Back by a resounding lack of popular demand...

Yeah, the last visitation from the Captain was stupidly lengthy. Anyone who made the finish line gets a medal and a chest to pin it on. This ep from Season 1997 (featuring a special guest appearance from one Dr Halitosis Wally-Burke, who bears no resemblance whatsoever to our cranky, Phil-baiting, slaphead HSC Physics teacher) is by comparison Ronnie Corbett as compared to Ronnie Barker: same shit jokes, just a lot shorter.

________________________

The management takes no responsiblilty for injuries incurred during the following:

The Misadventures Of...

Proudly presented by

Stewpudofile Sivuntin (translation for NZ readers):
Land Of The Long White Clod

Dr Yobbo shook his head. "I can't believe it, Phil old son. You, of all people."

"Well, it happened..."

The Captain was enacting a bit of revenge on his old sparring partner, actually. Both recalled the high school excursion to the snow when Dr Yobbo spent his days skiing with the perennial object of the Captain's affections, The Lovely Clare, and her equally lovely friends (in the process earning the Apache Indian name of respect, He Who Skis In The Trees) while the Captain was laid up in bed, sick as a dog (the dog in question being a blue heeler cattle dog with fleas and the mange.) Dr Yobbo had been merciless in his attention to detail when he'd outlined each day's fun and frivolities to the horizontal Captain. He'd dined out on the whole tale for months.

So perhaps it was only fair that Dr Yobbo was the first to hear about the Captain's evening.

"You, Lara Croft, and her nineteen year old blonde flatmate?!?"

"Well, yeah."

"Menage a trois mademoiselles, sil vous plait..."

"Actually, it wasn't that. It was actually a fromage a trois."

"Fromage a trois? What the hell's that?"

"Well, that's where Lara and Penny covered each other with cream cheese, and then I..."

"Oy, Phil! Sir Monty wants to see you," interjected AJ, standing at the door.

"You bastard!"

"Sorry, it's my only line."

The Captain duly proceeded out of the common room down the corridor into the Chief's office. They exchanged greetings, pleasantries, licences, registration and insurance companies.

"What's the situation, Chief?"

"Well, our friends from the Shaky Isles have been in touch. There's been a spate of bombings in major NZ population centres, and they're looking to us for a bit of help."

"Why us?"

"Well, they've got suspicions the terrorists may be Australian in origin. NZ police raided a farm in the South Island a few days ago they thought had housed them. No sign of the mad bombers, but they found this."

He passed a photo across the desk to the Captain. It was a photo of a blue Esky. On the lid of the Esky was scrawled in black permanent marker, BARRY'S ESKY.

"It's an Esky," the Captain surmised.

"Exactly," nodded the Chief.

"....Would you mind telling me why this is so earth-shattering a discovery?"

"Because," explained the Chief, "if it was a New Zealander's Esky, it wouldn't be an Esky. It'd be a chilly bin. Or, if you perfer, a chully bun."

"Of course."

"And there's more."

He passed over a second photo, showing the contents of the Esky/chully bun - a few XXXX stubbies floating in an aqueous slurry of melted ice. 'The Beer We Drink Round Here', or at least when we're too fucking slashed to realise how piss-foul it is. Barbed wire wasn't a renown favourite of the Kiwis, the Captain realised.

"Pretty conclusive," he agreed.

"There was also a very considerable collection of country music tapes and CDs, some original, some pirated. All sorts of shit. And I use that term advisedly."

"Not a fan of C&W, Chief?"

"Not exactly. 'I Found Jesus In A Dustbin In Kentucky' isn't my idea of decent music, I'm afraid. Ten-gallon hats on half-pint heads doesn't appeal to me."

"Can't stand that crap either. Still.... Faith Hill, Shania Twain, the Chicks with Dicks..."

"Dixie Chicks?"

"Yeah them too."

"True. Problem is, it's like with the Corrs - at some point you've got to stop looking at the CD cover and actually open it."

"So what's the link between our investigations and the good ol' boys?"

"Well, we reckon that anyone so fanatical about redneck rock will not be too pleased about having to ditch his collection of golden guitar greats so hastily, even if was to protect their terrorist operations."

"So you think they might come back for the tapes? Use them as bait?"

"They're probably smarter than that, looking at the professionalism inherent in their recent attacks. But this country music freak is going to want to replace his lost collection somehow, and pretty swiftly methinks. And there's only one place where he could find all the shit he's looking for."

"Australia's country music capital?"

"Exactly."

"...You mean I have to go to Spamworth? It's the middle of their flaming country music festival!"

"Even better!"

"You sadistic bastard. Just because you haven't been getting any recently, while I..."

"Spare me, Phil. I have heard. What you, Miss Croft and her young friend got up to is entirely between you, them and the Penthouse Forum pages. It's got nothing to do with this mission."

"Oh well. At least I'll have my Walkman..."

"Oh, that's another thing Phil. You'll be going in there undercover, so I'm afraid you can't take in any Metallica or Pantera.... It'll have to be 'inconspicuous' music."

"You mean... country music?"

"Yup."

"You...."

Here would have followed a string of very un-Christian rude words if not for the intervention of further good news. "You won't be working alone, though," the Chief said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, we sent out one of our agents out there to set up the op just yesterday."

"Ah, good. Someone to share the burden with. Not a country music freak I hope?"

"No, but she was born in Spamworth, so she's familiar with the territory."

"Have I heard of her?"

"You'll have heard her, I'm sure..."

The Captain's brow furrowed. "Not..."

"Fraid so, Phil. You'll be working with Erin Ireland on this one."

"Oh, fuck," the Captain commented.

"Funnily enough, that's what she said when she heard too..."

"Has Tech Support developed some sort of new high-tech earplugs I can use?"

"Look, Erin's okay. She's a good, reliable young agent, she's intelligent and perceptive, and she has great tits. What's the issue? The downside is that she's a little... lively."

