Panache and the Curious Affair of the Gin and Tonic

[Arlen]

...and that she was able to score a 12:05 position when she grabbed Grant and hurled him into the muddy street.

There is so little cause to say this on most days, but... Poor Grant.

[davedove]

I sincerely apologize for the great lapse in installments of this strange tale I have been relating. My Publisher, having been contacted by Grant’s solicitors, made it known that until certain details were resolved to the satisfaction of all parties concerned they preferred that no further chapters be presented.

Yes, those pesky lawyers. Grant's attorney's were bothering my agents too. We also had to make adjustments to the movies concerning Grant's character. Fortunately, I found a loophole.

[Jock Scot]

In the words of,well I can't remember who,"publish and be damned"! I don't mind reading the gory,smutty details as long as its not my gory,smutty details. On second thoughts, perhaps I am of an age when I have forgotten if I have any!

[Birddog]

That no mention be made whatsoever of the incident in the Hamilton Pub where Grant tried to persuade a young lady to perform what is commonly known in the vernacular as a “kilt check”, the fact that this person was the foremost ranked woman highland athlete in Ontario

P.

When I get home, I have to try and find pics of this rubber chicken sporran...

[Panache]

Panache and the Curious Affair of the Gin and Tonic:

A Victorian Serial told in Chapters

Chapter 4

Those that have followed my previous narratives may recall that I had dealt with this Grant fellow in my excursion to the Arctic Circle (see Panache and the Great Hunt for the Acryli-Beast for details). He was certainly a most peculiar man, and had caused quite a lot of trouble, but I failed to see how even he could be responsible for the cessation of the Universe-at-Large. I said as much to the apparition before me.

“Now look here Madam Pleater, there are many things that can be said of Grant. Come to think of it they all have to be said as they are unprintable. But how can one person muck things up on such an epic scale?"

The shimmering image regarded me with a raised eyebrow “you have met Grant before haven’t you?”

I sighed and nodded, Madame Pleater continued.

“Apparently four days ago the members of the SOKS were attacked by a group of masked men led by Grant…”

“SOKS?” interrupted Arlen

“The Sinister and Obscene Kilt Syndicate” I explained.

“They sound like a bunch of wankers” said Arlen

“Errr…Quite” Madam Pleater admitted . “In any case the members of the SOKS were conducting an evening meeting in their secret headquarters…“

“Secret Headquarters?” Arlen asked.

“Well actually a little Irish pub in the York Region of Toronto. It was chosen as the SOKS headquarters because it was located across the street from a large warehouse the SOKS had rented and the happy hour beer specials

“Will you stop interrupting her Arlen! At this rate we will never get the exposition over with” Colin called out.

Madam Pleater continued “As I was saying, the members of the SOKS were well into their meeting and had just made the important decision to order crisps with the next round while they waited for their leader Grant to arrive. A (consistently) late arriving member, by name of MacHummel, announced that he had noticed from the parking lot a figure wearing a leather kilt with a rubber chicken as a sporran sneaking into their warehouse. It was none other than their leader Grant trying to break into the building! Thinking something was amiss the SOKS went out to confront him.

“If it was their warehouse why was he trying to break in?” asked Colin thoughtfully.

“Wait I thought Grant fellow was their leader? Didn’t they trust him?“ asked a confused Arlen.

Everyone in the room stopped and stared at Arlen with disbelief (including Mr. Tibbles the badger)

“You obviously don’t know Grant” I remarked.

“Please do go on. What happened next?” Trefor asked.

Madam Pleater resumed her story , “Another rather…salty… SOKS member known as Uncle Ricky offered some…well…very…colorful…words and then asked in no uncertain terms what Grant was doing? Grant didn’t respond and a group of masked kilted men rushed out of the night to attack the surprised SOKS. There was quite a scuffle as the SOKS tried to defend themselves, but they all had, I believe the term is “the stuffing beaten out of them”. When they regained consciousness Grant and the masked men were gone and the warehouse empty.

“What was inside the warehouse?”

“This picture was taken by an amateur photographer that very night." The image of Madame Pleater was replaced with a large color photograph. The picture was striking. Brightening the night sky above the city was a huge blazing circle of blue light with the back half of a blimp projecting out of it. Part of a large red leaf that adorned the white stripe amidships could be seen and the end of the airship was also red.

“Another Maple Leaf!” I exclaimed.

Madame Pleater’s image replaced the photograph “Indeed Captain Panache. From what limited information I was able to obtain it would seem that the SOKS had constructed a larger, more powerful, and better armed blimp to replace the first Maple Leaf."

“What is the blue circle of light?” asked Colin.

The apparition stared at us all with a grim look before answering.

