Category: Falcon Boy
-
Remember the Queue? All that gloomy-sounding stuff you read about in the first few pages? About things not working? About the world not spinning properly anymore? That stuff that sounded like the beginning of the best film that has never been made (yet)? Now is the time for you to know more about what has been going on.
In case you haven’t guessed by now – and even if you have – Dr Don’t Know is planning to use Doodah’s homecoming concert to cause a whole world of trouble for the world. Disguised Troublebots have joined the hundreds of people who are helping to set up the concert, and even as we speak are putting the finishing touches to Dr Don’t Know’s terrible plan.Here is the plan in full:
-
Dr Don’t Know has kidnapped Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and hidden them in a special soundproof and lightproof container lorry parked in the stadium. He has left them enough food and drink for a week. Working on the principle that stolen letters are probably best hidden in plain sight, Dr Don’t Know feels very confident that nobody will think to look for them so close to the scene of the big crime he is about to commit. (Obviously, he’s not so confident now.)
-
Disguised Troublebots have infiltrated all aspects of the preparations for Doodah’s concert, including some disguised as backing dancers. They’ve filled the stadium with special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs connected to the stadium’s sound system.
-
Four Troublebots will kidnap Doodah, tie them up and keep them somewhere out of the way. With the band out of the way, the four Troublebots will then go on stage disguised as Doodah.
-
As the show reaches its finale and the introduction to One-Thumb, Two-Thumb Good begins, Dr Don’t Know will appear on stage via a hidden trapdoor and use a secret code word to activate the special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs.
-
The special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs will detonate and paralyze everyone in the stadium, as well as the rest of the world as it watches via satellite and the Internet. The whole world will be paralyzed for exactly nineteen hours, forty-three minutes and thirteen seconds.
-
With the whole world unable to move, Dr Don’t Know’s army of Troublebots will then steal the answer to every single question that has ever been asked in every single language around the world. Answers to questions that have yet to be asked will also be stolen.
-
The stolen answers will be encrypted and filed away on a special miniature planet hidden just behind the Moon. Dr Don’t Know has had this planet built especially for this purpose, and even though the building of this planet was one of the many reasons why his criminal empire has now been drastically downsized, once the world reawakens, no one, not even scientists and people with telescopes, will be able to find it.
-
When the world wakes up, it will be a very different place. Nobody will remember the answer to any of the questions that have been asked since the world began.
-
From then on until the end of infinity, the only way to find the answer to anything will be via a new ticketing and appointment service overseen by Dr Don’t Know. This will make him the most important person in the Universe, full stop. Exclamation mark!
-
The new rules are self-explanatory. You fill out the required form in triplicate, ensuring that you adhere to the one question per person guidelines. Any question containing six words or more will be instantly deleted by the system. Each family member must fill out a separate form. Only one question per application is admissible. Should you wish to know the answer to something else, you will need to make a separate application.
-
Once submitted, your application will be processed and provided that all the appropriate criteria are met, you will eventually be allocated an appointment. You are advised to arrive well ahead of your allocated appointment time as you can expect significant delays due to lengthy queuing times and probable staff shortages due to inevitable cost-cutting activities.
-
You arrive at your designated queuing station and begin to queue. You queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue.
-
An extremely significant and lengthy period of time later, in some cases whole lifetimes, you are stunned to find yourself at the front of the queue. A small sealed booth with a single door is there. The door opens automatically and you step inside. You see a three-legged stool and a speaking tube attached to the wall.
-
Your moment has finally arrived. You sit on the stool. You lean forward. You ask your question into the tube. You make sure that you speak slowly and clearly because any inaudible questions will not be answered. You can expect a small delay following the asking of your question. Eventually, a badly-recorded voice will simply say ‘Don’t Know’.
-
At no point during this process will any discussion be entered into regarding any elements of the process. If you wish to discuss your concerns in relation to the process, or any part of it herein, then you should do so in writing via a separate online system.
It doesn’t take a doctor, dentist or dinner lady to tell you that the world is well and truly doomed.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero
She couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwell
If universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
-
Three Troublebots separated themselves from the shadows in the corner of Dr Don’t Know’s office and stood before his desk. The scientist shuddered.
The first Troublebot snatched the envelope from the frightened scientist’s hand and ripped it open with its can opener attachment.
