkioh Nog-bog”, she mumbled quietly to Quadenhaden.

“I –“ Thatcher began but was interrupted by the kind of sound some authors like to describe as “KABOOM” or “BANG”, but which really sounded more like a remarkably loud and complex ”BRHOMMBGLHBHDTH”.

Five distressed pairs of eyes met and the next moment all five of them – both human and Tibhaden – rushed out of the Thatcher residence to see what had happened. Another remarkably loud and complex “BRHOMMBGHBHDTH” sounded through the air, and as the word “earsplitting” came to their minds, another small detail also came to their notice; the ground was shaking. To be more precise, the entire island was shaking.

“View!” yelled Quadenhaden and pointed his arm towards the direction of the sound. They turned around to see what Quadenhaden was pointing at, and stared – quite shocked – at a very far part of the island vanishing in a fiery, but for some reason purple, explosion.

“Gordon Bennett…” Thatcher mumbled.

“Oh no! The PEEPs!” Tibsen exclaimed.

The easiest way of making you fully grasp what Tibsen had realized when she shouted “Oh no! The PEEPs!” would be to tell you two things. Firstly, I would have to explain what a Dori and what a PEEP is. Secondly, I would have to tell you about a certain game that the PEEPs had played earlier aboard Tibsen and Quadenhaden’s ship.

Doris are small and quite marvelous robots, first constructed by Pytte Tie-Knee, who later sold the right of producing them to the highly successful Yaggieyag Vovvov Faliallalilla Industries. It is very odd that Tie-Knee (who was in great need of money) agreed to sell the design of the Dori – which would soon become one of the most well-known robots in the whole universe – for an amount equivalent to merely seven dollars. It is a much odder fact, though, that he was in fact paid in a certain amount of meatballs from Uddevalla in Sweden, that were worth seven dollars. If you desire to dig deeper into the roots of this fascinating yet bewildering coincidence, I really can’t help you. But if you want me to continue with this story, I will, very soon. (If you do not want me to continue however, you still have that beautiful thing called free will which enables you to close this book or press the tiny cross in the upper right of your computer screen).

I believe I am now obliged to move on to the next point; what PEEPs are. In a small village of the planet Nyarl-Nyarl Incy-Fustular, there was a very gifted engineer. His name was Syelims Sarual. Since his planet, Kokobangbeng, suffered a terrible financial crisis, he had moved to Nyarl-Nyarl Incy-Fustular with his parents at a young age, and was quite a loner since there weren’t very many non-Tibhadens on the planet. In his early adulthood however, when he had mastered the Tibhaden language Koksmutib, he finally befriended a Tibhaden called Quadenhaden who soon came to be his closest friend. During their friendship, Syelims Sarual couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that Quadenhaden had Flomersox Emotional Disorder, that he always did seem inconveniently emotional, and rather depressed because there was nobody to share these overwhelming emotions with - Not even Syelims who after all was from Kokobangbeng and was only on a slightly more emotional level than the Tibhadens. But nobody could deny that he did care for his friend Quadenhaden deeply, and therefore, he made Quadenhaden a gift. He bought eight little Doris and isolated himself from the outside-world for several months to work on making these eight Doris better, more practical, and above all; with the ability of having independent thoughts and emotions. When he considered himself done with all the adjustments, 7 months had passed, and he stepped out of his laboratory with eight small robots behind him. He called them The PEEPs (Pan-Emotional Exoskeletal Prototypes) and gave them the following names (The personalities were not his work, he had merely given them the ability of being individuals);

Flippersidianfubba – Yellowy orange PEEP; too happy for its own good. Nickname: Flip

Banniyargiebumdadad – Dark blue PEEP; with an evil look in its eye. Nickname: Bani

Amiamgamrosenpop – Bright red PEEP; very hard to keep from dancing. Nickname: Amp

Tapiaparschingelak – Lime green PEEP; loves mischief and giggles a lot. Nickname: Tap

Illialliaydenfraws – White PEEP; always depressed about something. Nickname: Illie

Drovvobalbagondh – Black PEEP; has a horrible temper, never smiles. Nickname: Dro

Kenditybrissapapap – Purple PEEP; terribly paranoid and worried. Nickname: Kep

Sif – Baby Pink PEEP, very quiet and shy and small. Nickname: Sissifillihintharoid

Arriving to Quadenhaden’s house, however, Syelims heard a piercing sound cut through the air. It was a very odd experience, as he had never heard a small little child scream before. See, the only small girls he’d met had been indifferent, unemotional and rather quiet Tibhadens. Inside, he found a stressed-looking Quadenhaden, holding a young baby-girl at an arms length away. The entire situation about poor little Tibsen was introduced to Syelims, and the PEEPs were introduced to Quadenhaden and Tibsen, who immediately stopped crying.

