The Secret of Suriname: Chapter XIII

Hugh Hamilton

Though they had just been spared a particularly inglorious demise, there was a mounting excitement among the pair as they ascended towards the canopy. The ingenuous, even whimsical construction of the lift promised an elaborate Swiss Family Robinson-style setup in the treetops above, and Ben and Hugh could not help but grin idiotically at the prospect. The impeccably dressed man, meanwhile, held an aspect of handsome boredom, the journey having long ceased being novel. When the lift finally came to a halt, somewhat inelegantly, they were deep within the highest branches of the tallest trees and it was no longer possible to see the ground or the decaying Germans thereon. Ben and Hugh’s anticipatory smiles so dominated their faces at this point that the effect was more than a little off-putting. Of course, they had not yet looked around.
“Mind the faeces,” said the man, stepping adroitly onto an unsullied section of a platform that was otherwise covered in the stuff.
Remaining in the lift, their expressions now violently inverted, Ben and Hugh were horrified to discover that the elaborate arboreal fortress of their imaginations amounted to little more than a haphazard configuration of sticks, planks and torn fabric, which extended only a short distance beyond the platform before nature resumed unmolested. The overwhelming stench that accompanied this discovery would have gone some way towards identifying the substance that was smeared across almost every surface, had their host not already resolved that particular mystery.
“Why... Why…” Ben found himself saying.
“Why what?” said the man, his handsomeness strangely undiminished by the setting.
“Why the faeces, I guess?”
The man chortled condescendingly.
“This is a hideout.”
A few moments of silence passed before Ben and Hugh realised that the man must have considered this explanation satisfactory and was not going to elaborate further without prompting.
“This would scarcely constitute a hideout,” said the man, having been prompted, “if I were reckless with my waste and simply let it fall and gather in the clearing below. I might as well erect a neon sign specifying my exact location.”
“But… But…” Hugh found himself saying.
“But what?”
“But couldn’t you, I don’t know, bury it?”
“Preposterous. You mean to say I should journey all the way to the ground and dig a hole before I go about my business? Leaving alone the impracticality of such an arrangement, I should be spotted in no time.”
“But you could just use a bucket or something up here and then you'd only need to travel down when it gets full,” said Ben. "Or whatever the Robinsons do."
The man turned away and gazed reflectively over the treetops.
“An excellent idea," he announced suddenly, returning to the duo. "I could use you on staff. Please join me in the living room and we can discuss matters further.”
Not seeing anywhere that would even remotely fit the label, Ben and Hugh stepped forward uncertainly before deducing that the collection of poorly arranged planks the man had progressed to was the room in question. Though they took extreme care in making their way over, they did not, regrettably, succeed in remaining unsoiled.
“Can I interest you in some nourishment?” The man held out a tray of very peculiar-looking meat-stuffs.
“No,” said everyone else present.
“Suit yourselves. I suppose you must be wondering who I am?”
Ben and Hugh indicated as much.
“I—,” began the man. “Wait, can I trust you?”
“Yes,” said Ben.
“Yes,” said Hugh.
“Oh, that’s a relief. You can’t be too careful, you know.” The man messily devoured an unspecified meat object before continuing. “My name is Mosgrave.”
The revelation did not have the effect he had anticipated. He cocked his head curiously, some combination of saliva and meat juice dripping down onto his collar as he did so.
“Wait, no, it’s Muskens. Kurt Muskens. Mosgrave is my cover. And before you ask, yes, I am that Muskens.”
“What are you doing out here?” asked Ben, hoping to progress things as rapidly as possible. The novelty of being in a place where more or less every surface bore some trace of human excrement was wearing thin.
“I am searching for the secret of Suriname.”
“What’s the secret of Suriname?” Ben did not bother to disguise the impatience in his voice.
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be searching for it, would I?”
“But do you know what it relates to?”
“Suriname.”
Ben winced. “How do you propose to find it?”
“If I knew that, I would have found it, wouldn’t I?”
“So you just expect it to reveal itself if you shit up a tree long enough?”
“Excuse me?”
“So you just expect it to reveal itself if you sit up a tree long enough?”
“Certainly not. I have people working on it. I’m here so they don’t find me.”
“Who?” barked Hugh, feeling a little left out.
“The board of directors from my former company. They keep sending two-bit detectives after me.”
Ben and Hugh exchanged a glance.
“And of course I have no choice but to dispose of the poor fellows in the most gruesome of fashions if they succeed in locating me. Very wasteful business.” Muskens looked genuinely sombre for a moment. “Still,” he continued, licking his lips, “It’s not all wasteful.”
Ben and Hugh exchanged another glance.
“I just wish they’d get on with things and leave me be. A man should not be condemned to a lifetime in the tempered glass and custard game just because he was astonishingly successful at deriving profits from it. Peter understands.”
“Who’s Peter?” asked Hugh.
“Peter Ogtrop, of Ogtrop's Glustard. He’s thinking of going straight as well. We were the fiercest of rivals back in the day but we’ve become fast friends since I left the industry. He’s been awfully helpful, too. Got me that fancy lift and installed the security system that did a job on your friends down there. He even found someone to bring me a regular supply of fresh clothes, the considerate cad. If it weren't for him and his cherished ex-militia sons, I don’t know where I’d be.”
“Dutch fellow, I suppose?” said Ben, too exhausted from the exposition dump to be scared anymore.
“Naturally. Oh, it’s time for my pills. Do excuse me.” Muskens fished a small container from one of his pockets.
“Pills?” said Hugh, straining to make out the text on the container.
“Yes, Peter swears by them. Must keep the vitals on the level, you know. Care to try one? They’re apple-flavoured.”
“My favourite artificial flavour!”
“We’re fine,” said Ben, impeding Hugh's approach.
“Righto.” Muskens located a canteen that had seen better days — that is to say, days in which it did not have shit smeared on it — and was just about to take a pill when something occurred to him.
“Say, you haven't seen any detectives about, have you?”
“Detectives? No, I can’t say I have. Have you, Hugh?”
“I wish! It would be very exciting to see fellow detectives. I mean detective fellows! But no, absolutely not.”
Ben decided against inflicting a measure of pain on his companion, realising it would only draw further suspicion. In fact it was he who had committed the greater blunder, as Muskens’ next remark made plain.
“Did you say Hugh?”

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter XII

Ben Hansen

Despite the struggle being briefer even than our stalwart heroes would admit, there was still time for enough grabbing, joint-wrenching and nervous farting for the two to feel like they had at least made a showing. The non-blond, slightly less physically impressive with the gun exposed but no less threatening, directed them deeper into the copse to reveal that behind the trees they had previously seen, there were in fact more trees.
"So it's a secret arboreal lair!" Ben declared smugly. Hugh decided he was not interested enough in loosening the cavities he had preemptively clenched for long enough to formulate a response.
By and by, the Germans brought the pair to a clearing with no clear avenue of escape that wouldn't involve getting past one of the four other Germans (also non-blond, also topless) that dwelt within.
"Hey," said one of the four non-blonds. "What's up?"
"We have more delicious guests to help us in our Ultimate goals!" boomed their Kraut captor as Ben and Hugh let out silent breaths of relief at the narrowly aborted reference.
"Ahhh, wunderbar! Let us get them out of those constricting clothes and into a few moist warmups!"
"I mean, it's pretty warm now," Ben said, trying to delay the inevitable while his counterpart tried to take advantage of the momentary distraction to climb a tree, or at least bring the scenery down on his captors once again.
Alas, while lightning may occasionally strike twice, it had struck none of the surrounding trees and none of them were obliging enough to give way under Hugh's weight.
The very manliest of their topless tormentors came up while Hugh was hanging a mere foot from the ground, and prised the smaller man's limbs from their positions as Ben's expert arguments were derailed by the more mentally supple musclemen and their expert conversational gambit of saying "no."
Barely a shenanigan later, the Germans had taken the detectives two to a person, removing their tops by force despite the wailing and desperate pleas, and deposited the two unceremoniously in the middle of the clearing.
"I almost wish there had been an ulterior motive," Hugh muttered as the pair stood back to back, turning slowly as they wondered which of the discs being tossed up and down by the ring of spiteful sportsmen would be the first to find their way into a delicate part of the duo's anatomy. "At least we'd be getting some idea of where to go next with this case."
"I just wish I knew why they keep choosing us," Ben replied. "Ten years of this now."
"We must just be fated to become the Ultimate victims." Hugh tore his gaze from the threatening musculature and solid stares of their antagonists to glance up at his companion. "Well, just in case they can't dig all the plastic out this time... can you tell my parents to pay for the Amazon Lost Tribe Experience?"
"Wait, that debt and all of the Dutch midgets don't die with us?"
"No, not at all, you see -"
"Vait," said the blond German, so shocked that his accent slipped into a Count Von Count impersonation. "You say you are making Dutch midgets die?"
"Only in the sense that we're leaving them Dutch and destitute," Ben jumped in. "So far, we've only killed full-size ones."
"And we'll do it again if we have to!" Hugh declared, dropping into what he hoped would be taken for a vaguely competent martial arts stance. The effect was, to his shame, bad enough that the Germans looked at each other in confusion, exchanging mutters of "was ist das?" just loudly enough for it to carry to his ears.
"We are most pleased to hear this!" the Blond declared, his wide grin momentarily leaving the pair stunned. "Those despicable Dutch douches dying delights us deliciously! The dastardly dicks' defeat demands duly dedicatory discourse!"
"Hearing our hatred of horrible Hollanders has humoured you heartens us!" Hugh happily hollered, hoping for the Huns' happroval strongly enough to start alliterating words that didn't exist.
"Yeah, hollandaise is awful," Ben said, missing the point almost as severely as we've missed his writing.
"Yes," the German added, "Knowing we have killed the murderers of our most hated enemies will make us twice as powerful. We shall become the ultimate Ultimate team! So ultimate that our foes will not dare make light of our redundancy!"
"Bollocks," Hugh said.
"Arse nuggets," Ben replied dejectedly.
"Take careful aim, men," the blond called out. "Today we harass and belittle heroes to our kind."
Every muscle tensed, our heroes faced their impending deaths.
They did not expect to face the view of a steaming yellow, viscous liquid pouring onto the heads of all the Germans at once, ruining the one claim to a distinct identity that the non-blonds had even as it caused third degree burns on their scalps and permanently damaged the eyes of those who did not close them quickly enough.
"Hey!" the four formerly non-blondes cried out in unison. "What's going on?"
"You just had to say it, didn't you," came a voice, emanating from hidden speakers in every direction. The Germans did not seem to take the chastening to heart as well as they could, possibly as a result of their scrambling in every direction in a desperate attempt to get away from the pain. Considering the number that ran into each other in the middle of the clearing and collapsed over one another, the witnesses unconsciously formed a concensus that this could have been better executed.
"Don't tell me," Ben said, as Hugh experimentally ran his finger through what remained of a nearby sportsman's face and stuck it in his mouth.
"Yup," Hugh confirmed. "Tempered glass flavoured."
A platform built of wood descended beside the pair, seemingly built from whatever branches were at hand and lashed to a series of tightly braided vines. The man inside, neither midget nor muscleman and clearly free of frisbees, was one of the most beautiful sights that Ben and Hugh had seen.
"Come with me if you want to live," the man advised. "We should be safe in my secret arboreal lair!"
As one, Hugh and Ben grabbed their clothes and made for the lift with a quickness.

