Project Boussh: Gand On The Sand - Part 2 by Josh Nolan "Josh." "Guh. Light. Go 'way." "Josh, we must go to the beach." "Geddouda here, Ewoks'll... do stuff." "We are not in your room, Josh. We must go to the beach." Josh finally clawed his way awake, and took in his surroundings. They were in the guest bedroom of Alex's Gold Coast flat, a small room containing little besides two double-bunk beds. On one set of bunks, Andreas and Matt were sleeping, and Josh was on the bottom bunk of the other set. Crouching between the bunks was a grey-green chitinous form, gazing eagerly at Josh. "Uh. Can I have a shower first, Ooryl?" Josh emerged from the bathroom, adjusting his boardshorts, and came up short when he saw Ooryl patiently waiting, similarly attired. "Where did you get them from?" asked Josh, gesturing at Ooryl's boardshorts. "I could have sworn you didn't have any last night..." "Ooryl bought them from the shopping precinct this morning." Josh frowned, shot a glance in the general direction of the Oasis, and looked back at the Gand. "You went out alone." "Ooryl did. It was a beautiful morning. It still is, if you hurry." "What did you use for money?" Ooryl gestured at where Josh's wallet lay on the floor near his bed. "Ooryl took your credit card. They did not check Ooryl's signature." Josh blinked, looked at the wallet, looked back at Ooryl, blinked again, and said in a slightly hurt tone, "You could have asked first." "You were asleep." "I know, but -" Josh struggled to find the words, but was finally defeated by Ooryl's unreadable expression. "Just let me know beforehand if you ever need to do it again. Okay?" Ooryl nodded. "Qrygg will." The pair of them stepped out of the hotel into the bright sunshine. "You know, this is probably a bad time to be out on the beach," said Josh as they crossed the road. "Has Qrygg violated some cultural taboo? If so, Qrygg will -" "It's not that, Ooryl. It's just that it's around midday. The UV levels are really high around now - there's more chance of getting sunburnt." "Ooryl is familiar with this - but Ooryl's exoskeleton absorbs much low-energy radiation before it damages Ooryl." "Yeah, well, I burn easily. I don't exactly relish the thought of spending the rest of the weekend as a lobster." "But you applied the sun-blocking lotion." "Yeah, but still, it may not be enough. But still, I could do with a tan, even if it peels." They walked onto the sand, and travelled about halfway towards the water. Finally, Ooryl asked, "Terrans turn into lobsters if they suffer enough radiation damage?" "Figure of speech, Ooryl." "Oh." The pair spent around half an hour mucking about in the water, Josh trying to teach Ooryl to bodysurf, hampered only by his inability to bodysurf himself. However, a small crowd began to congregate around them, all staring curiously at Ooryl. Most of the crowd were children, some of whom began giggling words to the effect of 'bug man', but there was a middle-aged woman who was staring at Ooryl slack-jawed. As the AFW'er and the Rogue were leaving, Josh took hold of the woman's shoulder and pointed up the beach towards the lifeguard's tower. "Take a good look up there." "What am I supposed to see?" "Not a whole lot, but smile. You're on Candid Camera." Chuckling to himself, Josh led Ooryl away, leaving the woman looking, bewildered, back and forth between the tower and Ooryl. ******* "Ooryl finds the sugar content too high in this. I do not think Ooryl should eat any more." "That's okay," said Josh. "More ice cream for me, then." The two of them were walking on a gallery level in the Oasis shopping centre. The walkway was fairly crowded, but for some reason, people would give Ooryl plenty of room. Josh took the remnants of Ooryl's soft serve out of his hands and began snacking on it. As they were passing an internet cafe, Ooryl reached out and grabbed Josh's shoulder. "We must go inside here." Josh looked up. "Okay, dude. Why?" Ooryl did not answer, and went inside. The cafe was a relatively small affair, with a coffee bar up at the back, and eight PCs arranged in a four-by-two setup. There were six somewhat overweight young males sitting at the computers, and faint John Williams music was coming out of the speakers of the computers. They were busy throwing themselves into pushing and pulling