“It is a gap in our Reality. Apparently the new Maple Leaf is equipped with some device that can punch a hole big enough to allow the blimp to slip through the Space/Time Continuum. It is a crude device that tears the very fabric of Existence.”

“Where did the ship go?” I asked.

“Where or When did she go? That is the question and one you will all have to solve.”

“When?” Asked Colin incredulously.

Madame Pleater’s image again vanished to be replaced by a newspaper clipping. The photograph accompanying it showed a dragonfly with a wingspan of at least 2 feet lying dead on a sidewalk. Her voice explained “this appeared in the latest…hmmm…actually quite possibly the last ever edition of the Toronto Sun this morning. It appears to be of the species Meganeuropsis permiana from the Carboniferous period. Ill suited to life in our Modern world it perished.”

“Holes in the fabric of Reality” I whispered.

“This is what caused everything to disappear?” asked Arlen

Madam Pleater appeared again to answer him.

“Either the device Grant is utilizing to travel through the Space/Time Continuum or his actions in these Otherwheres and/or Otherwhens have caused the fabric of universe to unravel.

Trefor asked “How is it that we still exist then?”

“More importantly what can we do to put things right?“ I asked.

“That shall take some explanation.”

Madame Pleater’s projection removed its glasses and turned to face me.

“Captain Panache, much of the success of your mission will depend on your ability to understand the complex mathematics and theories behind quantum mechanics, particle physics, Relativity, and String theory ”

“We are all doomed” noted Colin.




To be continued.

[Arlen]

So many wonderful adventure tales to read all at the same time!
Jamie, as usual, you have me hooked.

[davedove]

Now Jaime, you know you can't just make us all disappear then forget us.

You can't get rid of us that easily.

We are all awaiting another chapter.

[Pleater]

Maybe the look up tables of probable settings for the equipment will help.

It is stapled to the underside of the lid of one of the crates, along with the instruction manual that I have written since sending the crates, but by the good offices of Mr Brown who popped back and affixed them there before the crates were closed they are now included.

I could not, of course induce a paradox by discovering the precise settings, but the maths should not be too exacting.

Things are getting very complicated at the moment. Far too many possibilites require resolution. A domino cascade might occur. Mr Brown is looking far too interested.

Madam Pleater

General Director MHICE

[robthehiker]

“Another rather…salty… SOKS member known as Uncle Ricky offered some…well…very…colorful…words

That's funny. He sounds a lot like... Oh!

[Panache]

Panache and the Curious Affair of the Gin and Tonic:

A Victorian Serial told in Chapters

Chapter 5

The image of Madam Pleater sighed.

“Perhaps I need to make this easier for you. Have you heard of String Theory, Captain Panache?

I nodded, “Indeed I have. The basic idea as I understand it, is that the universe is entirely made up of these tiny little one dimensional objects called strings that vibrate at different frequencies”

Trefor walked toward me shaking his head with an amused smile. “Jamie my dear fellow, I’m not sure you have the concept down at all. You should probably start with the Holographic Principle and how it interrelates to the Dual Resonance model before getting into any of the overviews of any of the Superstring theories”

We were all a bit taken aback at Trefor’s apparent easy grasp of such esoteric principles. He smiled at our a surprised faces and with a shrug said “I’m Welsh”.

At this declaration Madam Pleater’s image cooed a quiet “ahhhh” and nodded in understanding.

“What does that have to with anything?” asked Arlen.

The shimmering projection said “Have you ever encountered the term The Music of the Spheres ?”

Arlen said “yes of course”

“Well the Welsh have not only always heard it, but they sing along in three-part harmony. If Dylan Thomas hadn’t chosen writing he would have been a physicist. I think Captain Panache you have found a Chief Engineer for your zeppelin.”

The image paused a moment and then began to expound.

“Now Captain Panache instead of imagining the universe as made up of a jumble of individual strings, I should like to imagine these strings as connected into long threads that are woven together”

I interrupted her, “Madame Pleater are you trying to say the Very Fabric of Reality is…”

“…a fabric that makes up Reality. With warps and wefts. I’m sure you have at least heard of the concept of different dimensions, other universes if you will. These exist parallel to ours. Science has speculated that there are places in our universe where Time and Space are folded. Only the Tewksbury theory has gotten to the truth. Reality is not so much folded as pleated, in an ordered fashion. Other universes exist neatly lined up next to ours but all are part of the same cloth of Reality.”

Arlen began laughing and the young Scot cried out “ Warps and wefts? Pleats? You make the universe sound like a kilt! So are we pleated to sett or stripe?”

Madam Pleater replied very gravely “Sett, but such a vast and vastly complicated sett that it is almost beyond human imagination. Remember young man, we are not speaking of merely the universe but Reality itself”

Arlen fell silent.