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter XI

Hugh Hamilton

"I guess that rules out searching the building for more Muskens-related clues," said Hugh from the place he and Ben had deemed the least incriminating. Hiding up a tree was not, in truth, the best method of eluding suspicion, particularly as they still wore blood-splattered clothes, but the tree's ample foliage ensured they at least eluded plain sight. Somewhere in the distance the sirens continued to wail.
"If you ask me, this whole country reeks of Muskens," said Ben, toying with the smart phone he had pilfered from one of the corpses. "I'm half expecting us to stumble upon some custardy Muskens lair behind these branches."
"That would be fitting," agreed Hugh. "Although the sign back there did make it clear that this was a Muskens-free zone."
"Yes, that was a curious sign, wasn't it?"
Both getting the same idea, Ben and Hugh turned and pushed back some of the foliage behind them. There, through the branches, they saw... well, if not a lair, exactly, then certainly... trees. More trees.
"Ah, an expertly hidden lair," said Ben. "Devious."
"Or trees," said Hugh. "I think I'm with Ockham on this one."
Before they could retreat, a handsome, topless male bounded into view.
"Muskens!" said Ben.
Hugh attempted to elbow his disapproval but instead lost his balance and landed awkwardly and painfully at the feet of the now-baffled, still-topless man.
"Are you OK?" said the man. He was offering one of his pleasingly toned arms.
"Muskens!" said Ben, again.
"What's a Muskens?" said the man, pulling Hugh effortlessly to his feet.
"Does he smell like custard?" Ben called down.
"That's not what I'm getting, no."
The man blinked. "You two haven't seen a frisbee, have you?"
"Thousands," said Ben, who had, as it happened, just found one. "Did you have one in mind?"
"Yes, it's red and somewhere in this area."
"Are there women where you come from?" interjected Hugh, still holding the man's palm despite the man having jettisoned his grip some moments prior. The extreme incongruity between the smooth, dark, adult hand and the flaky, bleach-white miniature was not lost on Ben, who giggled wryly from his bough.
The man blinked again. "Excuse me?"
"You mean this?" said Ben.
Unhinged ecstasy flashed across the man's face as he spied the red disc. "That's it! May I have it?"
"I will expertly frisbee it down to you," said Ben, creating a verb no one had asked for. The frisbee's trajectory was interrupted almost immediately by a nearby branch. Seeing an excuse to wrest himself free of Hugh's persistent grasp, the man dived athletically and caught the frisbee moments before it could complete its pathetic descent. It was then that Ben realised he was not looking at some casual, run-of-the-mill frisbee-thrower. The man beneath him bore all the hallmarks of—
"Find it?" A second man had emerged from the bushes, mildly less handsome but similarly topless.
"Yes," said the first man, regaining his footing and gliding the frisbee to his companion.
The second man received the disc via an elegant, if entirely unnecessary, spin of his body, during which he noticed Ben and Hugh for the first time. "Who are these two?"
"Ze zijn op zoek naar Muskens. Zij moeten worden behandeld," whispered the first man in an attempt at covert communication that failed on all counts but the fact that it was in Dutch. He quickly turned back to Ben and Hugh. "Where are my manners? I merely said, 'These are my new friends'."
The second man looked at Ben, then Hugh, then Ben again, swishing his obscene blond hair all the while.
"Well, it just so happens that we are in need of two able-bodied men for Ultimate," he said, stepping forward like a hot, topless car salesman.
Ben winced. There was that word. It had been ten years since he and Hugh had suffered unspeakable torment at the hands of several lean thugs coming off an Ultimate high, but the pain was still there.
"Are there women where you come from?" said Hugh, who had not realised the non-trademark-infringing variant of the name referred to the same sport.
The blond man laughed in a way that did not immediately bring to mind known patterns of human behaviour. "Yes, lots."
"We're in!"
"No," said Ben, dramatically. "You are mistaken. For we are neither able-bodied nor men. What's more—wait, scratch that second part. What's more, I translated what you said using my phone."
"And?" said the non-blond, amused.
"And... Well, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense—something about looking for Mahdi and us needing to be treated—but it certainly wasn't 'These are my new friends'."
"Come, come. You're not relying on one of those dreadful internet translating services, are you? Mahdi is simply Dutch for 'friend'."
"Really?"
"Yes, in fact— Actually, never mind. I hate farce." The man withdrew a pistol that had hitherto been hidden suggestively in his trunks. "Like all Ultimate players, we are sociopaths and we mean you harm." He turned to his companion. "I'll take the little one. You take the one in the tree."

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter X

Ben Hansen

Surprisingly – or, more accurately, not – the utter disregard the smaller man had for the corpses he’d just helped to create caused the remaining German to have a lot more respect for him. Ben, despite having very little in the way of blood on his hands (although a little had been smeared on his pants during a very poorly judge attempt at improving the mood with a pratfall) was still impressively unrespectable. As a result, after divesting the heavily armed German of his heavy armaments, lighter armaments and vest, Ben decided he’d wander about the building while Hugh, armed with the least bloody machete he could pry loose from a German’s teeth, led the interrogation.

“Firstly, where is Muskens?” Hugh asked, too shaken up by his recent double homicide to ask for the man’s full backstory and motives as per usual.

“Who is Muskens?” asked the German, perplexed.

“Don’t play smart with me,” said Hugh, as threateningly as someone with such a distinct aroma of terror and feces about them could. He raised the machete in what he hoped was a threatening manner.

“I am not ze smart player with you!” the German responded, eyes bulging. Hugh lowered the machete and they returned to their sockets via the exits provided.

Hugh tried raising and lowering the machete a few more times just to see how long the eyes would keep bulging in and out, but after one popped out and the German screamed for a few more minutes he decided he should probably put the weapon down and get on with it.

“Why were you people attacking us, then?” he asked.

“Ve are hearing the story of two escapees from the Amazon Lost Tribe Experience, a company we invest in. We are coming to collect for our business to not crash.”
“The Amazon Lost Tribe Experience is crashing?”

“Surely, unless this month of decadence is paid for. It is an experience with very high overheads, you understand.”

“So we... we destroyed the business and killed the debt collectors who came after us?”
“Ja.”

“Huh.” Hugh turned to the three-quarters-of-a-living room. “Hey Ben, we’re evil now!”

“I thought we were just... messy?” Ben asked, head appearing around the door.

“Yeah, apparently we’re ruining lives now.”

Ben walked back into the room, pointing at the two bodies piled in the corner with all the weaponry suggestively. This silent statement on the obviousness of Hugh’s information did not detract as much as he had hoped from the fact that he was no longer wearing pants.

“Okay, but we’re ruining lives that are not necessarily bent on ending ours,” Hugh told the wall a meter and a half to Ben’s left, not allowing a period’s worth of pause between this sentence and “why are you half-naked?”

“I found half a bathroom and tried to wash the blood off,” Ben answered. And you won’t believe what I just found. Also whose lives have we ruined?”

“Half of the bathroom?”

“Well, yes, but it’s more what’s in the bathroom. Is this about Grace again? I’m eighty percent sure she’s not allergic to Little Ben. The one you’re not trying to avoid looking at.”

“No, it turns out we ended the Amazon Lost – look, do you mind?”

“Oh, go for it.”

“No, I mean put some–“

Hugh gave in to the mounting pressure in his skull and turned back to Ben’s form, only to discover after all the effort of keeping his eyes elsewhere, Little Ben was hidden beneath Big Ben’s trademarked baggy t-shirt with pop culture reference. Hugh sighed, though whether in relief or disappointment only the fanfiction writers could say.