"By lively, I assume you mean pathologically psychotic."

"If you prefer."

The Chief realised that Phil's previous encounters with Agent Ireland had been brief, but sufficiently humiliating not to be forgotten. Erin was at heart a good-natured lass, he felt, but she wielded a tongue that was sharper than the kitchen knife that demented wanker from Consuming Passions waves about like a fencing rapier. He sought a change of topic.

"Here's something that Tech Support have just finished work on."

He handed the Captain a small mobile phone; Phil opened it and noted that it appeared to be exactly that, a small mobile phone. Perhaps the screen was a little larger than usual, but to all intents it appeared to be nothing more than a small mobile phone.

"It's a small mobile phone," Captain Stupidity surmised.

"Exactly," Sir Monty said with a smile.

"...And?"

"The phone itself isn't meant to look any different from your standard Ericsson or Nokia digital. The main difference is the network it's connected to. It's a top-secret OASIS network, with the signals bouncing off the satellite we put up there last month. Only came on-line a couple of days ago. These little units," he added, indicating the innocent-looking mobile, "can handle video as well as audio. Meaning the screen shows vision of who you're calling. It's the world's first mobile videophone. Of course, Tech Support hasn't stopped there with the advancements. If old Wally wasn't on holiday I'd get him in here to run you through the whole gamut of facilities this thing can pull off. Even I'm not sure what all the functions are - try not to press any buttons you aren't sure the function of, okay? We don't want 747s dropping out of the sky over the inner-west because you've found a button that radio-controls the plane's autopilot."

"The No Aircraft Noise Party might disagree," mused the Captain. Having had the last word (as his new contract stipulated), he took the mobile phone and plane ticket and absented himself from the scene.



His flight wasn't due to board for half an hour, and he'd read his copy of Computer Nerds Digest thrice over. Might as well see if this thing works....

The numbers for the phones assigned to all OASIS agents were courteously stored in memory (the phone's, not Phil's. The phone's memory storage capalility was larger and far more reliable.) The Captain filed through the list until he reached Ireland, Erin. He dialled. Several rings later, the mobile was opened and the call taken.

"What the fuck do you want? Jesus Phil, all I can see is your hairy fucking earhole. It's not a fucking telephone, for Christ's sake."

"Ahhh shit, sorry," he said. He held the phone out in front of him so the miniscule camera recessed below the speaker (which took the place of a traditional earpiece) was recording and distributing vision of something other than his seedy sideburns. An unexpected advantage of this was that he could actually see the screen. The sound of running water, the prevalent steam, the slight fogging of the lens, Erin's soaking deep flame-red hair and dissatisfied glare summed up the story: interrupted in the shower.

Oops. What a damn tragedy that was.

The Captain smiled amiably at the angry Irish face and the rather delectable, moistened figure it was supported by. Even beneath the white towel she'd hurriedly wrapped about herself, he tended to echo Sir Monty's earlier observation about her.

"Terribly sorry, Miss Ireland, did I interrupt anything?"

"Oh, of course not. Just rubbing one out..." She grinned; she couldn't stay angry for long. "How the fuck are you anyway Phil, you bastard? Been getting any?"

"Well, actually..."

"Not Lara and Penny again? Jesus, you sound like a broken fucking record." The laugh was loud and impertinent, as was its owner. Her voice still had a trace of the accent she'd inherited from her parents, who'd emigrated from the land of her surname shortly before young Erin was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. Her fuckers were more like Fockers. Or at least so it said on the back of the office toilet door.

"So when are you getting here then?"

"Flight leaves in twenty minutes."

"I didn't ask that, you tool. I asked when are you getting here."

"I'll call when I get in. Plenty of time for you to finish yourself off, babe."

"You realise if you call me babe to my face I'll probably kick your teeth in."

"That's why I'm doing it from a range of several hundred kays. How's the situation on the ground?"

"Just as fucking boring as I remembered it. Same people, same music, same stupid big-arse wooden guitar coated in gold paint out on the highway. Still, I've slipped back in pretty unobtrusively. No doubt you'll fit in like a stripper at a funeral, but it's your fucking series so I can't really bitch about it."

"But you will anyway?"

"Naturally."

"So what, you've just been going through your old contacts and stuff?"

"Depends what you mean by going through," she quipped. "How do you get chocolate stains out of wool anyway? Soaking in Napisan's not cutting it I guess..."

"Been behaving yourself, Erin?"

"As always," she replied wickedly. "Just an old ex from high school, and he's only an ex because of the long-distance separation thing. And because I'm allergic to chocolate. Reunions have to stay occasional... Phil, is your camera fogging up or is it just my screen?"

"Bit of both actually," he breathed. "Anyway, I'll see you when I see you."

"Not if I see you first," she replied.



He called her from Spamworth airport. Which was pretty pointless since she'd phoned Qantas to find out when he was getting in and was there at the airport to meet him. Talking on mobiles while standing a few feet away from each other, it was a scene right out of Clueless. Which was apt since that adjective summed the Captain up better than any movie title since Dumb and Dumber. Or The Man With Two Brains (one's lost, the other one's looking for it.) Or Living In Oblivion, Dazed and Confused, The Stupids, The Man With The Golden Toupee or Hamsterhead. [Author's Warning: Some of these titles may not exist.] Send further suggestions on a postcard to: The Captain Stupidity Movie Competition, Number Two Reactor, Chernobyl Power Station.

