How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy Read online

  “Well how do I know you don’t have a festival of anal probes?” Eric inquired.

  “Look, man! We’re not the slightest bit interested in any anal-related activities, man,” Jixyl insisted. “What’s put that idea in your head, like? I mean, how come you’re so convinced that we’re some sort of sick bum freaks?”

  “Well that’s just what aliens do?” Eric explained. “Like, in movies and stuff.”

  “Eh? That’s mad, that, like,” Jixyl mused, shaking his head. “Why would you make a movie about aliens that do anal probes?”

  “So have you got lots of movies about anal probing aliens, then?” Azleev quizzed.

  “Well…” Eric racked his brains and realised that he couldn’t actually think of any actual movies about aliens with a leaning towards rectal exploration. “Em…” The only reference he could think of for anal probing aliens was South Park. “Actually it might not be movies that I’m thinking of,” he admitted. “There’s a cartoon though, called South Park, where there’s these aliens that come down and give Cartman an anal probe.” He felt a little less panicky now that he had realised the source of his fears probably wasn’t the most factually reliable source. “But now that I think about it, South Park might not be the most accurate reference tool for alien behaviour,” he admitted.

  “Aye well I can promise you it’s totally inaccurate,” Jixyl protested.

  “Trust us. We’re just here for The Nivlax Festival,” Azleev responded.

  “So for this Nivlax Festival you’re saying you fly halfway across the galaxy to play tricks on people?” Eric asked.

  “Amongst other things,” Azleev replied. “But there’s a bit more to it than that.”

  “Such as?” Eric inquired.

  And so Jixyl and Azleev began to tell Eric all about The Nivlax Festival…

  Chapter Three – The Nivlax Festival

  A few hours earlier:

  Earth,

  Newcastle Upon Tyne,

  Outside the chippy on Chilli Road…

  “I’ve still got his number,” Lisa remarked to her friend Natalie. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to ring him. It’s been a few weeks now. You should move on. You can do better than him. That’s why you deleted his number in the first place.”

  “Ar, yeah. I know. I have moved on,” Natalie lied. “It’s just that it’s his mam’s birthday next week and I want to get her a present, so I was just gonna ask him for ideas on what to get her.”

  Jixyl nudged his friend Azleev. “I sense a phone prank coming on,” he whispered, nodding over in the direction of Lisa and Natalie.

  “Ar, not another phone prank,” Azleev whinged.

  “Just to get the ball rolling,” Jixyl replied. “And keep your voice down. We don’t want to give the game away.”

  Lisa wasn’t totally convinced by her friend’s explanation as to why she required her ex-boyfriend’s mobile number but felt awkward refusing her request. “Well as long as you promise to delete it again once you’ve asked him what to buy for his mam’s birthday,” she bargained.

  “Ar, yeah. Definitely,” Natalie agreed.

  “What’s your bluetooth name then and I’ll bluetooth you his business card,” Lisa requested.

  “Hot Girl 93,” Natalie replied.

  Jixyl rapidly, and as discreetly as possible, pressed a few buttons on his mobile phone.

  “Right, I’m sending it now,” Lisa announced. “Make sure you delete it, though, after you’ve used it.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Natalie agreed. “Don’t worry. I’m totally over him. I just want to get his mam a nice birthday present.”

  Jixyl nodded to Azleev and then the pair of them hurried around the corner.

  “Did you get it, then?” Azleev asked.

  “Aye, jacked it no bother,” Jixyl bragged. “She’s got my number instead of her ex’s. This should be a laugh.”

  “What’re you gonna do, like?” Azleev inquired.

  “I think I’ll just see what sort of message she leaves first before I decide how to reply,” Jixyl remarked.

  He only had to wait a couple of minutes before Natalie made her first call. After a few rings a voice informed Natalie that Vince, her ex-boyfriend, was unable to take her call at the moment and she should leave a message on his voice-mail after the tone:

  “Hi Vince, it’s Natalie. I just thought I’d give you a ring to see how things are going. And maybe I thought it might be nice to meet up some time just to catch up on things and see how we’re both doing.

  Anyway, just give uz a call back when you get a chance. Bye.”