“Right. Put some pants on. We’ve got to pay for our month of luxury or the company dies.”

Ben popped back into the other room, and stumbled back, hoisting his pants into place. “Well, we’ve needed some financial pressures to complain about since the whole Christmas debacle. Will they let us pay in instalments?”

“Will you let us pay in instalments?” Hugh asked, turning back to their prisoner and accidentally bringing the machete a little too close to the German genitals. His high-pitched wail as the foreskin was pierced was accompanied by a weird slurping sound as the fear caused his eye to suck back into his socket.

“Ja, ja, anything! Just let me live!”

“Deal!” Hugh shook hands with the German and returned his vest. The German ran screaming into the street.

“I’m not sure what you said, but you made a damn good deal,” Ben said, watching him go.

“Yeah, I was pretty satisfied. What did you find?”
“Well, two things, thanks to that extra walk you made me take. The mirrors in the bathroom? All made with Musken’s tempered glass.”
“The company or the man?”

“Well, I assume the company, but I don’t know, really.”

“Suspicious. And the other thing?”

“The insulation in all the walls here.” Ben smacked a hole into the wall with a handy machete and a viscous yellow goo oozed out.  “Also Musken’s.”

“Musken’s tempered glass?”
“No, Musken’s custard. You can tell by the taste of tempered glass.”

As Hugh moved to look closer, the sound of sirens began to make itself audible in the distance.
"I wonder what they're for," Ben mused as Hugh stuck a finger in the custard.

"Hard to say," Hugh said before sticking a finger in his mouth. The mingled flavours of custard, tempered glass and plaster from the wall made his mouth into a moue of distaste. "Suriname seems like such a law-abiding place."

"Does it seem like they're getting closer?"
"Hard to say."
"Should we be further away from people we killed than we are?"
"Hard to - actually, that one seems pretty easy to say. Let's go."

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter IX

Hugh Hamilton

Upon entering the building, Ben noticed two things. The first was the faintly familiar scent of male sweat. It was only faintly familiar because both he and his partner were incapable of generating the stuff, and, as a rule, tended to avoid locations where perspiring men were known to gather. The other, more pressing thing he noticed was the presence of several sweat-producing males, each of whom appeared to possess an ammunitions truck worth of firepower. Indeed, so comprehensively armed was the group that apparently indispensable machetes had to be kept between their clenched teeth. Admittedly there was nothing preventing the blades from simply being sheathed or otherwise affixed to their belts, but these alternatives would have assuredly been less cool. A few feet behind the intimidating men (whose teeth would surely be gnashing if it weren't for the machetes), the two Germans looked on, enjoying the impunity afforded by opaque sunglasses and a room full of armed subordinates.
"Dit zal goed zijn," said one, in flawless Dutch.
"Whoops, wrong house," said Ben, pulling Hugh towards the door. Somehow anticipating this, one of the Germans had already positioned himself between them and freedom.
"Nicht so fast," said the German, in not-flawless English.
Ben, as was customary, looked at Hugh, not for wisdom or ideas, but rather to share in a moment of defeat. Hugh was not looking back. Instead, he had adopted a purposeful stance, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He stepped forward. Ben was impressed, up until the moment he noticed Hugh had soiled himself. Then he was impressed in a different kind of way.
"Catch me if you can," said Hugh, immediately wishing he had thought of something cleverer. The men looked at one another and would have shared a smirk of some description had the machetes allowed. One of them attempted to say something to the effect of "Allow me" and stepped forward. The actual remark was understood by no one, owing, once again, to the whole machete business, but the stepping-forward part seemed to do the trick.
"No," said Hugh. "All of you." The provocation had the intended effect. The mass of muscles and firepower was now concentrated solely on him, awaiting the merest of flinches. Some time later Hugh remembered to breathe. Then he remembered to run. Whether by design or luck, this did not initially prompt his antagonists to unload several rounds of bullets into him. In fact, the impotent, pitiable attempt at a diversion endeared them to the idea of protracted torture. Death would come later.
Hugh looked behind him. He was glad they had taken the bait, but he was simultaneously despairing that he had not really planned beyond this point. Not really. He looked up. The room appeared to be midway through construction. Nearby, a paint-splattered support structure led up to a chaotic ceiling of rafters and struts. Two more seconds and the men would be upon him. He could hear them readying to pounce. One. With a spastic beauty, he leapt. For a moment there was silence. Then there was something decidedly louder as he arced into the support structure. It collapsed immediately. A scattershot of handyman debris hit everywhere except the approximate locations of his pursuers, who at this point had generated far too much momentum to change course. But as they hurtled towards the wreckage, a series of steel struts cascaded down from the ceiling, bluntly interrupting their strides. Those who didn't trip from the struts tripped from the tripping men in front of them. It was at this moment that the wisdom of keeping an extra-broad machete between one's teeth truly came into question. Each of the men came to the same conclusion, as each, in turn, had his head severed from the mouth up.
Back at the entrance, Ben gagged discreetly. Having witnessed part of a head bounce bloodily past him, the further German failed to be quite so discreet.
"Now shall we talk?" said Ben. He was smiling. Hugh had a point after all.

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter VIII

Ben Hansen

Much to the duo's surprise and relief, the Germans were not in fact faux. They weren't even recognisable to Ben or Hugh. In fact, neither of them could recall having ever seen quite as much leather in one place either, come to that, expensive furniture included.

The non-faux, nouveaux Germans had fortunately chosen to walk away from the dumpster in the opposite direction, leaving Ben and Hugh free to stagger after them in the comfort that comes with being ignored. From this angle, they couldn't see much of their quarry but elaborately coiffed hair, expensive-looking black coats and just a hint of nihilism.

“You're kidding,” Hugh griped to Ben as they wandered along, the latter fiddling with a broken lampshade he'd picked off the ground on a whim. “We're going from German swingers to German expressionist artists?”
“What do you mean?”

“Well, I'm led to believe there are normal Germans out there. How is it we only happen across the stereotypical extremes, sex-crazed lunatics and style-obsessed neohipsters?”

“Perhaps we're just lucky?” Ben ventured, idly hanging his lampshade on an ajar door as the two passed it by.

“I bet they even listen to techno,” Hugh muttered to himself as they continued.

The Germans had at this point reached the other end of the alley and decided to turn left. Hugh and Ben took advantage of their natural contrast to peer around the corner together, one leaning over the other.

“It seems they came from that building on the right,” Ben observed.
“What, the one they just went into now? How observant.”

“Fine. Did you notice how they'd had a long-standing connection with the Russian Mafia?”

“I, uh. No.” Hugh was genuinely impressed. “How could you tell?”

“Well, they. Um. Honestly, I was just guessing wildly.”

“Oh.” Hugh deflated a little. “You're not allowed to talk any more.”

Ben didn't reply, so it seemed fair to say he'd got the point.

The two shortly discovered that the Germans had quite impressive eyesight, possibly augmented by their unnaturally angled and tinted sunglasses, mostly by way of somebody inside the relevant building double-taking before staring at them, starting to shout while pointing at them and gesticulating wildly, and a flurry of motion occurring inside the building for a couple of minutes before the place became a little too still.

“Do you think that means they destroyed everything useful and ran away?” Ben conjectured.

Hugh shot his heterosexual partner a dark look before taking the initiative and initiating the pair's quick trot towards the door.

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter VII

Hugh Hamilton

Ben awoke to the feeling of sweaty lips, hot breath and piercing bristles. Gradually, detail by detail, he formed the image of a portly man with a deafening Hawaiian shirt breathing air into him. Without wishing to seem rude, he broke the suction with a sudden, violent movement and began alternately coughing and retching in dizzying circles across the beach. Eventually composing himself, he turned to face the man he could so disconcertingly still taste.
“Um, thanks?” he offered.
“Hey, it was good for me, too,” said the man, perplexingly showing little sign of offense at being wrestled to the ground by his face. The answer did little to alleviate Ben’s unease.
“Where did you find me?” said Ben, finally.
“Right here on the beach.”
“Oh? Guess I washed ashore." Ben thought for a moment. "Must have really been touch and go there.”
“Not really. I just had to wait till you fell asleep.”
Ben stared.
“Anyway,” said the man, “I guess I’ll continue on my way.”
Ben stared. Then he began to remember. He remembered gunshots and water. He remembered a large wave... And he remembered an altogether more handsome gentleman also breathing air into him, on a boat. A pleasingly clean-shaven gentleman—
“What a noble creature,” said Hugh, having waddled up the beach to join Ben. “Now he’s helping that poor old lady up there. I don't know what it is, but I’ve always had a good feeling about Canadians.”
Ben looked down and wondered whether he should irreparably damage Hugh’s feeling about Canadians.
“He didn’t even want anything in return,” continued Hugh.
“Come on, Muskens won’t find himself,” said Ben, steering his companion in the opposite direction.