In truth, working with her would be all fine and dandy if she could just shut up. Girls like Erin should be seen and never heard, in his opinion. The more of her seen the better - she was definitely a very long way from unappealing (that's Unappealing, Arkansas, which happened to be more than the breadth of the Pacific away from downtown Spamworth.) She wasn't rake-slender like the original sections of Lara had been (not including the later silicon-based renovations) - her hourglass was more substantial, around five-seven and a size twelvish. Her voluptuous curves were at present camouflaged by a white T-shirt under a predominately red flannie and faded Levis probably half a size tighter than were comfortable but half a size looser than the Captain's eyes wished they were. He couldn't tell whether she was dressed for Spamworth in mid CMC festival or downtown Seattle in the early ‘90s. Still, he wouldn't have kicked her out of bed if she farted, because he was by nature a Seedy Bastard. (The OASIS technical staff were yet to work out why the effect of mild-mannered Christian-identifying Phil Scraper donning the infamous purple Stupidosuit was that he turned into such a skirt-seeking Seedy Bastard, TM-Reg'd. Current theorising was based on the tightness of the Lycra restricting the bloodflow to the sections of his brain that governed his Christian morals. It didn't explain why he was such a seedy boy to start with though.)

Erin's work truck was parked outside the airport, which was not only easier than parking it inside, but also made it easy to locate. It was the archetypal ruralmobile - a Toyota 4WD ute with a fibreglass canopy over the rear, so enveloped in dust and mud that the Captain had trouble telling whether it was a Hilux or a Landcruiser, let alone what colour it may have originally been. Erin came to the rescue: "Just chuck your shit in the back of the Canned Loser and we'll be off."

"Where to?"

"Radio station."

2CNW FM's studios were situated out on the southern approaches to the city of Spamworth, not far from the aforementioned big-arse wooden guitar coated in gold paint. The station logo was emblazoned in metre-high signwriting above its home, underwritten by the station's promotional slogan: We Play Both Kinds Of Music - Country And Western. They were welcomed by the station's director of music, Billy-Bob Inbred, in his office.

"So what y'all want?" he asked.

"Mr Inbred," Erin replied, "we were wondering if you could tell us a little about country music in Spamworth."

Inbred's eyes lit up under his monstrous monobrow. "Certainly. It's a loooong story, but a mighty fine one, young lady..."

Anticipating a six-hour discourse on the history of redneck rock in this fly-blown shithole, a clearly panicked Captain interrupted: "Um, what Ms Ireland meant by her inquiry, Mr Inbred, is... where in Spamworth is the biggest archive of country music actually held?" Realising her near fatal faux pas, an evidently relieved Ms Ireland vigourously nodded her agreement.

"Oh. I was thinking you folks wanted the whole story, the whole kit an' caboodle," said an obviously disappointed Director of Music. "Well then, the biggest store of country an' western music in this here dry gulch would be right here at 2CNW FM, I'm reckoning. Our archives are bigger than Texas, sure they are. We got every toe-tappin' tune ever laid down by a redneck in a stupid hat mishandling a steel-stringed gee-tar right here in this here station." Inbred grinned. "As you folks would understand, right about this time of year we're right busy crankin' out the tunes for the masses, and we have to make mighty sure no low-down dirty dawg might try to make off with our lil' collection. This time o' year I get my brother, Davy-Bob Inbred, to look after security - he doggone has his own security business here in Spamworth, so he does! I'll get him in here for you, what do you say?" He didn't wait to find out what Erin or the Captain did actually have to say before lifting the internal phone and dialling the archives section. "Hey, cousin, you want to come up here and say hi to some folks from the city?"

"Cousin? I thought you said he was your brother?" queried Erin.

"Cousin, brother, it's all the same gosh darn thing round these parts... Hang on one goddamn minute though, folks. Davy-Bob said he can't come up here. Some varmint has durn gone and stoled all the holdin's in our archives!"

The scene downstairs was one of considerable carnage. The basement which held 2CNW FM's store of golden country greats had been recessed into the hillside on which the station headquarters was built; only one wall was exposed to the outside world, and it was this wall which had taken the full force of the blast. The bomb had opened the basement up like a over-frozen can of Coke; its entire contents had either been destroyed completely or whisked away by very professional hands (no doubt connected to very professional arms and bodies.) The Captain and Erin both suspected the latter. It was the first recorded example of the Captain and Erin agreeing on anything ever. The crippled 2CNW FM was forced to shut down for the duration of the festival, and there was much rejoicing among Spamworth's youth, whose parents had no choice but to listen to Triple J.

The OASIS delegation were out in the carpark attempting to establish the sequence of events of the attack by distinguishing marks on the ground. The brake lock-up marks on the asphalt of the carpark were quite easily distinguishable from the wheelspin-generated off-road-style tyreprints that led away from the scene - all four wheels were engaged in braking, whilst only the rears transmitted power in the getaway. Therefore, the Captain surmised, they were looking for a large off-road vehicle with no anti-lock brakes driving primarily through the rear wheels. Bravo, replied Erin, that cuts it down to only 95% of the fuckin' vehicles in Spamworth. The attack had occurred in broad daylight, but the end of town that 2CNW FM inhabited was usually not frequented much by passers-by - no witnesses were about. The carpark was perhaps fifty metres from the basement wall; that fifty metres was now strewn with rubble, dust and fragments of vapourised organic matter, mostly blood and bone. It was a gristly sight, and for the sensitive sensiblilities of one of the OASIS delegates, it was too much. The Captain quietly ralphed into a nearby rubbish bin.

The strange thing was, all 2CNW FM personnel were present and accounted for. Passers-by were infrequent at best, and they'd hardly be likely to be standing around the featureless wall at the base of the double-storey station building. So who was, or were, this mysterious individual or group thereof who had become an innocent victim of the music tastes of an unknown terrorist?

"Got a bit of a surprise for you, Captain," Erin reported when he returned from the bin.

"You're a lesbian?"

"Sorry, wrong episode. That was last week. It's just that... whatever was blown to shit here, wasn't human."

"You what? How can you be sure?"

"Probably because humans don't have fucking hooves, you gimp," she argued, indicating the disembodied hoof that lay not far from the blast site. After another quick sortie to the bin and back, he asked Erin what sort of animal she thought it was. "Well, it's a bit fucking difficult to tell considering it's all we have to go on... though I think there may be one way of telling for sure." She opened her mobile phone.