Using a tweezer attachment, the second Troublebot clumsily removed the photograph of Ellis from the envelope. The third Troublebot had no role to play in this part of the proceedings, and so satisfied itself by waiting for the right moment to strike.
The three Troublebots peered, pored and pawed the photograph of Ellis and as they did so, you could hear a horrendous racket as the gears in their computer-brains whirred and clanked. Dr Don’t Know and the scientist waited for something to happen and eventually something did.
The third Troublebot snatched the photograph from the second Troublebot’s hand.
‘I will stop her,’ it said, and the Troublebot’s voice reminded the wary scientist of a telephone being dropped down a toilet mid-conversation.
The second Troublebot reacted by swatting the third with the back of its metallic hand.
‘I will catch her,’ it said, in a voice that sounded like the final gasp of a dying microwave.
The first Troublebot moved slightly behind the other two and with a swift sweep of its rusty arms, crashed their two heads together. Over the clang of two metal heads being forced violently together, the first Troublebot spoke and as it did so, the scientist thought it sounded like an old transistor radio being thrown out of the window of a slow-moving car.
‘I will bring her here,’ it said.
In a scary flash of oil, sparks and robotic resentment, the Troublebots left the office.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
Troublebots are not like any other kind of robot you have ever seen before. Were you to meet one, you might start feeling sorry for it but for the simple fact that their general down-at-heel-ness has made them extremely bad-tempered.This is because that for all the reasons outlined above, and many more that I haven’t even begun to mention, Troublebots are aware enough of their own inherent flawedness to be totally insecure and forever angry.
It is no wonder that Troublebots look like they are about to smash you in the mouth with a badly-clenched fist or stamp on your toes with an ill-fitting foot.
Troublebots are not even able to find any solidarity in their shoddiness. It isn’t just the world and everyone in it that causes a Troublebot to lash out in frustration, they also find it impossible to get on with each other. Picture the following scenario:
Troublebot A leaves a leg out to trip Troublebot B while Troublebot B is trying to blindside Troublebot C and attach a magnetic rope round the ankles of Troublebot D.
While this is all happening Troublebot D is attempting to short-circuit Troublebot E with a long-handled screwdriver.
Meanwhile Troublebots F and G are holding Troublebot H out of a thirty-five-storey window by its badly-fitted legs.
Ever alive to the possibility of a nice bit of roboticide, Troublebot I is poised to shove F and G out of the window, taking H with them.
Quite understandably, no one, not even Dr Don’t Know and he has had a small army of them manufactured, can stand to be in the same room as a Troublebot.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
Troublebots were always trouble. They stood the tallish side of average and would look reasonably alright from a distance, were it not for the fact that they were usually scratched and dented.
Each Troublebot had two eyes, a dial where the nose should be and a small round hole for a mouth. Variations do exist within this format, and you couldn’t be sure that the distance between the eyes is exactly the same on each head, or that each mouth was die-cut exactly in the centre of each face.
The upper body was square-like and hollow, with enough room inside for all of the various pistons, wheels, wires, switches, motors and circuit boards required to keep the Troublebot working.
There was also a rectangular grille on each Troublebot’s chest and if you looked through the flimsy bars, you could see their badly-soldered inner circuitry sparking, shorting and generally threatening to give up.
The limbs of a Troublebot were designed with action in mind. Unfortunately, the measurements used for the prototype were very slightly out, and this mismeasurement was most noticeable in the slight limp caused by the right leg being ever-so-slightly longer than the left.
The left arm looked normal enough for a humanoid and ended in a metallic hand. The right arm ended with a bewildering array of random tools attached to it instead of fingers. These tools included useful ones like screwdrivers, mini-saws, sharp knives, small-bore guns, digital cameras, half-size samurai swords, and blow-torches.
Less useful tools that have been found at the end of a Troublebot’s arm include sporks, pencil sharpeners, miniature golf clubs, thermometers, toffee hammers, fountain pens, litter grabbers, flag guns that say ‘Bang’, analogue remote control systems, small kites on short strings, spirit-levels, kaleidoscopes, sextants, mascara brushes, wooden spoons, egg toppers, paper clips, microphones, Clingfilm dispensers, radio aerials, small fizzy sweet dispensers and a ruminator (whatever that is).