A short while later they reached Paramaribo, whereupon Ben directed them to the nearest establishment in possession of a liquor license. The sun was beginning to set and the place had a tacky, postcardy kind of feel.
“What are we doing here?” asked Hugh.
“Well, I don’t know about you," said Ben, "but I’m going to make an ass of myself. Bourbon Sunrise, please.”
The bartender nodded.
“I’m not really a huge drinker,” said Hugh.
“No — what are you, 5 even?”
Hugh scowled.
“Oh come on, my treat.”
“All right,” said Hugh, surveying the drinks board. “Get me a... ‘Djogo and Tonic’.”
Six Bourbon Sunrises later, Ben was swaying merrily in his seat. One Djogo and Tonic later, Hugh was losing weight. At least half of his final banquet at the resort was now on the floor of the bar, while a deathly trail of Surinam cherry marked his journeys to and from the bathroom. The place having cleared out some time ago, it did not require much effort on the bouncer's part to locate the offending guts and vigorously escort their owner and his giggling friend outside.
“Well, that was fun,” said Ben, unthinkingly leading them into a side alley.
“Urg,” said Hugh.
As they approached a sinister-looking dumpster, which at the time seemed to Ben like a perfectly natural and wonderful thing to approach, they heard voices.
“We moeten deze leveringen naar Muskens vanavond,” came one voice.
“Ik haat gaan door die verdomde regenwoud,” came another.
“Wees stil. Er zijn twee mannen naar ons te kijken,” came the first voice again.
“Did you hear that?” whispered Ben, indiscreetly giggling between each word.
“Urg,” said Hugh.
“Someone definitely said Muskens.”
“Urg,” said Hugh.
“I think we should tail them.”
“Totes,” said Hugh.

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter VI

Ben Hansen

"Be more gentle, damn you," Hugh muttered as the faux-natives heaved him off his pallet. "These bedsores aren't going to alleviate themselves!"
"We are sorry," muttered the small man who had somehow drifted into the role of pseudotribal spokesperson. "Perhaps if we could be sure of some remuneration for all this in the near future, we would be able to work on your continuing comfort with a little more delicacy."
This had been a recurring theme in the man's conversation for the last three weeks, since he'd originally admitted to speaking English. Clearly, the ersatz natives were growing restless.
"Well, you see," Hugh began, "My wallet is in my pants, and thanks to all the bounty of nature and things I haven't seen -"
"Your pants have been kept aside just here for when you are ready to return to civilisation," the frustrating little creature replied, vanishing from under Hugh's newly spherical form and returning with them. "Now that you have been reunited, would you - oh, bugger."
With the departure of the little man's strength from under Hugh's weight, the others had been unable to maintain their hold on him and had collapsed beneath him like matchsticks beneath a rockmelon. Hugh rolled downhill, unable to do anything to slow himself, and tumbled on towards the bay. He closed his eyes in preparation for the inevitable impact.
The impact was... not what he'd expected. There was a moment's moistness followed by a sudden, violent rocking motion completely unaccompanied by the "splash" he normally come to predict from this kind of situation.
Even stranger, as the rocking began to abate, he heard a voice unheard for an age saying "Hello, Hugh".
Hugh timidly opened his eyes to reveal that, rather than having ended up in the river, he'd landed perfectly in a metallic-looking raft that was now floating serenely away from shore. With only one other person for company.
"Hey, Ben," Hugh sighed. "What's this?"
"This," Ben said, flourishing dramatically, "is our escape route."
"It's a raft you made out of... aluminium cans?"
"Aluminium cans, old fruit bags, contraceptive packets... You'd be amazed how much trash these people generate, making things look natural."
"And we're on this raft because..."
"Otherwise you'd have to pay for the holiday. Oh, and there's the whole Muskens dealie."
"Good points," Hugh admitted, sadly releasing his intentions to swim back to shore. "How did you know to put the raft there?"
"Well, you've rolled into the lake like this every day for the last week. All I had to do was follow the rut, really. You've really let yourself go."
"Technically, they've let myself go."
"We'd better hurry, anyway, or they may not let yourself go."
True to Ben's word, the phony tribe had assembled on the shore and were shaking fists angrily at the duo as they slowly floated away. A few minutes later, more arrived, with weapons.
"It's kind of interesting that even after a dine and dash they stick with the primitive tribe motif," Hugh observed. "Do they think they'll catch us with a handful of spears?"
"Was that a gunshot?"
"Faster! Faster!"

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter V

Hugh Hamilton

“So, shall we escape, then?” said Hugh, using an astonishingly compliant servant’s fingernail as a toothpick.

“What would we escape to?” said Ben. “Here we have people tending to our every whim. People. Out there we have no people. Our whims go untended.”

“I still feel kind of exploitative,” said Hugh. He frowned; a tiny servant mopped his brow with a fresh, cool towel. 

“I felt like that the first week,” Ben said through mushed banana. “It wears off.”

Hugh attempted to shrug but the lethargic lifestyle he had been enjoying disinclined him to activate the necessary muscles. So he farted. Ben nodded at his retainer, who immediately sprang up and drizzled a fragrant concoction over the affected area. Now damp and perfumed, Hugh thought he ought to complain about the sudden assault but became fatigued imagining himself engaging in a second conversation for the day. He closed his eyes instead.

The following month the topic re-emerged.

“We could always come back,” said Hugh.

“Hm?” said Ben, somewhere within a rapidly diminishing mound of Surinam cherry. 

“We could escape, track down Muskens, collect our money, then come back.”

Ben stopped chewing to think — doing both concurrently would have constituted an unnecessary exertion.

“I suppose,” he managed.

“We could at least scope the place for exits,” said Hugh, making an effort to rise. Several abortive attempts later, he was on his feet for the first time in three weeks. Ben joined him, having engaged the services of three of his helpers.

“So, escape,” said Ben, fingering a freshly discovered bed sore.

“Escape. No!” blurted one of the helpers. His clipped, guttural voice startled the pair.

“Excuse me?”

“No! Escape.”

“That’s just the same thing the other way around. That doesn’t help.” Ben had recently begun affecting a superior tone with his helpers.  

“Escape bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Escape bad! Death!”

“I think he’s trying to tell us something,” chimed in Hugh.

The helper sighed.

“Please don’t go,” he said, reverting to fluent English and a higher, more pleasing pitch.

Hugh looked at Ben.

“What can I say? He must have picked it up from me.” 

“Why shouldn’t we go?” asked Hugh.

The helper beamed nervously. “I don’t believe you’ve experienced the full extent of our hospitality.”

“If you mean more fruit and pampering, well, we’re tempted, but we really must be—”

“No, no,” interrupted the helper. “It’s much better than that. You’ve yet to try our fine selection of concubines.”

“What are they, some kind of rodent? I’ve actually sworn off—”

“No.” The helper dabbed his own forehead with a towel. “Concubines are women, highly amenable women.”

“Would you mind not organising your sentences around Surinamese words? I know we’ve been here a while, but we haven’t picked up much of the local tongue yet.”

Ben pulled Hugh aside. “He’s trying to bribe us with sex.” 

“Don’t be preposterous,” said Hugh.

“No, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” said the helper. “How about it?”

“With you?”

“Not with—” The helper closed his eyes until some of his rage retreated. “With the concu— women. With the women.”

“Oh.” Hugh blinked rapidly. He turned to Ben. “I’m pretty sure this is one of those moral turning points.”

“Really?” said Ben, removing his pants. 

“It’s just that... This is not how I imagined it happening.”

“Well, you can either go on imagining it happening or take this opportunity to actually have it happen.”

Hugh nodded. “You don’t feel this is a bit too much like prostitution, though?” 

Ben stopped at the final layer, realising he should at least wait for the appearance of the concubines. “I don’t see how. We’re not paying anyone.”

“Fair enough,” said Hugh, beginning to remove his own pants.

“No, it’s exactly like prostitution,” said the helper. “And what do you mean, you’re not paying anyone?”

“Doesn’t our standing as gods give us a free ride in all this?” said Ben.

“Are you kidding?”

“Um, no.”

“You don’t know what this is?”

“It’s not an Amazonian lost tribe thing?” 

“No. It’s the Amazonian lost tribe experience, the sixteenth most popular reason to travel to Suriname. No one actually thinks you’re gods. We’re actors. Did you really think you were paying to be part of a genuine tribe?”

“But,” said Hugh.

“But,” said Ben.

“What was that weird language you were speaking this whole time?” said Hugh. “Explain that.”

“What, you mean Dutch?”

“That was Dutch?”

The helper smiled. “This is why we never bothered to concoct some obscure Amazonian dialect.”

“So what, we can just leave?” said Ben.

“Of course. We’d just rather you didn’t.” A few other helpers nodded in agreement. “It was a slim period before you guys turned up. Ever since the press got hold of the whole concubine business. But, thanks to you and your riches, we’ve been able to act again and take the weight off the girls somewhat.”

“Riches?” said Hugh and Ben.

“Yes. It’s been a long time since anyone has been able to afford our premium service. We thought something was up initially, what with the strange manner in which you arrived, but your substantial deposit persuaded us otherwise. Still, we knew it couldn’t last forever. Do you want to settle the bill now, or shall I bring out the concubines?”

“Concubines,” said Hugh, turning to Ben for ex post facto approval. He wasn’t there. Hugh smiled at the helper. “Excuse me.”