"Who're you calling? Dr Harry Cooper?"

"Bit fuckin' macabre for Harry's Practise don't you think?"

"Well, it's better than de-sexing tomcats and artificial insemination of cows, isn't it?"

"No, I'm not calling the vet. Didn't you get the full spiel from Tech Support?" She pressed a function button on the phone and a small specimen plate slid out. "It's a DNA micro-analysis unit. Phil, I need a bit of flesh."

"Don't we all..."

"No, off the dead animal, you dumb fuck. That little chunk at your feet should do."

He knelt and daintily picked up the piece of organic matter with two very reluctant fingertips, grimacing as if he'd just eaten McDonalds or something. He dropped it onto the specimen plate and instantly wiped his hands on the grass with a resounding Eurrghhhh. Of course, Captain Stupidity was too stupid to realise the grass was caked in the stuff he'd been trying to wipe off.

"What is it?"

"Don't know yet, it's still fucking processing isn't it?"

"No, I meant... which bit of the animal is it?"

"Hard to say. Could be brain tissue, or a bit of the eyeball..."

The Captain returned from his third visit to a now very fragrant rubbish bin just in time for the results of the DNA analysis.

"According to this," she reported, "the material either came from ovine or bovine species."

"Huh?"

"Sheep or cattle, you knob. Apparently the genetics are pretty similar between them. Difficult to distinguish, even for this little magic box."

"So what do you think?" he asked.

"I'd have to say sheep," she concluded.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, all this blood-soaked fuckin’ wool around the place has to mean something surely? Christ, all that wanking has sure fucked up your eyesight, hasn't it?"

"It could be a cow disguised to look like a sheep..."

"Yes, Phil. It could be a fucking cow disguised to look like a fucking sheep. And I could be Elvis Presley disguised to look like fuckin' Angie Everhart."

"I knew you looked like her for a reason!" One ground-breaking revelation gave way to another, much more plausible one. "Erin..."

"Uh huh uh huh?"

"Stop that. If this is, or rather was, a sheep, then what was it doing here? Did it just happen to be wandering past when the wall was blasted into oblivion... or was it actually the means by which the explosive found its way over to the wall?"

"You don't mean..."

"Yes!" he replied. And then had to ask, "What?"

"You don't mean that the sheep actually exploded?"

"Well, yes. That's what it looks like."

"Fucking hell. Exploding sheep? If they used these over in New Zealand, with the number of sheep over there... you couldn't imagine the chaos that would cause."

Even so, they did imagine it, the lying bastards.

"Were there any traces of animal remains in the NZ bombings?" mused the Captain.

"Well, I can't remember, I only skimmed the reports. But there were similar... arrangements of organic matter across the blast sites."

"Huh?"

"There was blood and shite everywhere, like here," Erin surmised. "Instant haggis galore. They just assumed it was human though, as we did initially. They didn't think to test the material to determine its origin, of course..."

"If this is linked as well, do you think they brought their own sheep across from NZ, or do you think they'd use local fauna?"

"Well, with quarantine and all it'd hardly be bloody worth it. There's a huge sheep station just out of town, they could have nabbed a few head of stock without even a second glance."

"And the Chief was saying that these terrorists may have been Australian in origin... if they've got a local base, it's have to make sense. Where's this sheep station you were talking about?"

"Don't jump to any conclusions, Captain. You sound like you're about to try and convict Barry before you've even met him."

"Barry?"

"Barry-Bob Redneck-Hick and I went to school together. He inherited Muddy Waters off his father..."

"How did his father come to own an old blues singer, and what relevance does that have to anything?"

"Muddy Waters was the name of the farm, you fucking cretin."

"Was?"

"Yeah, Barry renamed it. He also pissed-off the cattle the station used to handle as well - it's sheep only now. Biggest sheep run in the state, and on the basis of head of sheep per acre it's one of the biggest in Australia."

"Well, it might be worth paying this Redneck-Hick a visit, I think."

"You think? News to me..."

The verbal jousting continued throughout the trip out to The Sheep Station Formerly Known As Muddy Waters. It began with the Captain's choice of music - to Erin's disgust, it seemed to be straight off the 2CNW playlist.

"Country music? What's the fuckin' story sunshine?"

"Well, I guess I've grown to like it..."

"Surprising. I suppose you've heard what happens when you play C&W music backwards?"

"Satanic messages?"

"Not exactly. The guy in the song gets his wife, his dog and his pickup truck back..."

The Captain groaned. "Comedy time is it? I heard this really bad Irish joke..."

"Really? What was it?"

"You," he replied.

Erin nodded with a wry grin. "I'll pay that one, you big poof."

Erin's coarseness was a breath of fresh air compared to many of the other women he knew. She was as blunt as a Kenworth and equally as forceful. Despite himself, his enjoyment of her company was beginning to match his appreciation of her physical form. "What do you mean, big poof?"

"Back door bandit. Shirt-lifter. Friend of Dorothy. Utiliser of the tradesman's entrance. Closet Savage Garden fan. Oxford Street regular. How specific do I have to be?"

"Erin, I'm not gay. Lara and Penny, remember?"

"Sounds to me like the sort of bullshit story closet pillow-munchers dream up to cover themselves. The higher the bullshit level, the more likely the individual is a donut-puncher. That tale about you and those two sounds about as likely as AJ winning fuckin’ Miss Australia."

"Look, I know it doesn't sound very plausible... and I know I get around in a costume that makes me look like an extra from last year's Mardi Gras parade, and I have been known to hum along to Savage Garden on the odd occasion..."

"Hey, is it just me, or does Savage Garden sound like something you put on your lawn to keep the weeds down?" The cabin of the CannedLoser exploded in spontaneous laughter. "New Savage Garden is effective against weeds, snails, slugs and all fellow ARIA nominees... not much use against screaming thirteen year old girls, sadly."