Anyone with an eye for the aesthetic, especially sensitive designers and engineers, is likely to find that same eye filling with tears at the simple sight of one of these hapless things.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
If robots, treacherous or not, don’t work for you then perhaps you would prefer a brain-searingly intelligent android. You know, the kind that is always philosophical in their outlook and vaguely sympathetic towards the plight of the obviously inferior human race that they are nevertheless duty-bound to serve without question.
Whilst androids like this might get a little agitated sometimes – and occasionally end up breaking things or themselves – they tend to calm down in the end and go back to adopting the role of the benevolent guardian. It is highly unlikely that they would ever sell the whole human race for scrap.If an android doesn’t really work for you, then you might be the kind of person who prefers synthetic people whose real tragedy is the fact that they will never be properly human, however hard they secretly pine and moon.
Despite their broken synthetic hearts, these artificial people still manage to nobly provide the world with an amazing service and are always seemingly at their happiest when they are doing complicated scientific things for little or no real reward in the face of very real danger.
At the danger of building you all up only to have to knock you all down, I am sorry to have to tell you that the robots in this story are the most irritating and hateful non-human things to ever trouble the pages of a story.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
Once the plot had been revealed, it was a relatively simple task for the writers to allow Pearly to discover that the aliens were, in fact, being controlled by a special transmitter designed by the wicked professor.
‘So this is what the real embezzlement of public funds looks like,’ she says to herself when Wanderley, who had disguised himself as a bicycle courier with an important message for the professor that could only be delivered by hand, shows her the photographs he was able to take of the professor’s Alien Contact and Control Transmitter. ‘That needs smashing straight away,’ she says.
‘I’m on it,’ says Wes, and he was. Wanderley disguises himself as a visiting professor ‘who had heard about Professor Pipkin’s genius and wanted to see for himself what all the fuss was about.’ As ‘Professor’ Wanderley flatters the vain Professor Pipkin, Wes sneaks into the Control Room and takes a sledgehammer to the transmitter.
With the transmitter broken beyond repair, the cruel, invisible, and nameless aliens simply vanish, and it is an easy thing for Windy to race to notify the authorities of Professor’s Pipkin’s wrongdoings. The naughty professor is led away by the police to spend the rest of his days behind bars.
‘There won’t be any books or clever talk where he is going,’ says Pearly to her friends. The following day Pearly Stockwell and the Invisible Twins receive an official apology, and Professor Pipkin’s Space Observation Station is demolished and replaced by light industrial units.
This particular adventure tends to buck the more prosaic trends of all of the other Pearly Stockwell adventures, by ending with a flashback to an event that took place before the adventure began.
The flashback reveals that the Professor Pipkin who almost caused the world to be colonised by aliens was, in fact, a robot created by Professor Pipkin to replace himself.
‘I’m very old now,’ lamented Professor Pipkin, ‘and my head can no longer cope with all this scientific stuff.’ He looked down at the robotic version of himself laying dormant on his operating table.
‘This way,’ thought the warped Professor to himself, ‘I will never get old again, and will be able to read books and do research forever.’
Unfortunately, there was a fault in the central processing unit and the ‘new’ Professor Pipkin considered the human race so inferior that he sold the entire planet to the highest bidder on an intergalactic auction website.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
Pearly always had her suspicions about Professor Oswald Pipkin and his Space Observation Station, a project funded in perpetuity by the now-defunct University of Fallstown.
‘How do we know that he isn’t spending his days signalling to aliens from outer space and inviting them to colonise our planet?’ she says to the Interesting Twins. ‘I’m not really sure that all those years of scientific study are good for anyone. Besides,’ she continues, ‘there is something about all of those satellite dishes and telescopes that I just don’t like.’
But the banking scandal intervened before she was able to act upon her suspicions and Professor Pipkin was able to go about his business unimpeded. For contacting an alien race and inviting them to take over the world is exactly what the deranged professor was planning, and with Pearly and her meddling friends out of the way, he was close to achieving his dream.
One night, Pearly is woken in her dormitory by the brightest of bright lights filling the sky.
‘Bright lights at night aren’t right,’ she says to herself. ‘I had better look into this.’ And so she does. It was a simple task to rendezvous with the Interesting Twins, who all had similar thoughts about the bright lights and knew they should all be looking into what was happening.
The next morning, Fallstown has fallen captive to a race of extremely cruel, invisible and nameless aliens intent on using Fallstown as the site for something indescribably incomprehensible. Pearly and her detective friends watch from their secret hiding-place as the entire population of Fallstown is herded into the main square by Professor Pipkin.
