Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict (16 page)

Zack just smiled and fixed a crevice attachment to the end of the hose.

The Mutant Spew Lord screamed. Or, at least, made a noise that might have passed for a scream if anyone had been able to hear it above the vacuum cleaner's roar.

Schluuurrrrpp!

Within a moment the Mutant Spew Lord had disappeared up the deadly nozzle—his watery flesh no match for the awesome power of the heavy-duty bum-fighting vacuum cleaner.

Eleanor looked at the ex-Mutant Spew Lord, now just a thin watery puddle of blood and rotting flesh in the bottom of the hard plastic vacuum cleaner body.

‘Good work, Zack,' said Eleanor.

Zack, who was staring at the brown mush, hoped she was right.

He could see one of the Mutant Spew Lord's eyeballs floating in the midst of the liquefied remains—and worse still, it was staring back at him.

Zack shivered and turned away.

He looked across to where Eleanor's bum lay and saw his bum jumping up and down on top of it.

‘What do you think you're doing?' said Zack.

‘Bum-to-bum resuscitation,' said Zack's bum.

‘No!' said Eleanor, rushing across the room. ‘You'll kill her!'

‘She was
already
dead,' said Zack's bum. ‘It's worth a try!'

Suddenly Eleanor's bum groaned.

Eleanor knelt down beside the two bums. ‘She's alive?' she said to Zack's bum.

‘Yes,' said Zack's bum, hopping off.

‘Thank you,' said Eleanor. ‘I'll take over now.'

Zack's bum nodded gravely and stepped back.

Eleanor picked up her wounded bum and cradled her gently in her arms. ‘How are you feeling?' she said.

‘Just a flesh wound,' said her bum. ‘I developed a pretty thick hide out there in the jungle. I had to. I've suffered worse.'

‘You saved my life,' said Eleanor.

‘You saved mine,' said Eleanor's bum. ‘It was the least I could do.'

Eleanor bit her lip. ‘I'm really sorry,' she said. ‘The last few years must have been very hard for you. I don't know how I'll ever make it up to you.'

‘It's okay,' said her bum. ‘You just did.'

T
he mood inside Robobum was sombre as Zack and his bum dragged Ned Smelly's body to the area underneath the teleportation beam. Zack folded Ned's arms across his chest and placed his homemade metal helmet on his head.

‘Ned was one of the best,' said Zack. ‘Without him none of this would have been possible.'

Tears came to Zack's eyes as he thought about how much they owed Ned. It was Ned who had rescued them from certain death after their crash-landing in the Great Windy Desert many adventures ago. And it was Ned who had rescued them from the Kisser's treachery on the bumcano. And, of course, more recently, it was Ned who had rescued them from Bumageddon.

‘He was a good man,' said Eleanor, looking up from her bum. ‘I never heard him say a bad thing about anybody.'

‘Or any
bum,
' said Zack's bum. ‘He was always kind to me. Even though he was a bum-fighter he was always kind.'

‘He was the best inventor a robotic bum could have wanted,' said Robobum quietly.

Zack stepped back with his head bowed. ‘May your bum be with you,' he said solemnly. ‘Okay, Robobum . . . take him up.'

Robobum's teleportation beam glowed and Ned's body began to grow faint.

Suddenly Zack ran to the other side of the room. ‘Hang on, Robobum!'

Zack returned with Ned's
What Bumosaur is That?
and placed it on top of his almost transparent body. ‘I think he'd appreciate that,' said Zack.

‘So do I,' said Robobum.

N
obody spoke much as the Great White Bum carried them towards the Crack of Doom. The only sounds were the small whimpers of pain from Eleanor's bum as Eleanor dabbed at her wounds with cotton wool soaked in antiseptic.

‘I'm sorry,' said Eleanor, after each dab. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘It's all right,' said Eleanor's bum. ‘I know you don't mean to hurt me.'

Zack's bum wiped a tear from its eye and joined Zack, who was gazing at the bumcam screen.

Together they watched as the Great White Bum descended towards an enormous jagged smoking gash in the ground. They felt like they were looking directly down into the very bowels of the earth.