"Seriously, Erin," the Captain said once the giggling had subsided, "I'm not gay. I've been described as a lot of things before today, but gay isn't one of them."

"Care to prove yourself sometime?"

"Sorry?"

The Captain's abject surprise evidently amused her. "You know, offer a little evidence to back up this ridiculous fuckin' claim of yours..." she laughed. "Look, I like you, Phil. You make me laugh. Not many guys I know can do that. I'm usually a pretty good judge of character, and... well, all the signals I was picking up seemed to indicate you were either trying to hide your warped orientations, or just sexually fucked up. I should have guessed it'd be the latter... So, I was just wondering... maybe you'd like to, you know, fuck up our nicely ordered working relationship once this is all finished."

"Well, as Big Ben said to the Leaning Tower of Pisa..."

"...I've got the time if you've got the inclination, yeah I know. Well, after all this shit is over with, remind me to take you down to my place on the south coast for a roll in the sand."

"Okay - take me down to your place on the south coast for a roll in the sand."

"Oh, shut up."

"Shut the fuck up, you mean."

"Of course."

Around fifteen kays out of town they reached the gates of Muddy Waters cattle station. Well, they would have had they existed. Muddy Waters cattle station was now 'Baaland Ovine Cornucopia', according to the elaborate arch that replaced the old iron gates. It was completely unlike any farm the Captain had ever seen - apart from those delineating the boundaries of the property, there were no fences of any kind within the entire place. No paddocks, no mustering yards - nothing typical of a sheep farm. Not even sheep. They drove to the main farmhouse along the pointlessly sinuous dirt track that wound along dead flat territory westwards towards... well, the main farmhouse. Here were herds of sheep. Multitudes of them. As well as the odd farm worker in flannie, boots and jeans who nodded at Erin and the Captain in a yokellious manner. Erin knocked on the flyscreen door; the individual who answered was built like a rugby player, though the Captain couldn't tell which one, with the neck of a front row forward - apparently he'd borrowed it for the afternoon. Surrounding this largish individual was a flock of his ovine followers, who seemed to recognise the arrival of the pair as friends. The bouncy auburn-haired one, at least.

"Hi Barry," she said. "Erin Ireland? I haven't seen you in years! Nice of you to drop by. Who's your friend?"

"Captain Stupidity."

"The Captain Stupidity?"

"You mean there's more than one? Fuck, better call Rentokil."

Barry-Bob Redneck-Hick laughed. "You've still got that sharp wit from high school, I remember... Come on in. What brings you to Baaland Ovine Cornucopia?"

The reply to his question didn't come until they were seated around the coffee table in the living room, fluffy white sheep milling casually around the trio. "Mr Redneck-Hick," began the Captain, "how easy would it be for someone to make off with one of your sheep?"

"By make off with, you mean..."

"Five finger discount. The Waltzing Matilda option."

"Oh, steal? For a minute there I thought you meant something else." The Captain didn't want to know what connotations 'make off with' generated ref. sheep in the mind of an individual who seemed to take his relationship with the animals on his property quite a bit further than most sheep farmers. Redneck-Hick continued: "Impossible."

"Sorry?"

"It couldn't be done. I'd know almost instantly if one of my friends were missing."

"How is that, Mr Redneck-Hick?"

"I know each of them by sight, and each answers to my call," he replied. "Bridget! Don't chew on the Captain's nice cape, there's a girl." The Captain had been unaware that the extremities of his cape were becoming lunch for Bridget and her friends, as many things became in this household. "Additionally, all my woolly brothers and sisters have been electronically tagged..."

"I'm sorry, did you just call these animals your woolly brothers and sisters?"

"Yes, I did."

"Forgive my confusion, but you're a human, and these are sheep. How exactly, and I shudder to ask this, did you happen to become a sibling of a grazing quadruped?"

"Obviously, Captain, they are not my biological siblings. Indeed, I have a human brother, my twin brother Bobby-Bob, who works here on the property with me. I merely feel a connection with them, an empathy. I understand their plight, I feel their pain."

"Their pain?"

"Yes, their pain, Captain. Could you imagine living your life knowing you were considered no more than a source of meat wrapped in textile fibres? Knowing all your life would amount to would be ritualistic shaving of your body every year until they decided to turn you into Pal Meaty Bites? That is the pain I allude to, Captain. I feel that pain. And I feel I can do something about it."

"Barry," Erin interjected sweetly, "before you get too worked up, what we're here about is an incident which occurred at the studios of 2CNW FM earlier today. We believe one of your... friends... may have been injured. Maybe even killed."

"How so?" asked the Redneck-Hick quietly.

"There was a bombing there. We don't know much about it yet - there were no human casualties, but it seems that at least one sheep was caught in the blast."

Redneck-Hick nodded solemnly. "Trixie, could you fetch my mobile phone please?" One of the sheep dutifully trotted off and returned with a slobbery black Nokia in her mouth. Redneck-Hick stroked her head gently and smiled. "Excuse me while I make a brief call," he told his human visitors, pressing one of the quick-dial buttons on the phone. "Henderson? I want to know if any of our friends are missing. I want to know the status of all ten thousand, three hundred and sixty-three of them, faxed through to my office immediately, okay?" Redneck-Hick's brows narrowed at Henderson's reply. "What do you mean, there's only supposed to be ten thousand, three hundred and sixty-two? Since when?" Another response that did not amuse the boss. "What operation? I never sanctioned any operation of that sort! I told my brother that this project was only to be used for the furtherment of the cause, damn it!"

"I think we'd better go, don't you Captain?" suggested Erin.

"Hang on, this is starting to get interesting!"

"It'll just get ugly in there," she said as she waved goodbye to Barry and marched Phil out the door. "I hate family feuds."