“Oh thank you, Sarual! They’re delightful!” Quadenhaden exclaimed in Koksmutib.

“It was nothing”, Syelims mumbled with an awkward smile. “It seems the little… human likes them too.” He continued with a glance at Tibsen, giggling and playing with Flip, Tap and Sissifillihintharoid.

If you have ever met the PEEPs, I’m sure you know why I say that it is without doubt unfortunate that they were programmed with the ability to think independently and have different personalities. They are exceptionally clever at planning pranks and even the ones with kindhearted personalities and emotions, can’t really help themselves from pulling a prank or two once in a while. In many aspects, they’re like small children, who never grow up. A PEEP has approximately 67 million languages programmed into its system, but they generally just speak their ancestors’ (the Doris) own language, Dorieu, to piss their owners off a bit and force them to learn Dorieu. The little robots are quite adventurous and consequently, they often hide in Quadenhaden’s spaceship to see where it will take them. In fact, this was such a known habit of theirs that Tibsen and Quadenhaden really shouldn’t have been surprised at all when the PEEPS appeared after takeoff.

A day or so after Tibsen and Quadenhaden had found the PEEPs on their ship and welcomed them in a little funny ritual of patting their heads twice and saying “Akerue Bof bof”, Tibsen had caught them playing one of their very strange games. Six of them had formed a circle, all holding a corner of a big piece of cloth up into the air, with Sissifillihintharoid lying helplessly in the center of the cloth. Dro had screamed “POFF! I explode!” (Dro said this in Dorieu, but fortunately Tibsen now spoke this very simple language perfectly well) and ripped apart the piece of the cloth it was holding. Then the next PEEP would do the same, ripping away his part of the cloth. Then they continued around the circle until little Sissifillihintharoid in the middle fell down on the floor, crying loudly. Tibsen had naturally quickly run to the little PEEP’s aid, and yelled angrily at the other PEEPs for doing something so idiotic.

“Why do you say that you explode?” she shouted angrily and quite confused.

“We’re playing bombs”, answered Flip in Dorieu. “You see, if we really were bombs, and the cloth was a planet or a country, we could make it slowly explode from each corner until anyone in the middle would explode with the rest of the country! It is a very funny game!” it continued happily.

Tibsen got absolutely livid at his words, and yelled for quite a while before she let it go. However, PEEPs lack the ability to learn from their mistakes, and it appeared that they had been dying to be left alone on the ship to get an opportunity to find out if their little game could work in real life.

Apparently, it could.

The memory of this game, though, made Tibsen instantly understand what had happened – or more appropriately, what was happening.

“Quickly! Run towards our ship! The entire island is going to explode!” Tibsen exclaimed.

“Say again? Why?! Did Bernice do this?” Thatcher asked perplexedly, grabbing a leather suitcase standing by the door.

“No! I’ll explain later! Right now, we just have to go.”

The thunderous rumble of another part of the island exploding into thick heavy smoke sounded forth, and now they clearly heard how much closer it was. There was no hesitation now – all of them started running; Tibsen and Quadenhaden in the front leading the way, Florence and Violet in the middle, and Thatcher in the back, making sure the girls were not sacking behind.

“But, wait! We can’t just leave the house and everything here!” Violet cried out, stealing a glimpse of their house behind them, while the explosions sounded more frequently.

“Oh, yes we can”, mumbled Thatcher after the deafening grumble and threw an anxious look over his shoulder.

“Come, Floret and Violence, we hasten us must!” said Quadenhaden seriously.

They could now see the spaceship among the trees, and Quadenhaden ran ahead, reached out his hand and stuck his finger into a small glowing circle. Some sort of door clicked loose and unfolded itself in front of them until it formed a pair of stairs. Tibsen jumped up on the first step and took a hold of Violet’s hand, pulling her up into the ship. Thatcher sighed and reluctantly stepped in behind Florence and Quadenhaden. They had entered a small room, filled with different screens and dashboards. Tibsen ran forward, pulled two control sticks and hit a button. She sighed, relieved.

“What on earth are we going to do now?” Thatcher said, panicky.

“Father,” Violet said and Thatcher realized she had a big grin on her lips, “I don’t think we’re going to do anything on earth.”

And of course, Violet was correct. The largest screen in the room showed the image of a massive cloud of thick black smoke that slowly grew smaller and smaller beneath them.

“Oh, dear me”, Thatcher mumbled.

“Odemie”, Tap imitated with a happy giggle from a dark corner of the room.