MYCOPHAGE! Part 9

Cliff “Edge” McEdifice is MYCOPHAGE the intoxicating new thriller from Timothy the Talking Cat, Straw Puppy and the ghost of Michael Crichton.

Part 9: Swiss Roll

The ski resort was the usual mix of overprivileged families and dilettantes, plus a sinister man with a scar over his left eye who had been following me since Berne. I tried to give him the slip at the ice-skating rink but accidentally won first prize in an ice dance competition with my solo re-enactment of Tourville & Dean’s 1984 gold medal-winning interpretation of Ravel’s Bolero at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. Sure, it was derivative but I had to improvise quickly in the circumstance and the ice rink had a limited selection of music.

After an evening of cocktails and roulette, I had given a convincing impression of a man out to have fun. At 1 am, I slipped away and dressed in my black stealth ski equipment. The ski lift was closed for the night but I had a special electric winch that allowed me to travel up the cables at break neck speed.

Even so, it was heading towards 3 am before I was in place to start my ski journey to the research lab. The optimum time for infiltration was just before dawn and I would need to move swiftly. I launched down the slope, expertly veering between trees and other obstacles which included a rock, a racoon and a polar bear. It was only after the polar bear shouted after me in Flemish that I realised that my drink had been spiked. My metabolism is so tough that the effects of the drug were only now impacting me but it was strong stuff. Of course! Switzerland was the home of LSD! Lysergic acid diethylamide, first synthesised by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel! If Swiss scientists had an MO it was going to be the heavy application of hallucinogens!

Just then a set of ninja skiers burst from the tree line, shooting at me with machine guns or maybe flamingos. Were they real or a product of my deep-seated and under examined fears? There was no way to tell. My only choice was to ski faster and better than any man had ever done. LSD was strong but it wasn’t as strong as my willpower.

I quickly dodged to one side to avoid Dorothy and the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz and managed to land a sharp punch in the face to one of the ninjas. His face flopped open revealing the robot underneath! The ninjas were real! Well, not real ninjas or real people but they were really there! Or were they? Could I not also be hallucinating robot ninjas?

Just then the ninja exploded and the blast threw me over a cliff. I somersaulted in mid-air and then landed perfectly on the ground below. The explosion had knocked the sense back into me. I was free and clear of the LSD. Not far below me was the research laboratory. It was mission time.