  “Hmm, there was a suspicious lack of mention of his mam’s birthday present,” Jixyl observed.

  “Yeah, I noticed that as well,” Azleev agreed.

  “I have to give her credit, though. She played it very cool,” Jixyl praised.

  “What reply are you gonna send, then?” Azleev inquired.

  “I might wait until she leaves a couple more messages before I get round to replying,” Jixyl revealed.

  “It’ll be cruel to leave her hanging on too long,” Azleev remarked.

  “The crueller the better,” Jixyl contended. “The more upset she gets the more chance there is that she’ll start swearing.”

  “Anyway, do you fancy doing the taxidermist prank next?” Azleev suggested.

  “Ar, that always takes too much effort,” Jixyl moaned. “I’m in the mood for another phone prank now.”

  “Just one more then,” Azleev begrudgingly agreed, “and then we move on to some real pranks.”

  And so, Natalie spent the next few minutes glancing hopefully at her mobile phone, without her hopes being fulfilled. And meanwhile Jixyl spent those same few minutes readying his next prank…

  A few minutes later the phone in the home of Sydney Rice, a local resident in that area, began ringing.

  ‘That’ll be Horace,’ Sydney thought to himself as he strolled towards the phone. As you can probably deduce, Sydney was expecting a call from Horace.

  “Hello,” Sydney greeted as he picked up the receiver.

  To his surprise it wasn’t Horace’s voice that greeted him. Instead it was a robotic monotone voice:

  “Hello and welcome to the adult chat-line for horny robots. Thank you for choosing this service.”

  ‘Eh? Horny robots? What’s this?’ Sydney thought to himself. ‘I didn’t choose any horny robot adult chat-lines.’ Curiosity, however, got the better of him and he continued listening.

  “Oh! Oh! Wiggle my joystick,” the robotic monotone voice pronounced. A confused look appeared on Sydney’s face.

  “Yeah! That’s it, baby,” the robotic monotone voice continued. “Push my buttons. Turn me on.”

  The confusion transformed into a wry smile as Sydney smirked at the absurdity of an apparent adult chat-line catering for horny robots.

  “Oh! Oh! Sizzle my circuitry,” the robotic monotone voice encouraged. “Interface with me, baby. Harder! Harder!”

  The robotic monotone voice only made the whole thing even more absurd. ‘This is crazy,’ Sydney chortled to himself.

  “Thank you for calling the robot adult chat-line,” the robotic monotone voice then concluded. “This and all subsequent calls charged at £7.99 per minute…”

  This was the point where Sydney’s amusement rapidly disappeared and was quickly replaced by extreme anger. “Seven ninety nine per minute!!!” he shrieked. “They can fuck right off!”

  Meanwhile, outside Sydney’s house Jixyl and Azleev had jacked into Sydney’s phone and were currently eavesdropping on his horny robot adult chat-line message via their mobile phones. “Yes! That’s the first one!” Jixyl exclaimed.

  “Shh! Shh! Keep listening,” Azleev instructed. “I need to be ready for the next bit.”

  “You may unsubscribe from this service at any time via our website…” the robotic monotone voice meanwhile revealed. Sydney’s mood improved slightly on hearing this news. “Double you, double y
ou, double you, dot…”

  At this point the line suddenly went crackly. “Fuck! What did it say?” Sydney exclaimed.

  “…dot com,” the robotic monotone voice concluded, as the crackle subsided.

  “Ar, fuck! I didn’t hear what it said!” Sydney screeched, angrily.

  “Or by calling the following number…” Sydney suddenly went quiet again. “Zero seven eight…” And then the line suddenly went dead as all Sydney could hear was a loud ‘Dooooooooo…’ tone.

  Sydney slammed the receiver against his leg in frustration. “Fuck! How do I unsubscribe!?!!” he exclaimed. “Fuck! I didn’t hear the number! Ar, what a fucking con!”

  Outside Sydney’s house Jixyl was laughing away to himself. “Well I think it’s safe to say that’s one down, two to go,” he remarked.

  “Shh! He’s calling someone else,” Azleev pointed out. “Shh, I wanna hear this.”

