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Mom. Shhhhhhhhhhhh. What are we doing? Gift.You're giving someone a minion? yepWho? and don't you think it will be missed? Looks at the apartment. No. Mom, just no. Don't you think the poor man has suffered enough?Vigorous head shake, nearly dislodging bifocals. Besides, I'm giving one to Straker as well.Keith Ford arrived home sometime later to a dust explosion caused by a small yellow being in overalls and goggles surrounding a single blue eye. It waived at him, babbled something incomprehensible ending in "banana" which made it laugh uproariously before going back to dustingUfo/minions/ufo/minions/ufo/minions"Foster, you have a minute?"Paul Foster looked around at his nominal superior with the craggy face. "Sure.""Do you have any idea how THEY do it?"Paul looked confused for a moment before he caught Alec looking downward. Minion. Ah. "Do what exactly?" he asked before potentially sticking his foot in it badly."Multiply."Apparently one of the little fellows overheard the question and whipped out a calculator, demonstrating the multiplication process and whipping it back into whatever pocket universe they carried things in. Leaving both men to laugh helplessly while striving for sanity in a minion populated world. 'They're clones," the sinuous tones of Dr. Jackson answered them, quelling most of the laughter."Of what?" Paul asked, regaining his equilibrium a fraction of a second before Alec did."Who. We're compiling the genetic code but it will take a while. So far, the only answer we have is that most of the DNA is human, not alien."Alec and Paul exchanged a look. Given that the aliens were genetically compatible with humans, otherwise the organ transplant process wouldn't work at all, what the heck did he mean by that comment?Jackson smiled benevolently at both men and walked on."I'm not certain whether I prefer the smarmy version to the benevolent one ...""Here, here," Alec agreed with his junior for once.
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There were odd noises coming from the kitchen.
Ed Straker, gun in hand, moved with perfect stealth toward the sounds, peering around the edge of the open doorway and fought very hard not to let his lower jaw drop. Whatever the alien plan was in general, he had doubts that the somewhat lozenge shaped, bright yellow figure clad in old-fashioned dungarees and what looked like goggles, who was engaged in cooking and cleaning out his cupboards was a part of it.
The about three foot tall figure turned and did drop its lower jaw upon seeing Ed, his gun trained on the room in an efficient manner.
"Wha???" Its tiny arms dove straight up, hands above its head as it babbled incomprehensibly
Ed lowered the gun, flicking on the safety as he did so and gestured for the being to lower its arms. "I take it the lurkers are at it again," he said with a resigned sigh.
"Arthur," the minion, for that was indeed what the entity was, introduced itself with a quaint bow before bursting into speech with wild gesticulations for emphasis.
Ed discovered that while the sense of the words bypassed him entirely, the gist of the ... complaints? ... seemed to be that he did not have a well enough stocked kitchen for Arthur to perform up to standards.Tirade over, Arthur turned back to the stove where mouthwatering smells were wafting gently out into the room. Ed contented himself with leaning against the door frame and watching the small figure work energetically to produce a meal.
When the imperious "sit" motion occurred, the head of SHADO found himself complying without complaint. While he was used to being served at fine restaurants, when he managed to go to one, the experience in his own humble kitchen was a new one.
Arthur apologized for the lack of table cloth, promising to remedy that as soon as he could and then proceeded to tempt Ed's notoriously fickle taste buds with dishes he didn't recognize, but that both smelled and tasted heavenly. The dinner was leisurely, ending when Arthur cleared the last of the dishes away and shooed his ... Master? ... out of the kitchen with a snifter of brandy and a slim cigar.
While Ed didn’t approve of the lurkers who kept leaving things for him and his people, he had to admit that this evening was a good one. Over the next few days, he found dinner or a snack waiting for him when he arrived home.
It didn't occur to Ed how much things had changed until he came home to a dark house a week later and was instantly worried that something had happened to Arthur. The lights came on abruptly as he crept through the place, gun in hand again. The door to the basement opened and Arthur stepped out, dusting his hands. They both jumped.
Arthur burst into another of his explanations. He'd fixed the wiring in the basement. Dinner was waiting.