"I didn't even know it was still on TV," he said as they boarded the 'Loser.



"So, what did you reckon about Barry then?" asked Erin as they compared notes around the nasty plastic table in their shared twin-share hotel room, OASIS' accommodation budget being characteristically rubbish as ever. "Just your typical roo-shootin', boot-scootin', sheep-rootin', inbred-mutant rural redneck, eh?"

"Not really, Erin. Some things didn't add up. For starters, his relationship with his sheep... I hate to quote Hanson, but..."

"Mmm bop, can't wait till my balls drop?"

"It's just not natural, I was going to say." His train of thought survived attempted derailment by laughter. "He specifically mentioned the operation today, and it's pretty clear it was one of his sheep that expired in the blast, presumably under the orders of his brother..."

"So what are you getting at?"

"I think your old friend Barry is the leader of the terrorist organisation that's been undertaking these bombings in New Zealand."

"Oh, get your fuckin' hand off it Phil. This isn't time for one of your infamous fucked-up conspiracy theories. Why would Barry want to bomb government buildings in New Zealand for fuck's sake?"

"Bear with me for just a second, Erin."

"I have ever since we teamed up, why stop now?"

"Look. Barry's feelings for his sheep are undoubtedly very strong. All that stuff about empathising with them and feeling their pain. And didn't he say he was in a position to do something about it? Now, there are a lot of sheep in New Zealand. Tens of millions of them - twelve or thirteen of them per human head of population, last I heard. And from Barry's perspective, New Zealand's position on ovine rights would have to be the worst in the world. They're killing the little woolly bastards left, right and centre. Per capita, they'd be the worst perpetrators of ovine ethnic cleansing on Earth."

"Are you saying that Barry-Bob Redneck-Hick and those who work for him view the New Zealand wool and meat industry as orchestrated genocide against sheep?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

"You need fucking help," she declared.

"Have you got a better explanation for his bizarre antics? On top of that, there's this. When you were in the shower I hacked into the business records of Redneck-Hick's farm using the phone. All the livestock are barcoded. Not a single head of sheep has left this place and gone to an abattoir since Barry inherited the place from his old man. Nothing in five years. Same for the farm he owns over in New Zealand - bought six months ago, no ovine withdrawals since. As well as that, you could see that none of the sheep at Redneck-Hick's farm had been shorn in years."

"...And?"

"Can you name any other sheep farm that doesn't produce any meat or wool whatsoever? Doesn't this seem just a little odd to you, Erin? Look, I know you and both of the Redneck-Hick twins were in the same year at Oxley High..."

"I never told you that..."

"School records - I've been cracking that Department of Ed school network since year 7. Easy as anything, even using a jumped-up mobile phone. All three of you graduated from year 12 in 1993. You were even in the same Maths class."

"Yeah, I knew Barry and Bobby. So? That's got nothing to do with my feelings about your hypothesis. It's got more holes than five tonnes of Swiss cheese."

"All the same, I think it's worth following up. What's really interesting is that Redneck-Hick has engaged a shipping company to transfer exactly ten thousand, three hundred and sixty-three sheep across the Tasman Sea to his farm on the South Island, leaving tomorrow. Obviously the paperwork was signed before Bobby borrowed one of his big brother's flock for his own uses, making it 10,362... always a fan of C&W, was he?"

"Not that I remember," she replied.

"So what do we do?"

"We follow." He held up the phone. "Booked tickets on Qantas for tomorrow morning, Sin City to Christchurch direct."

"Direct? There's a surprise. No stopover in Honolulu?"

"Watch it, you. I may have to resort to rough stuff."

"Good foreplay is so hard to get these days," she mused. "Can't you wait until after the case is wrapped up?"



The red-tailed birdie nested at Christchurch Airport at around lunchtime next afternoon. Erin and the Captain collected their luggage and taxied to their hotel to check in. The Captain was in the bathroom sharpening his nose in the mirror when he saw the curvaceous figure behind him with the equally substantial handgun-shaped-device. Pointing, rather disappointingly, straight at him.

"Guess this means the roll in the sand is off then?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, Phil. Really, honestly, I am..."

"Really, honestly, from a girl prepared to betray her country for a sheep farmer who played Worms a few times too many and got ideas from the exploding sheep. Does he know it's only a computer game, Erin?"

"You think I'm doing all this for Barry?"

"Well, what are you doing it for?"

"If you must know, a fucking great shitload of money, as it happens."

"Of course. And the fact you and Bobby were screwing like rabbits right through high school has nothing to do with it."

"How did you... Not that fucking phone again?"

He nodded. "Internet access functionality. Your annual school magazine has its own web site these days. You two were voted 'Selleys Araldite Most Inseparable Couple of 1993', apparently. So much for your typical roo-shooting, boot-scooting, sheep-rooting, inbred-mutant rural redneck, huh?"

"Bobby isn't like that. He's not as fanatical as his brother."

"No. Barry fucks sheep, while Bobby just gets his girlfriends to dress up in his idea of highly erotic lingerie - lambswool car seat covers."

She blushed furiously. "That was only in my wardrobe because I hadn't got around to fitting it to the front seat of the truck..."

"Napisan probably would get the chocolate stains out, by the way," the Captain advised.

"Enough," she declared. Methinks the lady doth not be too proud about selling her partner down Ye Creeke of Shit without Ye Olde Paddle. "So when did you know I was working for them?"

"I didn't. You've just confirmed my suspicions. It's rather ironic, really. I've been far more intelligent in this Stupidofile than any other and my reward is being shot in the kidneys. In future I think I'll leave it up to Dr Yobbo to do all the brainwork..."

"You think you have a future? You know too much, Phil."

"If I die the Author will just start cranking out prequels - he's not going to give up a fun hobby like slagging off his mates that easily." He looked her reflection in the eye. "But what about you, Erin? Don't you care? Why did you let me get so close anyway?"