  Sydney had dug out his latest phone bill and was presently calling the telephone company’s pricing enquiries helpline.

  After hearing various recorded voices giving him a variety of options and assuring him how important his call was to them, Sydney eventually ended up with a choice of three options, neither of which was relevant to his complaint.

  So he tried again. But not surprisingly he once again discovered that ‘If you have been the victim of a horny robot adult chat-line scam…’ wasn’t one of the available options. However, at the third attempt he eventually managed to get through to a real person.

  “Yes, I’d like to make a complaint about a message I’ve just received,” he remarked.

  “Okay, if you could just give me your name and number,” the telephone operator instructed. Sydney did as requested. “And what exactly is your complaint?”

  “That I’ve just received a message from a horny robot adult chat-line which costs £7.99 per minute,” Sydney explained, “and I didn’t request that message.”

  “A horny robot adult chat-line?” the operator questioned, sounding quite taken aback.

  “Yes, a horny robot adult chat-line,” Sydney repeated. “I didn’t request it, though,” he quickly protested. “Some dodgy phone company is obviously just sending out random messages to random numbers.”

  “Okay, if you could give me the number of the company that called you,” the operator requested.

  “Here, man! It was just a message! I didn’t get the number!” Sydney snapped, his patience wearing thin. “Here! Why should I have to go through all this shit just cos of your inefficiency in the first place?”

  “If you could just stay calm I’d find it easier to deal with your enquiry,” the operator advised.

  “It’s not an enquiry! It’s a complaint!” Sydney pointed out. “Look, either some fucking dickhead’s signed my fucking number up to some dodgy expensive fucking robot adult chat-line, or otherwise it’s some dodgy scam company taking advantage of the incompetence of your security checks. But either way, if I’ve been charged £7.99 on my next bill then I’m not paying the bill. Simple as that.

  And unless yous provide a signature saying that I authorised that message then I’ll be reporting yous to the fraud squad as well. And yous won’t have a leg to stand on cos I haven’t signed anything.”

  “Look, unless you stay calm and tell me exactly what’s happened I’m not going to be able to help you with your enquiry,” the operator repeated.

  Sydney took a deep breath and attempted to calm down. “Right, well basically either someone has signed uz up to a message service I didn’t request, or else some dodgy scam company is sending out random messages to random phone numbers. And these messages cost £7.99 a time,” Sydney explained.

  “How do you know they cost £7.99?” the operator inquired.

  “Cos it said in the message,” Sydney explained.

  “Ah … well, you see… if you’ve listened to the message that might present a bit of a problem with regard to getting a refund,” the operator declared.

  “Here! If that £7.99 is on my bill you’ll be hearing from my lawyers!” Sydney threatened.

  “It’s just that if you didn’t request the message then technically you should have hung up straight away,” the operator advised.

  “Here, how was I meant to know if I’d actually requested it without actually listening to it first?” Sydney pointed out.

  “It’s just that if you’ve listened to the message then the service provider may be entitled to make a charge for it,” the operator remarked.

  Sydney’s patience had reached the end of its tether. “Here! Fuck off!” he bellowed. And with that he slammed the phone down.

  Meanwhile, outside Sydney’s house Jixyl and Azleev were in fits of laughter.

  “Har, har! Class!” Jixyl chuckled. “He was completely sucked in, like.”

  “Yeah,” Azleev agreed. “It’s excellent how rubbish the integrity of the phone companies are on Earth.”

  “Aye,” Jixyl smirked. “It makes it an absolute doddle for pranksters like us to get a result.”

  Sydney had in fact not been sent the ‘horny robot adult chat-line’ message by a dodgy phone scam company. He had in fact been sent it by Jixyl. Minutes earlier Jixyl had simply typed out a text message containing a load of made-up patter regarding a robot adult premium rate chat-line and then sent that message to Sydney’s land-line.[10] Then he and Azleev had used the ‘piggyback network’ feature on their alien mobile phones to simply hack into Sydney’s land-line and allow them to listen in to his irate protestations.