I asked “So these warps and wefts make up some sort of repeating pattern?

Madam Pleater nodded.

Colin spoke, “look I thought that there were supposed to be an infinite number of dimensions with an infinite number of possibilities. How can there be a pattern?”

“That depends on the thread my Canadian friend, and that is why Captain Panache is crucial to saving Reality.”

“I don’t understand.” I declared.

Madame Pleater continued “ In each of these universes lined up next to each other there are some threads that define the pattern or tartan if you prefer. Captain Panache is one of them. There may be subtle variations but Captain Panache is (in all probability) always going to be a well dressed, polite, honorable, though vain and pompous individual with a tendency to digress and drink gin and tonics. He is (in all probability) virtually always going to be part of the League of the Moderators, and he will always be Captain of a ship called the Saltire. Just like in all these universes Grant (in all probability) is going to be a well dressed, pert-buttocked, blond-maned, strange-acting, megalomaniac, rubber chicken enthusiast with delusions of Royalty and a ship called the Maple Leaf."

“Who never gets kilt checked” I added still wincing a bit at the descriptors “vain" and "pompous“ .

“No Captain Panache, Grant’s inability to be Kilt Checked goes beyond the sett of our Reality. It is a fundamental Law of an ordered positive universe/universes. The concept of Grant being Kilt checked is inconsistent and antithetical with our Cosmos.

Now the most important thing is that the two of them will always follow paths that intersect in opposition. Grant is a warp to Jamie’s weft. Though it is possible probability that universes exist without the Jamie/Grant dynamic, they would be a regularly occurring irregularity that forms part of this Cosmic sett. Though I doubt if one could get a decent creme brule' in one of these rather odd dimensions”

The table Mr. Tibbles had been so diligently working on suddenly fell over with a crash. The badger regarded his efforts and burped with satisfaction.

Trefor stroked his chin “So because Grant is behind this disaster , and his path and Jamie’s always cross, Jamie is destined to oppose him”

“Jamie will always find him, or Grant will find Jamie. That is why Captain Panache is vital to the success of this mission. It will involve traveling through Time, Space, and perhaps different universes. If not for the fact that the pattern of Reality demands that they meet your quest would be futile. That is why I sent the device that allowed us to anchor your existence...” she pointed at my belt buckle. “....and the equipment that will allow your zeppelin the Saltire to travel through the other wheres / other whens to find the Maple Leaf.

Arlen asked “Is all this exposition really necessary?”

Madame Pleater’s projection sighed. “We are almost finished my young Scot. I and the resources at the Mata Hari Institute of Culinary Excellence no not know exactly what Grant and the crew of the blimp Maple Leaf have done to unravel the fabric of Reality. The device that the Maple Leaf uses to travel through Time, Space, and dimensions is crude and punches huge gaping holes in the fabric of existence. This may or may not be the cause of the disaster. The device you will install on your airship is code-named “needle” it will enable the Saltire to slip between the threads and move between universes. The machinery here at the MHICE code-named “pin” will give your ship a reference point to navigate by . They are connected by a stream of Tachyons, a “thread” if you will, that will bring you home. “

I murmured a few lines of Donne

“If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other doe.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And growes erect, as it comes home."

“A bit romantic Captain Panache” said Madam Pleater blushing, “But more or less accurate. You must follow Grant and we will monitor your journey and help bring you home. We hope, with our Mr. Brown's help, to mend the breaches that Grant has created from our end. But you will have to find them and him.”

“So that’s it? We follow after this blighter Grant and you fix the holes. Then we find him, get him, and beat the stuffing out of him. Will then everything be as it was?” Colin asked.

“Beating the stuffing out of Grant is not necessary” she noted.

“Though rewarding” I said under my breath.

I was given a dark look from Madam Pleater and I motioned for her to please continue.

“The truth be told, you will need to discover exactly what Grant did to cause this catastrophic incident and correct it. Though actually it will be really what he will do, as you will need to go back in time and follow him from the beginning.”

Madam Pleater’s image began to flicker.

“This communication is straining the MHICE’s power reserves. Follow the enclosed instructions and get “pin” installed in your airship. When it is activated I will contact you again.

The image vanished.

Colin spoke, “well gentlemen it sounds like we have work to do. Let’s get on with it!”

Everyone agreed and looked at me. I nodded and led the way to the secret hangar of my zeppelin, the wondrous Saltire. Though a nagging and terrible question plagued my mind as we walked through the Great Golden Hall of X Marks the Scot, I could not give it voice. For something had returned to the faces of the good fellows behind me. It had been lost at the sight of the oblivion that lay beyond our windows, but from that oppressive void this shining bright thing had come back to them...

Hope













To be continued.