"Barry thought Captain Stupidity was considerably more stupid than he actually was. Barry got a nasty shock. And as for me... yes, Phil, I do care. It might surprise you, but I don't actually want you to fucking die. But I'm not really the sentimental type, I'm afraid. I don't let my emotions rule my actions."

"Except in the case of a country music freak with a penchant for chocolate, of course."

"That's enough!" she growled, and shot him in the back of the head.



On waking, the Captain's thoughts adhered to the following program:

10 Tranquilizer gun.
20 The bitch.
30 My brain hurts.
40 Bitchy bitch bitch bitch bitch.
50 Where am I?
60 BITCH!
70 [Rather grotty thought about Erin's boobies, erased for reasons of taste]
80 GOTO 10
90 END

Unsurprisingly the program crashed and the Captain collapsed back onto the floor.

When he recovered sufficient strength to reopen his eyelids he recognised his surroundings... as being completely and utterly foreign to him. He seemed to be locked in a dark, dank, musty underground cellar. This being New Zealand, 'musty' would have meant that there was quite a bit of light fog about the place. He suspected he was in a cellar directly underneath the farmhouse on Redneck-Hick's South Island property, then immediately jettisoned that thought, seeing how well acting clever had served him so far in this case. If only he'd had his mobile phone. Now that he'd managed to get the Online Help facility to work, he'd been unstoppable on that thing. If he had it now, he could do anything from calling for help (straightforward but boring) to dialling for pizza as a diversion, to hacking into a passing navy frigate's weapons system and having the place levelled by twelve-inch artillery. If only...

His eyes were accustomed to the pitch blackness of the cellar, so when the heavy wooden door creaked ajar, he was dazzled by the light that flooded in. In the distance he could faintly hear a television or radio, with a Kiwi cricket commentator calling one of the Australia-New Zealand one-dayers: "Thet's a bug hut. It sucks! The ball's landed on the top dick of the mimbers' stend!" Then, the door closed again; the cricket was lost to his ears, and his eyes fought to readjust to the darkness, and get some sort of picture of the apparently human-shaped silhouette who'd apparently just joined him in the cellar.

"It's okay," a female voice with a faint Irish lilt said softly. "He's flaked in front of the TV, there'll be no shifting him until the end of the innings." Was that Erin's voice? Was it connected to Erin's body? What were the chances of Erin's voice and body both being in the same room as him at this moment? Why all these stupid metaphysical questions? He blinked through the darkness and estimated that the silhouette of the woman in the cellar was very likely a perfect match for that of his former partner, which was evidence enough in his book.

"Erin? What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?"

"...Can't bloody tell, it's too dark ain't it."

"I'm busting you out, you stupid fuckin’ idiot."

"Why?"

"Because I'm having a sudden and overwhelming attack of conscience, okay? Maybe I actually like you or something equally fucking stupid. In any case, all of a sudden a fucking great shitload of money doesn't seem as important as it once did. And that Redneck-Hick's a fucking nutter."

"Oh, so you've noticed?"

"He was always eccentric, I know. But now he's psychotic. Bobby's dead, you realise. For using one of his brother's sheep to get his country music collection back, Barry turned him into Pal Meaty Bites. You know what he's after, don't you? An independent homeland for all sheep in New Zealand, where his brothers and sisters can roam free, dot dot dot..." The gesture she made was clearly identifiable even in this light; it suggested Barry enjoyed intercourse with himself. "He's one sick fucker. I'm just fucking ashamed I ever went along with any of it."

"So what can we do about it?"

"Well, I've been collecting your mail..."

"Always one for the grand gestures, aren't you?"

"Stop getting better lines than me, it's not fair."

"It's part of my new contract for 1998. I know it's still '97, but the new conditions start early. You were saying?"

"Well, an air mail parcel arrived for you this afternoon." His eyes picked out the large box she'd wrestled downstairs with herself. He'd been imagining her wrestling with herself for most of the time he'd been down here. "Thought I'd bring it down and see what old Wally from Tech Support had sent his number one agent..." The irony in that statement echoed the closeness of the relationship between Dr Halitosis Wally-Burke and the Captain, which put the civil back in civil war.

"Did you bring your phone?"

"Of course, why?" She handed it across. He pressed the button which lit up the function keys, and adjusted the light intensity to the point where the room was lit quite brilliantly. Another function key deployed the Swiss Army Knife extension kit from the base of the phone; he selected the longest blade and sliced through the packing tape. The box surrendered the knowledge of its contents to Erin and the Captain.

"Bananas?" Never had soft fruit been received with more disbelief than was exhibited in Erin's voice.

"Hang on, there's a note," the Captain noted. Ahem.

Hello Phil. Fuse adjustment (one to five seconds) via twisting the end of the device. Throw high and stand well clear. Remember your basics. (y-k)²=4a(x-h). I'm not here to teach you, etc. Love, Wally.

"What the hell does all that mean?"

"Only one way to find out," he said. "Any way out of here other than the door you came through?"

"Not really, but that far wall is the only one which faces on to the outside world... if you don't want to take on Barry's household en masse we could just dislodge a few bricks or something and sneak out I guess..."

"Dislodge a few bricks, you think?"

He wound one second's worth of fuse onto the banana and backed right up against the wall, pulling Erin back with him. For once, he judged distance, angle and power of shot to perfection, sending the yellow fruit bouncing at high velocity along the floor to crash into the far wall exactly one second after firing it. The dust cleared, eventually. Sunlight streamed in through the new garage door. Erin and the Captain struggled out of the rubble; a quick head count showed that they still had one each.

"Any questions?" asked the Captain.

"Yes, where are my fucking legs?"

They scrambled out of the destroyed cellar, the Captain grabbing a handful of bananas from his fruit bowl and setting two second fuses on each. He lobbed one high over the house. At launch plus two seconds there was a deafening explosion, and the roof shook. Multiple bananalets showered down from the spent cartridge, hammering into the roof and detonating on contact.