It was not a pretty sight.

Suddenly Zack's thoughts flashed back to his traumatic experiences inside the bumcano.

The brown lake.

The maggots.

The Great White Bum.

The match.

The gas.

The death stink.

The explosion.

But this was worse.

The sheer enormity of the Crack of Doom made the brown lake look like a harmless puddle.

The Great White Bum set Robobum down gently. ‘Destination reached,' said Robobum. ‘Prepare for wedding ceremony.'

Zack and Eleanor looked across the room at each other. In a desperate mission already packed with danger, they both knew that this was the most dangerous part of all.

They looked at the screen.

And gasped.

Giant brown blobs were flying in all directions.

They were surrounded by thousands of Great White Bums.

Hundreds
of thousands of Great White Bums.

Hundreds of thousands of Great White Bums involved in a free-for-all riot.

Somehow Robobum—no matter how technologically advanced—didn't seem like much protection against an entire colony of Great White Bums.

‘H
ere we are,' said the Great White Bum. ‘The Crack of Doom. My home. My subjects. Your subjects-to-be.'

As the Great White Bum said this, all the Great White Bums immediately stopped their fighting and turned to their master. A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd.

‘As you already know, our departure time is soon—very soon—but first I have an announcement,' said the Great White Bum. ‘After a lifetime of searching for a bum as great and as white as myself I have finally found her. She is to be my wife and your Queen. A fitting way to start our new world order!'

There was a roar of approval from the bums.

‘Come, my bride,' said the Great White Bum. ‘Give me your hand. It is time for us to be married.'

Robobum obediently extended her hand.

‘What do you think we should do?' said Eleanor. ‘Should we detonate the nuclear wart-head?'

‘No,' said Zack. ‘It's still too early. We have to slow things down. If the marriage happens too quickly they'll leave before the arseteroid hits. We have to stall for as long as possible until it's too late for the bums to evacuate. We need to make sure the Great White Bum is underneath that arseteroid.'

‘How do I do this?' said Robobum, using her inside voice.

‘Tell him you can't get married without a dress,' said Eleanor's bum.

‘Great idea,' said Eleanor. ‘And flowers!'

‘And music!' said Zack's bum.

Robobum turned to the Great White Bum. ‘I'm really very excited about getting married,' she said, sweetly. ‘But I need a dress. And flowers. And music.'

‘But, my dear,' said the Great White Bum, flushing
crimson with impatience. ‘We must get married now. Dresses and flowers and music . . . these things take time to prepare. Time that we can barely afford, my darling. We must be off the planet before the arseteroid strikes. There is less time than you think.'

Suddenly the bum-fighters were thrown to the ground as huge tremors shook Robobum.

‘What's happening?' said Zack, desperately trying to find something to grab onto.

‘I don't know,' said Eleanor. ‘If I didn't know that Robobum was just a machine I'd say she was . . . she was
crying.
'

‘Crying?' said Zack. ‘But that's impossible. She can't . . . unless . . . hang on . . . that's brilliant!'

‘What?' said Eleanor. ‘What's brilliant?'

‘Listen!' said Zack. ‘She's
pretending.
'

‘Don't cry, my sweet,' said the Great White Bum, patting Robobum gently. ‘Please don't cry. Of course you shall have these things. Anything you desire will be yours. A beautiful dress. The best flowers that have evolved so far, and music so sweet you'll think it was blown from the cheeks of the bum-angels themselves.'

The Great White Bums stood motionless, staring at the sight of their Queen-to-be sobbing.

‘Well?' said the Great White Bum to his subjects. ‘What are you oafs waiting for?' He pointed at three bums. ‘You, you and you! Get my Queen a dress, flowers and music. Hop to it!'

‘Great!' said Zack, excited at the success of their plan. ‘That should keep them busy for ages. It should be near impossible to find those things in this world.'

‘Yes, good work, Robobum,' said Eleanor. ‘You're a smooth operator.'

‘Smooth operator?' said Robobum. ‘What is “smooth operator”?'

‘Using tears to get the Great White Bum to do what you want!' said Eleanor.