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter IV

By Ben Hansen

Hugh's realisation upon returning to consciousness that he had a splitting headache was followed closely by the realisation that the pounding sound in his head, loud though it seemed, paled in comparison to the pounding sound from outside of it.
Ever so gingerly, he opened his eyes, revealing an expanse of bizarre pistons smacking into a wall and retracting, repeatedly. As Hugh lifted his head, his eyes cleared and the pistons realigned themselves into hundreds of legs, apparently attached to a multitude of dancing people at a rate of about two each.
Tiny, tiny dancing people.
All of which seemed to center around him.
What?
"Morning, sleepyhead," came Ben's voice from behind him. Hugh turned around slowly, in case his brain would spill from his ear as he did so.
One thing Hugh had not expected was to see Ben sitting in one of a pair of stone thrones on a raised dais, wearing a crown of wood and a cape of feathers, boredly nibbling at a banana being timorously offered to him by one of the tiny people that had surrounded him as well. Although, when he thought about it, he couldn't work out why this would be any stranger than most of the other things that turned up as a matter of course.
"Uh." Was all Hugh could think of to say.
"Yeah, we're gods now," Ben said, by way of explanation.
"Uh," Hugh acknowledged.
After a moment or two, he realised that Ben wasn't actually intending to follow this last comment up with anything, and mentally assembled a scathing indictment of Ben's recent inability to communicate even the most important points to people who needed to know, coupled with a detailed description of the physical torments Ben and all his loved ones would experience were he to delay in giving a decent explanation immediately.
Somewhere between his brain and his mouth, it got translated into "what?"
"So that C.I.A. guy apparently drugged us, carted us to this... I dunno, island? Atoll? Jungle?"
"Cave," Hugh suggested.
"Carted us to this cave, and dumped us in the hands of the locals, along with some gibberish about us being the Chosen Ones."
"The Chosen Ones of what?"
"You know, for whatever reason I've found it difficult to get that much information from them. Maybe because  they're a stereotypical South American lost tribe and I only speak English?"
"Did you try speaking to them slowly and loudly?" Hugh asked.
"I spoke my slowest and my loudest. They decided I was asking for a banana."
"Why would anyone do something this pointlessly elaborate and useless?"
"Well, you have to admit this gets us out of the way while Charlie's plans unfold."
"He had plans?"
"Oh, my bad. He just drugged, kidnapped and deified us for the amusement factor."
Hugh sighed and propped himself up on the unoccupied throne. A handful of natives were suddenly at his side with a basin of water and a bowl of fruits.
"This is the stupidest thing that's ever happened to us," he ruminated before popping the first of what he imagined would be many grapes into his mouth.
"It really, really is," Ben agreed.

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter III

Hugh Hamilton

Leading the pair to a small eatery which, judging by its proportionate proportion of locals, was reasonably authentic, the man removed his copper-framed spectacles, deeming them no longer necessary, and ordered a sampling of indigenous dishes. Returning from the counter, he slammed dully into a side table which staff had carelessly left out in the hope of customers sitting at it and re-affixed his spectacles. Ben and Hugh giggled.

“I know why you’re here,” the man said, finally seating himself beside them at the table and nursing his left leg under it.

“I should hope so, you brought us here,” said Ben, becoming faintly pleased with himself afterwards. “Although you did get my name wrong.”

“Hm?” The man blinked.

“Ben Surname. An easy mistake to make given the context, but there you go.”

“Well then I must beg your pardon.”

“You have it, my good man.”

“May I continue?”

Ben thought for a moment before assenting. 

“Thank you.” The man scoped the room briefly then continued. “This is about Kurt Muskens, no?”

Ben looked at Hugh before Hugh could look at Ben.

“Um... No?” ventured Hugh.

“Please, I’m C.I.A.”

“We surrender,” said both.

“Or Charles Isidro Abendalak, if you prefer, Suriname’s finest private detective. There’s not a lot that goes down around here that I don’t know about.”

“Yes, you almost knew our names,” said Ben, nudging himself in the ribs when he noticed Hugh wasn’t going to.

“And what if this is about Kurt Muskens?” asked Hugh.

“Then it would be my regrettable duty to inform you that you have wasted a 20-hour plane journey.”

“How so?”

Charles put his hands together patronisingly. “He’s not here.” 

“He’s not?”

“No. He was -- your intel was not entirely wrong. But no longer.”

“Good thing we’re not looking for him then,” said Ben. “But supposing we were, where is the little bleeder?”

“He has returned home, or to somewhere even further from Suriname.”

At this point an assortment of plates arrived at their table, assisted ably by the person bringing them. Hugh surveyed the meat-based dishes dismally before honing in on a safe-looking pepper pot. 

“So you’ll be leaving then?” said Charles, strangely not participating in the meal.

“Oh I don’t know,” said Ben. “I’ve heard Suriname in the spring is magical.”

“You’ve heard wrong. Spring in Suriname is a living nightmare of cyclones and poison rain.”

“But with charming scenery. I think we’ll stay,” decided Ben.

“I didn’t want it to get to this point, chaps, but I’m afraid I will have to insist upon your departure.”

“And how will you do that?” said Hugh.

“By lacing the food you have just imbibed with poison.”

The pair nodded in unison.

“Can I take you up on two points there?” said Ben. 

“By all means.”

“Well, firstly you used ‘imbibed’ incorrectly, and secondly, you said, ‘I didn’t want it to get to this point’, when you quite clearly would have had to pre-poison our food prior to this conversation.”

“Shouldn’t you have collapsed by now?”

“Yes,” said Ben, collapsing. 

Hugh looked at the body of his companion slumped over the table, nodded once then joined him.

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter II

Ben Hansen

Four hours of shaking and, briefly but memorably, screaming later, the landing came about, with the window seat's occupant turning his head to the window and quietly closing his eyes against the coming of the ground while the more medial man steadfastly refused to beg for a chance to see the sight.
This latest landing successfully ruined by both parties' pride, the duo found themselves disgorged with the rest of the plane's contents into Suriname's one international airport.
"What is Suriname, anyway?" Ben asked suddenly.
"What?" Hugh expertly countered.
"Well, is Suriname the country, or the city, or just this airport? For all I know, Suriname could just be the name of Muskenseseses estate and we could be in, like, Jersey."
"Why Jersey?"
"Why not Jersey?"
Hugh tried to put the unsatisfactoriness of this answer into a communicable form before giving up, pulling out his ultra-economical travel guide and replying, "Suriname's the country's name. This city is Paramaribo. The country's a republic, bordering French Guyana, Guiana, Brazil, Dutch Guyana, the Atlantic Ocean, Guianian Guyana, Guyanian Guiana, and... Huh."
"What?" Ben craned to read over his partner's luscious locks.
"And... Girl Ana, apparently." Hugh peered suspiciously at the page before him. "Well, if it hadn't said so, I would have."
"Or I," Ben agreed.
"But not I," confirmed a third voice, close enough to make them jump and spin, in Hugh's case in a single quite graceful movement that would have won him envious looks from several dancers, had any been around to envy.
The small, bespectacled man was not as close as the voice would have led them to believe, it apparently having preceded him by a few seconds. He was besuited, bespectacled and beheld - erm, held a sign saying "Ben Suriname" and "Hugh Du Nym", the names Ben and Hugh had chosen to bluff their way through the airport's security. For reasons not entirely understood, said pseudonyms had been written on said sign in a crayon colour which Ben's expert eye determined to be Magenta.
"Please come with me, sirs," the man's voice said, having apparently moved to the side a little to make space for its owner, now coming from a foot to his right.

The Secret of Suriname: Chapter I

Hugh Hamilton

Ominous clouds were forming. Even the people in aisle seats could tell. A familiar, calm, distorted, monotonous voice announced, again, that the coming turbulence was nothing to worry about. This time, Hugh decided, he wasn't going to get platonic.
"How's the view?" he asked, craning to see beyond his companion.
"Preferable to Something New," said said companion, the merest suggestion of a smirk accompanying the remark.
"I hate you."
Ben returned to the window. "Paper beats rock."
"It's been four hours," Hugh managed through teeth. "We are not starting that argument again."
"Argument?" Ben turned back to the small man in the aisle seat with whom he spent the majority of his time. "That was not an argument. See, arguments tend to have two sides. Or rather, two sides that can be argued. I seem to recall your case resting solely on your assertion that, due to a sudden hand cramp, you had inadvertently constructed a crooked pair of scissors, with the blades pointing in on themselves, so that the final product slightly resembled the universal gesture for rock."
Hugh clenched four parts of his body. "I'm going to be the bigger man and not pursue this any further."
"I think the bigger man would have decided against intermittently feigning a hand cramp for four hours straight after losing paper-scissors-rock."
Hugh shut up. Not willingly, of course; he was merely silent while his mind worked away at a comeback that never arrived. Finally realising too much time had elapsed to make even something with wit in it work, Hugh sunk back into his seat and decided Hell, he was going to be invested in this frothily topical interracial love story, sweeping ocean views be damned. Nine minutes later he was bawling. Not one for sweeping ocean views, Ben opened a book. He paused before the first line to remind himself, once again, of the events of the morning, while lightning licked the plane.