joysticks, and yelling out commentary - "Worship me! I am Skywalker!" "The Force is strong in this one!" "There he goes! Like Wedge Antilles out of a Death Star! Coward!" "It's just a tactical withdrawal..." "They all say that... HA! Smoked ya!" Ooryl looked curiously at Josh. "Did they just mention General Antilles?" "I think they did. Looks like they're playing X-Wing Alliance." Josh threw a glance at Ooryl, and continued, "It's sort of like a flight simulator for various Rebel Alliance and Imperial craft. I'm sure it's not as sophisticated as you're used to." The six men around the computers all relaxed as their dogfight came to an end. The scores came up, and after many catcalls, the one with the lowest score was labelled 'Wedge'. "Hey did you guys hear?" asked one of the men, a pudgy, babyfaced man wearing a Darth Vader T-shirt. "Apparently some losers in America were trying to get Wedge Antilles elected President. And his running mate was some no-name from those X-Wing books. How sad is that?" The gathering groaned, and one said, "Who'd want Wedge when you could get Luke or Han?" Another piped up, saying, "At least with Han you'd have name recognition. Who'd vote for an Antilles?" Still another said, "And who would Wedge have as a cabinet? Those Rogue Squadron weenies?" Both Josh and Ooryl were trembling with rage by now, and then the baby-faced fanboy said, "Of course, it'll never happen. I know a guy over the net who reckons he knows a guy who kidnapped some chick who said she was Wedge's campaign manager." Josh responded with a sharp intake of breath, and looked dumbfoundedly at Ooryl. Ooryl whispered, "I knew Ooryl had to be away from headquarters. Ooryl is Findsman." Josh grinned at this, and said, "Cool. Now, how about we pay them back for those cracks at Wedge and Rogue Squadron?" Ooryl's eyes glittered, and he nodded. Josh sauntered up behind one of the fanboys, glanced at the scores, and said, "Is that the best you could do? How long was the dogfight? Three minutes?" One of the fanboys looked up at Josh, and said, "You think you can do better?" Josh thumbed over his shoulder at Ooryl. "My cousin from Ipswich could do better, and he hasn't even played the game before. You guys suck." "Oh yeah? Care to make a small wager?" "Sure. Ten bucks on my cousin. Everyone flies X-Wings. Anyone who can beat Ooryl's score gets ten bucks, anyone who gets his arse handed to him in a hat has to give me ten bucks. Deal?" "We'll kick that yokel's arse! Why's he in the bug suit, anyway?" Josh shrugged. "He's from Ipswich." "Fair enough. Sit him down, and let the slaughter commence." At Josh's insistence, the fanboys let Ooryl familiarise himself with the various controls, and failed to conceal their amusement when Josh read out what was onscreen to Ooryl. Finally, Ooryl was ready to fly. "You're going down, bug-boy." "Hey, Al, let's team up and earn an easy ten bucks." "You're on. Bug crispyfry, coming up!" "That's one kill to me, one death to bugboy!" "Hey, bugboy's not bad... but he's not good enough! Ha!" "Oh, it hurts to be this good! I can smell those ten bucks already." "And there's the torpedo kill! Too sweet!" "Ooryl..." muttered Josh, anxiously viewing the screen as Ooryl's X-Wing exploded yet again. "I think Ooryl has the interface now, Josh," was the Gand's whispered reply. "Hey, Al, he's on your tail!" "Yeah, but - ouch." "That's okay, I got him! Or... maybe not." "What's up with you guys? This is how you - how'd he do that? He had his back to me!" The commentary continued, increasingly bewildered, for the next fifteen minutes. At one stage, there was a collective howl as Ooryl manoeuvered his opponents into a six-way collision. Finally, the mincing ended, and the scores came up. "Eighty-two kills, five deaths," proclaimed Josh. "And none of you guys racked up double-figure kills. You guys suck chunks. Pay up." Ten minutes later, Josh and Ooryl were headed back toward the hotel, Josh absently flicking through a wad of ten-dollar notes. "I enjoyed that very much," said Ooryl, proudly emphasising his pronoun. "We must get in contact with Voort and relay the information we have gathered." "What, look out for the handle 'Bill Skywalker'? I guess it's better than nothing." "Now, Josh, would you like to convince some more swimmers they are on Candaced Camera?"