Minions. They had minions
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Virginia Lake scowled at the short entity in the French maid's outfit. What the hell? she wondered internally. It babbled at her."What do you mean the interoceter won't work that way? What are you talking about?"The thing pointed at the blue prints on the table and the mock-up of the new weapon she was designing. She frowned, listening to it jabber and realizing that she was beginning to see what it was talking about.Oh, so if I move the flux capacitor from there to here," she pointed on the form and then on the blue prints which the little one was bouncing to get a look at. She dragged a stool over to the table and the yellow thing rewarded her with a happy smile before climbing up to actually stand on the table and walk through what it was trying to tell her ... literally.So that's where the math had gone off.And she had to thank a two foot six whatever it was for helping her where none of her highly educated staff could do so. It rankled until the little one whipped a rolled up piece of paper out of an invisible pocket."Alaric von Gru, Ph.D."She wasn't quite certain she appreciated the "Imaginary Mathematics and Quantum Physics”, but if Al could help, help he would. She'd question the French maid's outfit later ... much later.
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“Straker!” the familiar bellow on the phone sounded a little more worried than usual to the pale man receiving the call.
“General,” he greeted his caller. “What can I do for you?”
“What the hell are these things?” James Henderson demanded to know as he watched a trio of short, yellow beings tidy up his office. He wasn’t using the gun in his desk drawer because so far they seemed to be friendly.
“Things?” Straker’s brow furrowed for a moment wondering what sort of things the retired General could be dealing with. A cup of coffee, light and sweet, just the way he liked it, appeared on the corner of his desk accompanied by a light humming. The small yellow, dungaree wearing entity beamed up at him, nodded and scurried off again.
“Ah, things,” he continued. “Not very tall, yellow skin, single or bi-ocular and wearing dungarees?” he asked.
“Yes,” came the answering growl.
“They’re … minions, sir.” Straker hoped he was covering his desire to laugh well enough not to offend the older man.
“Minions.”
“Yes, sir. They’re a … gift.”
“A gift?” James Henderson frowned at the busy minions who were just finishing up their cleaning, regarded him seriously, gave him funny little bows and then filed out of his office. “They’re robots?”
“No, sir. They’re … uhm … minions.” How the hell did he explain that the lurkers had gifted a number of them with the entities who seemed to hail from another universe entirely? Come to think of it, he was certain he’d never mentioned the lurkers to anyone who hadn’t encountered their somewhat lunatic antics previously. “We’ve had a couple of incursions here. They work hard, are very intelligent and are difficult to discourage.” Understatement. He didn’t want to think about the couple of incidents in R&D where things had blown up. Nor did he particularly want to think about the introduction of the fart gun to their armory. It took days for the fans to get the smell out of the area.
On the other hand, they were true jewels when it came to running the commissary and their work on the moon was nothing short of … well, he wasn’t going to get Nina, Joan and Gay to give their minions up any time soon.
“Trust me, sir. They’re,” he paused while he tried to find a way to phrase things that didn’t make them sound too innocuous. “They’re very useful. They’re difficult to get rid of if they take a liking to you and they’ve helped us with a couple of issues without having to take the problems out of house.” He did not mention that their salaries were minimal for what they provided. He had enough issues with getting funding approved already.
Henderson harrumphed at his end and nodded. “We’ll see.”
Straker replaced the hand set and smiled. He’d be hearing about this again when the background checks came in. He was laughing softly at the thought when Alec poked his head in.
“You’ve heard?”
“Heard what?” He wasn’t certain he appreciated the big grin on Alec’s face. What had they done now?
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"Lt. Ellis!" Marc Bradley's voice echoed in strident tones through Moonbase control.
"Yes, Marc? What is it?"
"There's ... there's an alien in the interceptor bay!"
"What?!"
"It's ... It's doing something to the Interceptors ... They! I can see two of them."
"Marc, are they short and yellow?"
Bradley stared at the mic for a moment. Was that laughter touching her voice? "Yes," he confirmed doubtfully.
"It's all right, Marc. They're new techs."
"What?" Did he sound as dumbfounded as he thought?
"They're new techs. They're ... not aliens." Gay shut off her mic for a moment to allow her laughter to come out.
Nina and Joan regarded her for a moment before smiling themselves. The minions were new to Moonbase. Technically, they were new to SHADO. No one knew exactly where they’d come from, but since Commander Straker was taking them in stride, so was everyone else.
Gay opened the mic again. ”It’s all right. They really are the new techs. Commander Straker and Dr. Jackson made contact with them a few months ago. We’re not entirely certain how they became technologically advanced, but they seem to be brilliant and have helped Col. Lake make some improvements. The Commander wanted to see how they fare here and whether they will be as helpful here as they are at HQ. You could introduce yourself if you like. I believe the crew on now is Gunther, Eddie and Paul.”
She was not going to laugh.
“Oh. Good then. I’ll … do that.” Marc replaced the hand set and took a look through the window at the creatures. He’d introduce himself when they came back in.