The day had not begun promisingly. Ben and Hugh had spent most of the morning arguing about a wild kitten they had found rooting around their rubbish bins. Ben had already decided to keep it, and had in fact already named it — after himself. Having been an early victim of its claws, Hugh was considerably less keen to encourage future injury by keeping the thing about. Plus the calling-it-Ben thing. But then he saw it curled up and trilling in Ben's lap, its matted brown fur undulating gently, and found that, however he tried, he could no longer satisfactorily imagine its absence from his life. He was tentatively extending an arm for a pat when the doorbell interrupted. Being the one without the cat on his lap, the duty of attending to the visitor was his alone.
"Ah, you must be Ben or Hugh," said a man in a really, really nice suit.
"Correct," replied Hugh. "Come in."
The man removed his hat, then, failing to find a hat rack, returned it to his head.
"Make yourself at home," mumbled Hugh, when they had reached the office proper.
"At home I have chairs," said the man, noticing there were none available. But there was enough of a smile on his face as he said it that Hugh and Ben weren't completely embarrassed. The former pushed some books off a stool and slid it round to the front of the desk. The man brushed it with a sleeve before seating himself. Then he looked at Ben for the first time.
"Oh, cute cat. What do you call the little darling?"
"We haven't—"
"Ben," said Ben.
"Even though it's a girl?" said the man.
"What?" Ben blinked. "How can you tell?"
"Well, you see its penis?"
"No."
"Exactly."
"I still like Ben," said Ben.
"You know what?" began the man. "So do I. I'm a firm believer in non-conventional pet names. None of this Puss Puss or Cat Cat business."
"Or Scratchy," said Hugh, dabbing a new wound.
The man took Ben (the cat) in one of his large hands and laid her to rest over his shoulder. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ben."
A little affronted, Ben (the person) responded curtly: "I take it you have a case for us?"
"Do I?"
"Um..."
"Sorry, the inflection was all wrong. I meant, Do I!" The man returned Ben to Ben and stood up dramatically. "I have the case you wait your whole career for."
"Our last case?" suggested Ben.
"No, I mean the one that defines you, makes your name."
"Oh." Ben paused. "Do you think it's something you'll be able to cram into fifty words or less?"
"Not a chance."
"Rats."
Hugh clipped Ben across the ear. "Please continue."
The man nodded. "My name is Gillian Rodmill. I am the current CEO of Make Mine Muskens Inc., the once-prosperous custard and tempered glass manufacturer. Our former CEO and founder, Kurt Muskens, resigned under mysterious circumstances four months ago. Since then we have recorded our biggest loss for a quarter on record. Frankly, the company has been in complete disarray. It's been so bad, in fact, that we have had to go with the cheapest and least renowned private detectives in town."
"That's us!" cried Hugh, hearing the reference as a compliment.
"Quite. Now to the crux of the matter. I need you two to locate Mr. Muskens and persuade him to come back to work. Whatever method, whatever cost — actually, not whatever cost, but certainly whatever method. The point is, we need him back."
"Why don't you try a different CEO? It can't be that hard to make ink," said Ben, stroking Ben protectively while Hugh kicked him under the desk.
"We have been interviewing for weeks. No one, alas, has had the same curious mix of deranged vision and business acumen required to resurrect the company. If Mr. Muskens does not return, Make Mine Muskens will be no longer."
"It's already about the right length anyway," said Hugh automatically.
"Excuse me?"
"He said, We'll do it," said Ben.
"Oh, splendid."
"Any idea where this Muskens fellow got to?" asked Hugh.
"I believe him to be in Suriname. Before he left the company, he was struck by a strange fever that left him virtually incoherent. The only thing we could make out was something he kept repeating about a secret in Suriname."
"Suriname?"
"Yes, South America. No one's seen him here since, so that's probably the best place to start looking."
"All expenses paid?" asked Ben, hopefully.
"Well, I did take the liberty of purchasing your return tickets, but I'm afraid that's about as far as it goes. I was not kidding when I said we were in dire straits. But we will be able to handsomely reward you beyond your minimum daily fee should you meet with success."
"Good enough," said Ben, pouring the cat off his lap and taking one of the tickets.
"Hang on, this flight leaves in two hours," said Hugh, reading his.
"Then I'd best leave you our file on Mr. Muskens and be on my way. Good day, gentlemen. I can be reached by phone."
Dropping off Ben (the cat) unannounced at Grace's, Ben and Hugh finished packing and left.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XIX

"You know," Ben said, "I am honestly really glad that you said that. I was starting to suspect that you might have been covering up some sort of conspiracy, but that really puts my mind to rest."

"Ben," said Hugh.

"Not now, Hugh. You see, I was stabbed a few times today, so my mind isn't working quite perfectly, and I guess because of that I'd actually managed to convince myself that something was going on."

"Ben."

"Shhh. As I was saying, I had suspicions up the wall, and I wasn't far off making some sort of statement about it. Nothing too forward, perhaps just a subtle circumulocutious query on a monogrammed card to be mailed back at your convenience, but I definitely would have -"

"He's telling us he masterminded a conspiracy."

"What? No he isn't, he's saying exactly the opposite."

"Yeah, but he's saying it so precisely that he's actually suggesting the opposite."

"What do you mean? I specify the things I'm not doing all the time."
"And people tend to avoid you."
"I put people at ease! Nobody ever thinks I'm poisoning their drinks or hiding razors in their food after I offer it to them!"

"People switch their dishes with you as soon as you're out of the room!"
"If it helps," Hogart said helpfully, "I am hiding something."
"So by your logic, he clearly isn't hiding anything," Ben said, waving an irritated arm at the mayoral mystery sitting opposite them.

"That time, I'm pretty sure he was being straightforward," Hugh responded, his patience truly awe-inspiring.

"Make up your mind!" Ben retorted in turn.

"If I were in a position where I was unable to say anything without fear of immediate stabbing," Hogart interjected, choosing his words carefully, "I would certainly wish you to stop with this babble and attend to the significant gaps in my conversation."

"It's lucky that's not an issue, then," Ben said, followed shortly by "Oh, you mean-"

"I also am glad," Hugh responded, hand clenched firmly betwixt Ben's moving lips, "that no such difficulty besets us. After all, how could any potentially-listening relatives possibly hear us?"

"Indeed," Hogart replied. "There are certainly no secret passages behind yon suspicious painting of flowers, two of which have centers about the same distance apart as that between a person's eyes."

Ben took the initiative for once and poked several holes in the painting, provoking several "Oof"s before one protracted "Aaagh" and a certain degree of what can only be described as "Clumsily-staggering-away noises".

"So, gossip!" he said, returning to the table. "Why's your son a nut and how can we get out of this ridiculous scenario for once and for all?"

"Well," Hogart replied, "My idiot son Stephven, the waste of flesh who hired you, was somehow able to become the sole inheritor of my partner in ownership of Die Olige Dame, one Lawrence P. Klausmeyer. Apparently Larry had a weird sense of humour when it came to selecting inheritors, or Stephven was particularly pleasing at one of the club's stop-ins, or something, I don't care."

"Understood," Hugh replied, yawn stifled.

"Anyway, my son became my partner and within weeks brought the company almost to ruins."
"What? How did he do that?" Ben asked, mentally scanning his calendar for things which might have led the agency to their similar plight.

"By following the rules, of course!" He started by kicking out all of the people he could find who didn't have German as their first language! Do you know how many people speak native German in Frankston? We were just lucky he's not bright enough to recognise a fake German either, or we would never be able to get people into those chains. Most nights we wouldn't even be able to assemble a flesh pyramid, the way he wanted to run things."
"I had one of those," Ben said. "Quite a mouthful. I'd had my fill before even sitting down."
"Different pyramid," Hugh said hurriedly. "How did this lead to everyone being stabbed?"

"Well," Hogart continued, "I needed to find something relating to the will that I could use to cheat my son out of his inheritance as soon as possible. Lawrence had made the thing air-tight, as far as I could see, so I asked Freeman to take a look and see if he could work anything out. He was on day-release at the time, you see, and the doctors didn't expect him back for a few hours."

"But he didn't find anything?" Ben prodded.

"He found something, just not anything that would let us undo Larry's will. No, he looked through a couple of other legal papers I had lying around and saw that if Stephven were to die or be incarcerated, the power of attorney would be held by Freeman, basically giving him power over the whole estate."

"And then what?"
"Freeman decided to stab him. He's a bright kid, but startlingly unimaginative. At that age when boys only have one thing on their mind, you know?"

"Girls?" Hugh asked.

"Homicide," Hogart replied.

"You totally stole that line," Ben muttered into his teacup.

"Anyway, Hillary and I managed to talk him out of it. It would be much better for everyone involved if Stephven was just sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit for our personal gain. I'm sure you understand."

"All too well," Ben said.

Hugh gave him a look, despite having thought much the same thing.

"We had it all set up," Hogart reminisced. "Hillary had spiked his tea, I had conspired with a couple of the evicted members to get some suspicious letters planted on his person to suggest that he was consorting with the right sort of people to indicate a little sexual harassment as well as a touch of unlawful discrimination, and Freeman was going to plant some of the knives he'd stabbed people with on his sleeping body just to seal the deal."

"What happened?" Hugh asked.

"Hmm. Let's see. Freeman was in there with a few knives and a helpless sleeping person lying there. What do you think happened?"

"Okay, stupid question. What happened next?"

"We tried to hide the evidence of the crime. Of course Freeman had decided to record the whole thing before stabbing his brother and then dropped part of the page, and we didn't get all of the knives before you two showed up, ut we did a good job."

"Why did you cover for him?" Ben asked, deciding to wander over to a convenient couch and flop himself artlessly upon it.

"Firstly, he's my son, and that's what you're meant to do, isn't it? Secondly, of course, have you met him? He has a way of pointing out to you exactly what you should do if you don't want to get stabbed."

"Ahh," Hugh nodded. "He means 'pointing' as in 'gesturing with a knife'."

"Ahh," Ben nodded sagely.

"Anyway, Stephven of course wakes up, and not being able to put two and two together and get the same result the sixth time over, he was at a loss as to who could have stabbed him. So he does the first thing anyone with more adventurousness than brains would and asks the first private detectives he sees in the phone book to work it out for him."

"We're in the phone book?" Hugh asked.

"We're first in the phone book?" Ben asked, possibly even more confused.

"You see, the thing about Stephven is, he's an idiot," Hogart continued affectionately. "he opened the Yellow Pages to a random page and called the first people he found a number for, which as far as I can tell was the cabbage department of the Safeway stock-purchasing division. They moved out months ago, and you happened to take their office, as I'm sure you know."

"You know," Hugh said, "that explains so much of the smell."