‘I knew it,’ says Pearly. ‘I just knew that Professor Pipkin had been warped and corrupted by all those years of reading.’
‘Yeah,’ says Wes menacingly. ‘Just you wait until I box his silly scientist’s ears. He won’t know what’s hit him when I whack him three ways backwards.’ Wes punches his fist into his palm.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
Everyone loves a robot and we have all enjoyed countless stories about impressive-sounding robots with wonderful names, all shiny and chrome and quick with witty one-liners and other typical science-fiction adventure banter designed to make everyone love the ‘mechanical friend’ forever more.
These are the kinds of robots in those kinds of stories that make their traveling companions laugh by making funny observations about whatever situation, sticky or otherwise, they find themselves in.
Along the way and in between the witty words, these kinds of robots are also able to solve a crisis or two. Put two robots together in the same story and you can also spend hours reveling in the robotic rhythms of their witty robotic repartee.
However, as Pearly Loses the Plot, Or Does She? demonstrates to us all, the relationship between humans and robots is not always a smooth and mutually progressive one.
A misguided investigation initiated by Pearly and the Interesting Twins leads to ninety-three employees of the First Fallstown Beneficial & Mutual Bank being mistakenly convicted of embezzling pension funds and imprisoned in the Fallstown Correctional Facility. It takes a lengthy legal campaign to get the convictions overturned and as a result of these hearings, Pearly is banned from ever investigating again.
‘You need to go back to school like every other child your age,’ says the presiding magistrate, the Right Honourable Judge Lambert Johnstone-Drury. ‘Your investigating days are well and truly over.’
And seemingly they are. The Interesting Twins are separated and sent to three different foster homes. Pearly Stockwell becomes the latest and most unwilling boarder at the Fallstown Academy for Troublesome Children.
Everything they had worked so hard to achieve now appears to be over, but as luck would have it or, indeed, as is essential for any story to resolve the issues that it contains, or just so the writers can add excitement to an episode that is seemingly going nowhere, it just so happens that Fallstown suddenly becomes the focus of a visitation from outer space.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
-
Dr Don’t Know still said nothing, and so the scientist continued continuing.
‘The target’s name is Ellis. Our last report indicates that she has now left the house shared by Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and is headed for the Panic Town Stadium.’ The scientist paused. ‘We have got to stop her before it is too late!’
Dr Don’t Know didn’t react so the scientist reacted for him.
‘Putting aside for one moment the whole evil plan thing, I thought it was also worth me formally registering my complete and utter disgust that a young girl like this has been allowed to leave the family home unsupervised.’ The scientist was angry now.
‘Never in all my time as a professional have I ever known anything as unprofessional as this being allowed to happen.’ Dr Don’t Know still said nothing. The scientist continued continuing his continuing.
‘Whoever is responsible for letting this young child leave her family home and get caught up in all manner of world-threatening adventures should, at the very least, be named and shamed!’
The scientist slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand in that gesture so beloved by people who are looking for the physical equivalent of the grammatical violence of an exclamation mark.
!
‘It may interest you to know,’ the scientist continued, ‘that if it were down to me, the person responsible for such irresponsibility would be
tarred and feathered,
pursued aggressively to the very bounds of the bailiwick,
hung by their heels over a vat of rancid soup until they coughed uncontrollably,
forced to publicly confess their crimes on television,
severely castigated, so much so that the mere possibility of any future castigation would cause them to tremble uncontrollably,
dealt with silently for the rest of their lives,
made to walk backwards forever,
picked out for the rest of their days by a powerful spotlight.’
As you can see, the scientist feels very strongly about this.
‘As you can see,’ said the scientist to the Doctor, ‘I feel very strongly about this.’ Dr Don’t Know still said nothing.
‘I can’t help feeling,’ concluded the scientist, ‘that this poor innocent child has been deliberately made to leave the house in order to further the aims of someone who is constantly manipulating situations like this to simply suit themselves.’ The scientist looked around.
‘If I didn’t know any better,’ he said, ‘I would swear that we are all simply characters in someone else’s so-so story.’
Dr Don’t Know pressed a wobbly button on his desk that said ‘Troublebot’ and three of them appeared.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowShare this:
BARNABY TAYLOR 