"As, I believe, the Mayor of Hiroshima once put it... what the fuck was that?!"

"Semtex, I'd say," the Captain surmised. "Same colour as normal bananas for camouflage purposes. Very clever."

Erin groaned. "Exploding sheep, banana bombs... Phil?"

"Yes, Erin?"

"Is it just me, or is this getting extremely fucking silly?"

A cavalry charge of sheep on the horizon cut off the Captain's reply. Innocent-sounding baa-ings filled the air, a sound to fill the most experienced of Worms artistes with fear. They lobbed banana bombs furiously at them, but they only served to blast the sheep high into the air, not destroying them. Some were beginning to go off. You could smell them miles away.

"If any of those fucking sheep get within range of us, we're fucked," Erin panted.

"Thank you for explaining the situation so clearly and concisely, Erin. Keep flinging the fruit, I'll try and reprogram the sheep."

"You what?" The Captain hammered away at the phone's keypad and function keys.

"I figure the electronic tag behind the sheep's ear must act as a remote trigger to the plastic explosive strapped to the sheep's body..."

"You mean inside the sheep's body," she corrected him.

"Surely not."

"Believe me. Barry does it himself..."

"I think I know how he does it, and I think I know where he sticks it. And I wish I didn't."

"Seconded," Erin said, putting all her strength into a low, flat throw right over the bails which crashed through a window and obliterated the kitchen in a sheet of flame. But the sheep still bounded towards them. Rednecks with shotties were also making their presence felt; they retreated behind the corner of the shed under double-barrelled fire.

"Think I've got it," said the Captain. It didn't appear so; indeed, the sheep seemed almost to be accelerating towards them, complete with accentuated baa-ing. As they began crashing into the shed wall, Erin did something she'd never done before. Became speechless. But on contact with the shed, each sheep conducted an abrupt about-face and bounded off in the direction of the farmhouse. And kept bounding, and baa-ing. Under attack by sheep and banana bomb, the rednecks took to the hills, chased all the way by baa-ing minions of death.

The farmhouse was almost levelled by now, most of Redneck-Hick's people were pushing up the daisies and the pair by the shed were having a great deal of fun. Until Barry-Bob Redneck-Hick appeared on the front porch with a minigun and a small radio unit.

"Stay down, Erin!" the Captain called. "That's an airstrike call-up radio. He's not playing fair."

"Actually, Captain Retarded Development, it's a Concrete Donkey!" the Redneck-Hick shouted over the exploding flora and fauna.

"You cheating arsehole, that's a Worms 2 weapon!"

"Suck me," replied Barry, and pressed the firing button. A gigantic concrete donkey fell from the sky (and the critics said this series was losing plausibility. Hah!) and hit the cround with a resounding splat, bouncing to splat again, and again, and again. Soon the concrete donkey was lost from view, splatting its way through the surface of the Earth and out the other side. Captain Stupidity and Erin Ireland were never seen nor heard from again.

By Barry-Bob Redneck-Hick, that is, who the hastily-reprogrammed Concrete Donkey fell on.



"Sorry about that," the Captain apologised for the conversational interruption. "Usual post-mission congrats from the Chief." He closed the mobile up and slipped it back into his pocket.

"Put in a good word for me?" she asked with an ironic smile.

"Your name did get mentioned in dispatches," he said.

"Surprised you can get signal down here on the south coast," she mused.

"Well, we're up here on this lookout, nothing interrupting the signal... and given the number of improbable things this little thing can pull off, dropping out is something I wouldn't expect of it, even given Telstra's shithouse rural coverage... But I think you're changing the topic, aren't you Erin? You want to know what Sir Monty had to say about you?"

"Look, I know I'm finished. I don't deserve any less. I betrayed you all and I'll pay for it. Dishonourable dismissal, long court case, being dragged off to prison to get defiled and violated by all the big hairy dykes...."

"Come on, Erin. Knowing you. it'll probably be you doing the defiling and violating."

"Thanks, Phil. Just what I need right now."

He grinned. "Actually, the Chief was flowing in his praise. Asked me what I though about you and I working together more regularly, given how well we cooperate..."

"You're talking shit."

"Usually, but not this time. Erin, he doesn't know a thing. The only person at OASIS who knows that you were ever working for Redneck-Hick is me."

She nodded. Her attention seemed to be focused out to sea, across the Tasman.

"Thinking of anyone?" he queried.

"I'm thinking," she responded, "what lengths I'm going to have to go to in order to keep your mouth shut about my various indiscretions."

"If I were you, Erin, I'd think about quietly slipping out of OASIS and becoming a florist or something, yeah? Something low-key..."

"Understood," she nodded warmly. "I was thinking more in the immediate future, though..."

"You'll do anything to change the topic, won't you?"

"Look, I couldn't fuckin’ stand either of the Redneck-Hicks. They were total cocks. It just so happened that they were physically decent to look at, and the one who was a good fuck liked me more than he did sheep. And they had a fucking great shitload of money they wanted to give me. That's it. End of story."

"So why the wistful gaze across towards En Zed?"

"You really want to know?"

"Well, I asked..."

She smiled. "Okay, I was just thinking about something Barry once said about sheep when he was really drunk. He said that the thing he loved most about sheep was that if you got them on the edge of a cliff, they always pushed back..."

"Charming."

"Thing is," she ventured, "I can't see why it'd be something only confined to our ovine brethren, you know? I mean, if I was trapped on a cliff-edge given a choice between being fucked senseless from behind or plunging thirty feet into oblivion, I know which option I'd choose to take up."

"Really?" the Captain remarked. "Which one?"

"Which one?" she asked invitingly. "Want me to show you?"

The Captain suppressed a sly smirk.

"Baaaadly."


end

________________________


The Doctor is OUT.