Gyrbynerjk #4

“Are you ready, Grbixxer?” the snarling transporter asked. Grbixxer stood on the transport deck, ready to go. “I will send you to Earth, you will shape yourself into something innocent, gain the Earthling’s trust, and then rule them with an iron fist. Godspeed, Grbixxer. We await your success.”

“Thank you, sir,” Grbixxer saluted and then disappeared.

“Where on Earth did you send Grbixxer?” another snarling alien asked.

“Uh…Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“I got the coordinates wrong. He’s not going to Earth.”

“Then where is he?”

“Close to Earth. Earth’s orbit. A tiny satellite. He’ll be fine. He’ll figure something out.”


“Greetings,” Brian began. “Brian and Barry here. Today, Dr. Anderson sent us a set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ColorForms.” Brian held up the box to the camera. It was a dark box with the four turtles posing on the roof of a building.

“What’s a ColorForm?” Barry asked.

“Most people know them as a static cling. It’s basically a piece of thin plastic that can stick to slick surfaces. ColorForms is the brand name,” Brian explained. “You get a rooftop scene with the turtle blimp and about 30 character pieces. You have the four turtles, baby turtle versions of them, various villains, and random things like manhole covers, pizzas, and mutagen.”

“So what do you do with these?” Barry asked. “Seems kind of lame.”

“Well, when I owned one, I would act out scenes with them. I would do it kind of like a fighting game tournament.”

“I think you need to show us, Brian,” Barry said.

“I should?”

“Yes, you should,” Barry said.

“Okay,” Brian began arranging the static clings on the board. “’I have you turtles now,’” Brian said in a voice reminiscent of Shredder on the cartoon show. “’I have returned your brothers to their baby state and now I will do the same to you.”

Brian continued playing, having the turtle he chose, Raphael, battle the other static clings such as Baxter Stockman, Leatherface, and the Rat King—getting a turtle back after each defeat. The final battle was between Shredder and the four reunited turtles who all handled Shredder fairly quickly.

“And I guess that’s it,” Brian sighed.

“That was beautiful,” Barry cried. “Hey, Dr. Anderson, do you think you can send me a copy of that?”

Brian stood up and stretched. “You should see what I can do with refrigerator magnets,” he said.

Shortly after they left the room, a being formed in the room. Grbixxer stretched and looked around. “This isn’t Earth,” he sniffed. He tapped a button on a communicator in his ear. “Where did you send me?”

“Near Earth. Earth’s orbit. A tiny satellite. Just pilot the satellite back down to Earth,” they communicated.

Grbixxer sighed. “How do you still have a job?”

“Uncle Herrklraxton says I’m getting better.”

Grbixxer shook his head. He took a step and an alarm started going off. A light in the room started flashing as did other lights in the corridor. “Unknown passenger,” a voice announced. “Unknown passenger.”

“Unknown passenger?” Brian asked, looking at Barry.

“It’s probably your underwear again or something,” Barry replied.

Brian looked at the console. “We just came from that room. There’s nothing in there,” he said.

“Maybe the ColorForms came to life,” Barry said.

“That would be amazing. We should go check it out,” Brian tapped a few buttons on the console and the alarms shut off. Brian took a zapper off the wall and he and Barry went back to the recording studio. They stood in the doorway and looked around. “See? Nothing.”

“Not even a pair of underwear,” Barry tsked.

Brian looked down at the Ninja Turtle static clings they left on the floor. “Wait. You see anything weird about the clings? Look hard.”

Barry took a few seconds to look but didn’t see anything.

“How many turtles should there be?” Brian asked.

“Four.”

“And how many are there?”

“One, two, three…five.”

The extra turtle suddenly jumped up to attack Brian and Barry but Brian easily caught him and held him at bay.

“Awesome! One did come to life!” Barry exclaimed.

“It’s only awesome when they aren’t trying to kill us though,” Brian said. “He’s strong for a four inch piece of plastic the width of a gnat’s dick.”

“What should we do?” Barry asked.

“Grab the zapper and send this…whatever it is to kingdom come,” Brian said, still wrestling with the static cling.

Barry took the zapper away from Brian and aimed at the cling. Brian was trying to keep it as still as possible. “Grbixxer is just the first,” the static cling began yelling in a small, high-pitched voice. “There will be many more after me. You have not won, humans. This is just the first battle but we…we shall win the war.”

The zapper went off and destroyed the static cling. Grbixxer was no more. Brian looked at the singed plastic fluttering to the floor. “What was that? Girl-boxer? Gribbicker?”

“Cribbagger,” Barry said. “Someone who plays cribbage a lot? That’s what it sounded like anyway.”

“I don’t know. Cribbagger isn’t even a word,” Brian said.

“So? It’s space. Words don’t have to make sense up here.”




“We lost Grbixxer,” an alien said to the captain.

“Okay. I think I have his number here,” the captain turned and opened a file drawer.

“No, he’s dead. An Earthling killed him.”

“Oh. Well, in the grand scheme of things, Earth isn’t all that important. Uh, let his family know that he probably won’t be coming home for dinner ever again. Thank you, Minoorlax.”