‘Using tears?' said Robobum. ‘I wasn't “using” them . . . I was really upset. I want my wedding to be special.'

‘Of course,' said Zack, shooting a look of concern at Eleanor. ‘Of course! What bum wouldn't?'

‘Thank you, Zack,' said Robobum. ‘I only wish my creator, Ned Smelly, was alive to give me away. He was like a father to me.' Robobum started to cry again.

‘Yes,' said Zack, worried at how seriously Robobum seemed to be taking the wedding. ‘I'm sure Ned would have liked that.'

Z
ack looked into the sky.

The arseteroid was close now.

Very close.

He clenched his fists.

The future of the world depended on the next two hours.

This was it.

This was what all the bum-kicking, bum-smacking, bum-pinching, bum-forking, bum-flicking and bum-fighting—real and simulated—had been leading up to.

The final pongflict.

It had been a long and smelly road.

Across the Great Windy Desert. Through the Brown Forest. Over the Sea of Bums. Into the heart of a bumcano. Caught in a simulated crapalanche. Trapped inside an underground maggotorium. Sucked into a brown hole. Lost on Uranus. Buried under a giant brown blob.

But the long and smelly road was almost at an end.

Zack sucked in a deep breath as he summoned up the courage, the energy and the resolve for the battle that would determine the very course of bumolution.

Despite the Blind Bum-feeler's predictions that Zack would be the saviour of free men everywhere, Zack had seen and experienced too much to think that success was guaranteed. The Great White Bum was a powerful foe. And most of the cards were stacked in the Great White Bum's favour.

Zack was certain, however, that Robobum's wedding demands would prove impossible to fulfil, thus buying them the time they needed to launch the nuclear wart-head, immobilise the Great White Bum and ensure that the giant arseteroid would put an end to both him and his deranged dream of world domination.

This was, after all, a world in which wedding dresses hadn't yet been invented. A world in which flowers were a relatively new—and therefore scarce—bumolutionary product.

And, surely, the chance that ‘sweet' music could exist in such a world was remote.

But Zack was wrong.

Wrong on all three counts.

W
ithin an hour the three Great White Bums returned bearing their precious gifts.

The first bum to approach the Great White Bum bowed and scraped the ground.

‘I bring a most beautiful dress for your bride,' it said as it knelt and held out the white paper-thin bark of a primitive bum-tree.

Robobum gasped with pleasure at the sight of it. ‘It's beautiful,' she said, wrapping it around herself like a sarong.

She turned slowly from side to side. ‘Does my bum—I mean—do
I
look too big in this?' she said to the Great White Bum.

‘No. It's perfect,' said the Great White Bum. ‘You look even more beautiful than before.'

‘You're sure I don't look fat?' said Robobum. ‘I wish I had time to lose just a few kilos.'

‘Robobum seems to be really getting into this “wedding” thing,' said Eleanor quietly to Zack.

‘I'm hoping it's just an act,' said Zack.

‘Me too,' said Eleanor, biting her lip.

‘It
is
a beautiful dress,' said Eleanor's bum.

The second Great White Bum stepped forwards with a very impressive bouquet of ferns and grasses that, while not technically flowers, were still very pretty.

They heard Robobum gasp again, and she brought the plants up to her face as if to smell them.

‘Olfactory report indicates molecular breakdown very pleasant . . .' said Robobum.

‘What's that, my dear?' said the Great White Bum.

‘Robobum!' whispered Zack. ‘Stop doing Robospeak!'

‘Sorry,' said Robobum. ‘It's just that they're
so
beautiful!'

Again Zack and Eleanor traded worried glances. What was happening to Robobum? She was the onboard computer of a bum-fighting machine, programmed for functionality and practicality. She wasn't set up to appreciate beauty or fashion. What would have been the point? But here she was, apparently breathless with excitement about wedding dresses and flowers . . . Zack frowned.

Something wasn't quite right.

But there wasn't time to fix it now.

The third bum stepped up.

‘Your Great Whiteness,' it said. ‘I present to you the finest wind ensemble in the land. The incomparable, the one and only, Great White Bum Quartet.'