  “Ar, I’ve got another idea!” Jixyl announced. “We should ring that operator back and pretend that we’re someone else who’s had a dodgy phone scam message. Then we should completely lose it with him and totally threaten him and get him all scared!”

  “Do you not think that’s maybe going a bit too far?” Azleev replied.

  “Nar, course not,” Jixyl remarked. “If he had that lackadaisical attitude on Fyra then his company would get instantly closed down. All we’re doing is teaching him to take phone fraud more seriously in future.”

  “But if he took phone fraud more seriously it would make it harder for us to play phone pranks,” Azleev pointed out.

  “True,” Jixyl acknowledged, “but he definitely needs teaching a lesson in any case.”

  So Jixyl set about ringing the telephone operator. Fortunately for the operator though, the maze of automated menus and options proved too tricky for Jixyl to navigate his way through, and so he never managed to play his prank on the operator.

  Within a few more seconds, however, Jixyl had the seeds of another prank forming in his head. He nudged Azleev and nodded at a mother and small toddler in the next garden along from Sydney’s garden.

  “What?” Azleev shrugged.

  “I see another prank forming,” Jixyl grinned.

  All Azleev could see was a small toddler with his mother planting a seed in a plant-pot. “How can we play a trick on them?” Azleev asked.

  “Watch and learn,” Jixyl boasted. “Watch and learn.”

  So Jixyl and Azleev hovered about outside Sydney’s house until the toddler and mother had finished planting the seed in the plant-pot and returned inside. “Here goes,” Jixyl remarked, to his friend. And so he sneaked along into the adjacent garden to put the wheels in motion for his next prank…

  A few minutes later Jamie, the toddler in question, peered out of the window at the plant-pot and was surprised to see a small number of leaves already sprouting up from the soil.

  “Mam!” he shouted. “The seed’s growing.”

  “Yeah,” his mother replied. “In a few weeks’ time you’ll be able to see your plant growing up through the soil.”

  “No, it’s growing now,” Jamie revealed. “I can see leaves.”

  “Don’t be so stupid,” his mother remarked.

  “I can,” Jamie insisted. “I can see leaves.”

  His inquisitive mother strolled to the window to see for herself. “It won’t start growing
for another few…” At this point she arrived at the window and saw for herself the leaves sprouting up from the plant-pot. “…weeks.”

  “See!” Jamie proclaimed, proud of his rapidly growing plant.

  “Eee! How’s it growing that quick?” his mother inquired, looking very confused. She quickly opened the door and dashed into the garden for a closer look. The plant-pot looked the same from close-up as it did from through the window. Which is to say that a small number of leaves had already emerged from the soil. “Eee! Michael! Come and have a look at this!” she called inside to her husband. “Michael! Quick! Look at this!”

  At that point Jixyl could contain his laughter no more and burst out laughing which drew the attention of Jamie’s mother. She looked up at Jixyl chuckling away to himself, then looked down at the plant-pot, then back at Jixyl, and quickly surmised that there was tomfoolery afoot.

  “You stupid idiots!” she shouted at Jixyl and Azleev. Then she looked at Jamie and remarked, “Howay, we’re going back inside now.”

  “It’s a fast grower, isn’t it, mam?” Jamie remarked.

  “It hasn’t started growing yet,” Jamie’s mother explained. “It’s just them idiots over there being idiots,” and she took his hand and marched back inside the house.

  “Ar, man. You gave the game away there,” Azleev reproached his friend.

  “I couldn’t help it, man,” Jixyl shrugged. “Her face was just so funny. She completely fell for it.” He shook his head in disbelief at her gullibility. “Anyway, we had to let her know it was a trick at some point otherwise she wouldn’t have swore.”

  “She didn’t swear anyway!” Azleev pointed out. “Think about it … she’s not gonna swear in front of her toddler, is she? You should have waited until the toddler was back inside. You’ve spoilt our run now. We were on a potential triple letter[11] as well.”

  “You and your triple letters,” Jixyl remarked. “You see, it’s not all about the word score for me, you know. I’m mainly in it for the fun of playing pranks. Besides, we’re still on for the double letter. And we’ve still got the green scary masks and clawed gloves to come. They’re always a definite banker.”