"So we should probably go and tell Stephven that his blue-eyed baby brother did it?" Ben asked, edging as subtly as he could towards the door, evading the notice of absolutely nobody.

"Well, there is one other problem," Hogart said, gesturing in Ben's general direction.

"What?" Ben asked, looking around himself. It took a few moments until he turned enough to see Freeman standing behind him, knife in hand and red bloodshot veins in eye. "Oh! Hi!"

"Hello," Freeman said. "You realise of course that now I can't possibly let you go."

"Oh, sure you can," Ben said. "What are we going to do, get ourselves into some sort of position where the police would take our word for anything and then tell them?"

"What you're going to do," Freeman replied, raising his knife, "is die."

All in all, most of the people present had to admit, it was a pretty good line.

"Oh, there's one thing you should know before you do this," Ben said, gesturing behind Freeman.

Freeman took a little while to turn as well, which was all to the good, because by the time he'd realised nothing was there and turned back to face the duo, they had long since scarpered out the other door, leaving nought but a terrified mayor, a mostly consumed pot of tea and a few half-eaten biscuits to meet his wrath.

"And, aside from an entertaining interval where Ben tried to fly a helicopter without knowing how they worked and I almost strangled him with the tube from his own IV, that's more or less everything we've been up to," Hugh told Stephven, back in the office.

"And that whole part where you ate those dubious mushrooms after we crashlanded and I had to give you a piggyback home while you ranted about how many zebra finches had been found guilty of plotting against you during your regime as fairy queen," Ben added.

"Now it all makes sense!" Stephven cried, leaping out of his chair and pacing the room excitedly. "Of course it was Freeman! Why didn't I think of him myself?"

"Maybe the blood loss?" Ben suggested. "It makes you think some weird stuff. Y'know, I thought your father, may he rest in peace, was up to something because not enough oxygen was getting to my brain?"

"May he rest in peace," Stephven echoed. "Yes, this is exactly the answer I was looking for! And now, with my father's legacy as well as Larry's in my keeping, I can finally give Freeman the punishment he deserves!"

"Which is...?" Hugh nudged.

"A slap on the wrist and a token contribution to society," Stephven said dismissively. "I'm sure just knowing that stabbing people is frowned upon will be enough to bring him into line."

"Speaking of contributions," Ben suggested, would you like to become our first paying customer?"
"He means our first one this month," Hugh added hurriedly.

"Ahhh, of course," Stephven said. "So that's fifty a day for the last..."

"Four years," Ben interjected, stepping up to accept the money.

"Sounds right," Stephven said. "Here you go!"

Were silence the opposite of sound rather than its absence, Hugh's stunned lack of speech would have broken several peacekeeping ordnances a state over.

"What will you do now?" Ben asked, accepting the money gracefully.

"Oh, I have enormous plans for Die Olige Dame," Stephven announced, smiling broadly. "We're going to dispense with all the disturbing kinky stuff and replace the whole thing with a themed stageshow, like at Hunchbax or what have you. Still authentic native Germans only, of course. I've hired an authentic German to translate what they're saying for me, so it should be even easier to weed them out! The club will become even more profitable!"

Stephven chose this moment to make his exit from the office, trailing grim portents behind him like a lingering fart.

"Well, that was unexpectedly fortunate," Hugh said to Ben, as the latter counted their earnings. "I'm amazed you convinced him to pay us for four years instead of a few weeks!"

"Not really," Ben said. "I guess he can't count, either. But hey, it's enough to pay rent and food for the month."

"You know what that means," Hugh said, grinning. And for once, Ben did.

"Merry Christmas, Ben!"

"Merry Christmas, Hugh!"

"Might I say you cooked this turkey wonderfully?"

"Oh, thank you. Try the potatoes, by the way, I cooked them according to an old family recipe."
"What's your secret?"
"I put them in an oven."

"Uh... huh."

"What did you do to get this crackling so crispy, by the way?"

"Well, when I put the ham in the oven, I... bwurgh."

"Bwurgh?"

"What did you use to stuff this turkey, out of curiosity?"

"Well, I didn't want to waste the money we had a second time, so..."

"What did I just put in my mouth with this meat?"
"... mince pies and chocolate coins."

A long pause.

"...It's delicious."

"Really?"

"Sure. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas!"

"And a happy new year."

"God bless us, every-"

"Don't push it."

THE END

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XVIII

Hugh Hamilton

"On second thought, never mind," said Hugh.
Hogart shrugged and filled his mouth with biscuit.
"Hang on, let's hear him out," said Ben. "It may tie up a couple of the loose threads."
"What loose threads? We know who the killer was."
"Yes, but do we know the motive?"
"The motive of the guy who's stabbed us six times in the past half-hour?"
"Prec-I-see-your-point-ly."
"So you'll be leaving? Splendid." Hogart rose from his seat.
"I guess so," said Hugh. "Ben?"
"Do you have any more of those Christmas tree biscuits?"
"No," said Hogart forcefully. "Those were the l—"
"Who wants biscuits?"
Deirdre was standing in the doorway with a baking tray.
"See?" said Hogart, trying to usher the pair from their seats. "We've only those ghastly pine tree biscuits left. Best head off while it's still night."
"What are you talking about, dear?"
"We've kept these busy gentlemen from their social lives and girlfriends."
"Hey, that's actually true!" said Hugh.
"Since when?"
"Since always."
Ben gave him a familiar look.
"No?"
"No."
Hugh frowned.
"I suppose seeing you all the time doesn't really count as a social life."
Ben smiled and shook his head.
"And I suppose you don't really count as a girlfriend either."
"I would hope not. And don't emphasise 'really' like that."
"Well, gentlemen, it's been a pleasure," sweated Hogart, now simply pointing at the doorway.
"Except for the whole stabbing business, it kind of has," agreed Ben.
"It was certainly one of our odder days."
"That it was."
Hogart closed his eyes. Then he opened them again. They were still there.
"I must admit, I'm rather disappointed there wasn't some sort of overarching conspiracy at the bottom of all this," said Hugh.
Hogart chuckled nervously.
"It certainly had all the right ingredients," said Ben. "Santa Claus, a stabbing, a carrot..."
"An inheritance."
Hugh and Ben turned. Hogart had his hand over his mouth. His eyes were bulging fearfully.
"What was that?" said Ben.
Hogart swallowed. "Just a really peculiar cough I've developed."
"It sounded like you said 'an inheritance'."
"That's the peculiar part."
"You should get that checked out."
"I intend to."
"You know, I think these pine tree biscuits are almost exactly as good as the Christmas tree ones," chewed Ben, no longer caring about that particular thread.
Deirdre smiled. "Oh love, they're not—"
"Deirdre, don't you have some ironing to attend to?"
"No, I did that two days ago."
"What about the clothes I wore yesterday?"
"You're wearing them again today."
"Excuse me." Hogart pushed off his red suspenders, stepped out of the legs and threw the whole at Deirdre.
"Fine," said Deirdre. "Fine."
"I'm feeling really uncomfortable right now," said the pilot.
"Thank you," snapped Hogart. "That's exactly the sort of comment I pay you 15.51 dollars an hour for."
"Well, I think this is about as amusing as this is bound to get. Shall we make tracks, Hugh?"
"I didn't even know you played."
"Come on, you," said Ben, finally standing. He turned to Hogart. "Thanks for the biscuits, cocoa and wound-patching."
"Pleasure," seethed Hogart. "I'm sure you can show yourselves out. You'll find the front door in the front door frame."
"Can I leave my list with you, or what?"
"Hugh."
"Coming."
"Oh, and by the way," said Hogart.
"Mm?" said both.
"That whole conspiracy thing — way off."
"OK," said Hugh.
"This really couldn't be less of a conspiracy if it tried."
"OK."
"I mean, it's not as if the late Die Ölige Dame majority-share co-owner left his share to my idiot son Stephven or anything, or that your arranged association with Freeman's compulsive stabbing was intended to throw you off the scent."
"OK."
Ben and Hugh stopped.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XVII

As cocoa applied its healing properties to the inside of Hugh's abdomen, as well as Ben's less discontinuous - and hence less interesting - stomach lining, revealing both astounding sloppiness on the part of Deirdre and remarkable genius on the part of the unnamed, unseen chef of the establishment when it came to selecting ingredients, they bathed for a moment in the secure knowledge that nobody wanted them dead after all, before going about their business.

Unfortunately, Freeman chose that very moment to stab them.

A quick stop-and-stitch later, they emerged once again and sat facing their abductor-in-chief.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said the very same. "So good of you to come on such short notice."

"We would have come if you'd just asked," Hugh said, grouchily rubbing his arm.

"Yes, I apologise for my assistant's, shall we say..."

And then Freeman stabbed them.

"I'm getting sick of this," Ben said a short while later, spiking his cocoa with a dash of the saline flowing from the IV behind him to the needle in his wrist.

"Sorry about that," their host replied. "As I was saying, Freeman here has been less than subtle in his requests."

"Not to worry," Hugh said, barely noticeable in his slide away from Freeman's side of the table. "It's just a trio of flesh wounds, really."

"Only a couple of ruptured organs," Ben said, rubbing his kidney. "Water under the bridge!"

"Ah." The man sitting across from them took a moment to try and work out whether there was as much sarcasm in these statements as he felt there should be.

A moment during which Freeman stabbed them.

"Okay," the host called, "he's gone now!"

"You promise?" answered Hugh.

"I've locked him in the kitchen! You're totally safe, I promise!"

Hesitantly, the detective duo made their way into the parlour, on the lookout for anything remotely stabbish-looking or Freemanesque. Seeing little enough to increase their confidence, they stood upright as though they had never been afraid at all and strode as boldly to the table as people who had been stabbed so many times could.

"I'd better introduce myself," their host began. "My name is Hogart Schotologeny."

"Ahh," Hugh said, nodding understandingly. He followed up on this shortly with "what?"

"You see, I am the mayor of this village and the father of Freeman, Hillary and Stephven."

"Not Shelly?" asked Ben, making an effort to keep up.

"Shelly's a half-sister on their mother's side."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be. Freeman takes after her."

"So, could you possibly see your way clear to explaining what the hell actually happened today?" Hugh asked, feeling understandably irritable from the myriad mistreatments he had suffered.

"Well, let's see. It all started with these two people named Joshua and Mary, and they couldn't find an inn."

"Let's start this story yesterday," Ben suggested helpfully.

"Freeman stabbed Stephven and he hired you to work out who did it."

"Right, that's all we needed to know. Thanks for your time," Ben said, scribbling Freeman's name into a fairly bloodstain-free notebook and secreting it upon his blue-robed person before standing to leave.
"Hang on," Hugh interrupted. "Let's start a little further back than that. I wasn't Keith'd, Freeman'd and Ben'd all day for anything less than a good story."

"Ben'd?"
"Shut up, Ben."

"Um. Okay?"

"Well," Hogart said thoughtfully, "I guess you could trace the events of the last couple of days to the evening before when I ousted that uncouth orgier from Die Ölige Dame, this bar I have a share in, when I had a thought that it might be time to train my son in the ways of the business world."

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XVI

Hugh Hamilton

'Here' turned out to a be the outskirts of a snow-capped little village, quaintly decorated in seasonal colours. Ben and Hugh were no longer sure they weren't dead. Hearing a distant choir, the latter turned to the former.
"Did I ever tell you—"
"Don't," said Ben. "I know."
 A few moments later, they were beckoned from the helicopter's blood-spattered interior by Freeman and his much-discussed firearm. Delirious, Ben strapped on an invisible parachute and dove into the snow. Hugh, meanwhile, fell into the snow with no apparent effort.
"You take the little one," said Freeman, gathering up Ben and draping him over his shoulder.
"But... he's bleeding," said the pilot.
"And?"
"These pilot digs don't just buy themselves."
"Well, unless you'd care to join him, you'll do as I say."
The pilot spent a moment trying to word something about surgical thread before relenting. Having secured the bodies to their persons, Freeman and the pilot trudged off through the fire-glow merriment, eventually reaching the heart of the village.
"Can we rest a moment?" asked the pilot, stooping suddenly.
Freeman stopped halfway into a blink. "Why?"
"He's heavy."
"Heavy? He's all of three pounds."
"Kilos."
"What?"
"Three kilos."
"My good man, three pounds does not equal three kilos. You think the metric system was a linguistic phenomenon?"
"No, I—" The pilot stopped. "Let's go."
After doing just that, Freeman and the pilot arrived at a cosy little house at the end of the village. Freeman knocked. They waited. Finally the front door swung open, revealing an overweight man in a beard.
"I've brought the detectives as requested, sir," said Freeman, dipping his head subserviently.
The man surveyed the bloodied bodies, adjusting one of his red suspenders as he did so.
"Jesus Christ."
"I've brought the detectives as requested, Jesus Christ."
"Why are they bleeding everywhere?"
"Why are they bleeding?" said Freeman.
"Yes."
"I stabbed them."
"You stabbed them."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Orders."
"Whose orders?"
"Er, your orders."
"Did I order you to stab them?"
"In a way."
"In which way, exactly?"
"In an indirect kind of way. It was more of a look you gave me."
"A look?"
"Yes, and based upon that, I took the initiative and—"
"Stabbed them."
"Yes."
"Did it ever occur to you they might have come willingly? Say if you said, Hey guys, the person at the bottom of this whole mystery would like a word with you, if you'd care to step into this helicopter?"
"No. They're a fiendish pair." Freeman glared at both in turn.
"I would so have done that," said Hugh, suddenly regaining consciousness.
"Me too," said Ben.
"You see?" said the man. "And now we have to waste my dear trained-nurse wife's time patching them up. Dear?"
A round, homely woman appeared in the doorway.
"Can you take care of these two bleeding gentlemen for me?"
"A'ight."
In a formidable display, the woman put Hugh over one shoulder and Ben over the other, not so much as grunting as she carried them down the hall.
"I really appreciate this, Mrs...?" said Hugh, now bedded.
"Oh, we'll have none of that formality here. Just call me Deir."
"That sounds awfully inappropriate."
"You can stick with Deirdre if you'd prefer. Just none of this 'Mrs' business."
"Deirdre Business," said Hugh. "That's a cool name."
"What?"
"Forgive my friend," said Ben, chiming in from the adjacent bed. "He gets funny around stunningly beautiful women."
"Will you quit doing that?"
Deirdre chuckled. "I'll get you two patched up, shall I?"

Half an hour later, Ben and Hugh emerged in matching blue dressing gowns.
"Who said you could wear my dressing gowns?" barked the man, seated around an inviting wooden table with Freeman and the pilot.
Hugh gulped. "Deirdre — Mrs Business."
"Well, then she shouldn't have gotten pregnant."
"Um..."
"I know, I know. I may hold some old-fashioned views about women, but at least I'm not one."
"I..."
"Now I suppose you're wondering why I dragged you all this way."
"Kinda."
"Well, then I shall tell you. But first — cocoa."

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XV

Ben Hansen

After a few minutes of becoming used to the twin distractions of his recent stabbing and his recent kidnapping, not to mention a generous amount of sedative force-fed to him after he'd screamed and thrashed a little too long and too violently for anyone to appreciate, Ben felt calm enough to take in his surroundings. First, the Hugh next to him, hunched over in a slowly expanding pool of his own blood. He seemed to be holding most of it in and it seemed unlikely that he of all people would die, so Ben paid him no further heed for the moment. Item of interest the second consisted of Freeman and the pilot, sitting up front. Freeman turned to check on the two in the back every few seconds and was holding something Ben hadn't seen before but presumed to be a gun by its general gunnish shape and the gunlike respect that Freeman was offering to it. Ben decided to follow suit. The pilot was particularly bland, considering. Ben envied his leg-space. Item three, Ben. Ben knew Ben pretty well, and aside from the stab wound in his thigh (outer, thank cripes), there didn't seem to be a lot going on there, so Ben decided to pass Ben over for the most part. Fourth and finally, lots of blue outside of the helicopter. Better, Ben supposed, than lots of brown or what have you, but still not very encouraging for the whole "escape" idea.

Ben tried to formulate a plan, but found his attempts to think slowed by the throbbing pain in his leg and the continuous "whup whup whup whup" reverberating in his ears.

"Could you stop that?" Ben asked Hugh.

"Stop the whupping, whup whup whup?"

"Yeah. It's incredibly distracting."

"Whup whup whup whup. I read somewhere that it helps to take your mind off when you've got an ache, and I thought it might help here, whup whup whup whup."

"Really?"

"Yup!"

"Whup whup whup whup."

"Whup whup whup whup."

"Knock it off, you two," Freeman advised.

"Or what, you'll stab us again?" Hugh challenged, clearly not having noticed from his vantage point the gunlike gun that Freeman was waving in a gunnerly manner.

"No, I'll shoot you through the head and you'll die." Freeman obligingly held it up.

"Okay then."

"There's parachutes under here," Ben mentioned to his continuing companion sotto vocce. "Well, parachute."

"Great! We're saved!"

"I'll just stick it on and get help!"
"What?"

"I'll jump out the door here, and -"

"You're just going to abandon me?"

"I'm not abandoning you. Look, you've still got some friends to hang out with."

"Our stabber and our kidnapper?"

"How many other guys have you had inside of you?"

"Aren't you scared of heights, anyway?"

"Yeah, but I've been stabbed in the leg."
"What?"

"If you jump out and pull the cord, your intestines and stuff will keep going. It'll be impressive to look at, but not so useful for getting help."

"As opposed to you, who'll just keep sliding up to the door and keep going 'on the count of three, for real this time' until we land and get executed by whoever set all this up."

"Whup whup whup whup."

"Whup whup whup whup."

"I mean it, you two," Freeman advised.

"You could push me out," Ben continued a moment later.

"With this stomach?"

"Better than me pushing you out and holding onto your bowel until you get back."

"Look, I could pull the straps across like this and keep everything inside."

"Or I could go and just rely on this newfangled 'skin' thing I picked up somewhere."

"Right, up until it explodes because you panicked halfway down and forgot to pull the cord."

"Look, just give me the parachute."

"No, you give me the -"

"Let me take -"

"And now it's gone out the window."

"Yeah. Thanks for that."

"That was completely your fault."

"I won't dignify that with a response."

"Good, because I wouldn't deign to hear it."

"Now what?"

"Hope that this place we're going to has a good surgeon handy?"

"Oh, great, we're wandering into the volcanic lair of an evil mastermind and hoping he has a doctor who'll stitch us together without throwing an extra arm on for the hell of it."

"Are there even volcanoes in Victoria?"

"The point is, we're rooted."

"I don't think it's that bad. Knowing our history it'll just be Schmid wanting to invite us to a soiree."

"What sort of a soiree do you think Schmid would have?"

"...We're rooted."

"We're rooted."

"Goodbye, Hugh."

"Goodbye, Ben."

"We're here," Freeman added.