“You’re welcome, Uncle.”

The alien left the captain’s quarters. “Now who still has a job, huh, Grbixxer?” the alien said and then began to cackle as he walked down the corridor.

Gyrbynerjk #3

“What are you watching?” Barry asked, coming into Brian’s small sleeping quarters. There was a small bed, a sink and toilet, and a TV. Brian was watching TV; it was a bulky 1980s style Emerson television with dials and a faux wood cabinet. Dr. Anderson had modified it to get every streaming service so Brian had access to nearly every TV show ever made.

“The Jetsons.”

“Really? The Jetsons? You strike me as more of a Flintstones man,” Barry sat with Brian on the bed and watch a couple minutes of the show. “So why The Jetsons?”

“Flintstones is clearly the superior show but I like George Jetson as a character better. Fred and Barney could handle themselves what with work, family, their wives, the Water Buffalo Lodge but George had no control over anything. He is constantly at odds with everything. He’s trapped in a world he can’t control or understand.”

“Who’s that?” Barry exclaimed, leaning closer to the TV.

“Rosie the Robot—she’s the Jetsons maid.”

“Hello,” Barry said to the TV. “Look at the rear on her.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why they made her so thicc but whatever.”

“Oh, by the way, Mr. Spacely is calling.”

“Hey, Dr. Anderson, how’s it going?” Brian asked.

“I am better than you ever will be, Brian. Being evil just gets more popular every day,” Dr. Anderson bragged. “Your review today is the pilot episode of the 1984 to 1989 syndicated television series Small Wonder. You’re going to hate it.”

The theme song started up, a man walks out of his office building and sits down on a curb in the parking lot to eat his lunch. “Why is he eating lunch outside?” Barry asked.

“They don’t allow food inside the building,” Brian remarked.

The theme song continued, a syrupy concoction of everything wrong with theme songs. The cast names flashed by and the screen went dark. “Oh, good. Is it over?” Barry asked.

“No, that was just the theme song,” Brian answered.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

“Huh.”

The series starts with a mother—Joan—working in the kitchen when her son comes home, slamming the back door as kids are known to do in the television situation comedies. His name was Jamie and he is lamenting not having anybody to play with—specifically not having a brother. He’d even settle for a sister. He then makes a crack about his parents not trying hard enough to conceive another child. There’s a knock on the door and Jamie gets up to answer it and immediately slams it in the girl’s face.

“He just performed a soliloquy about not having anybody to play with and when someone comes over to play, he slams the door in their face?” Barry asked.

“Harriet deserves it,” Jamie begins explaining. “She's a pill and she's nosy. What a waste of womanhood."

“Alright, we can check all the boxes on the sitcom young male character personality sheet,” Brian said. “He hates school, talks about sex, complains about women, whiny about everything."

“At least he’s eating his vegetables,” Barry said, pointing out that Jamie was eating a carrot in this scene. Brian shrugged in agreement.

Almost immediately, the father—Ted—comes home. “Hey, where did Harriet go?” Brian asked.

“Maybe she was never there,” Barry answered.

The family goes into the living room and Ted discusses what’s been going on at work and shows his family that he is working on a V.I.C.I—a voice input child identicant—and that it could revolutionize robotics. “Gee, Dad, a grown man playing with a doll at work?” Jamie asked with an eyebrow raised and confusion in his voice.

“Ooh, we can add ‘angered by things outside of gender normality’ to the list,” Barry said.

Joan gives Ted permission to continue his work on the V.I.C.I. and he is next seen programming the little girl bot in the master bedroom to do things such as “blink eyes”, “wiggle nose” and “respond to voice command.”

“There’s just something a little unsettling about a grown man giving orders to a child while she’s lying on a bed,” Brian said.

“It’s made worse by the laugh track,” Barry replied. “They’re all complicit.”

Vicki, as the little robot girl is now known to be, is introduced to the family. Joan drops tonight’s dinner. “You’re putting us on. That’s a real kid, right?” she asked.

“No, no it’s a robot,” Ted answered.

“’So, it’s not technically illegal’ says some pervert in the YouTube comments,” Brian said.

The next morning, Jamie and Vicki are making breakfast for Ted and Joan, who are celebrating their anniversary. Jamie is trying to show Vicki how to do things. She ends up crushing an egg in her hand and the audience groans in the disgust.

“The laugh track is way too into this,” Barry chuckled.

Jamie gets everything set out on a tray and gives the task of delivering the breakfast to Vicki. “It’s the first door in the hall on the left,” Jaime directs.

“’Yes. I. Know. I. Was. Built. There,’” Brian mocked in Vicki’s voice.

Vicki brings the breakfast to Ted and Joan but throws it at them instead. Brian and Barry actually laugh at this. The scene cuts to Jamie and Vicki in Jamie’s room, in trouble. “Wait. Jamie got in trouble because Vicki thought ‘give it to them’ meant throw it at them? That’s on you, Ted. That’s on you,” Barry said.

Jamie then decides to sneak out and get his parents an anniversary present to smooth things over. “My Dad sleeps late on Saturday. I’ll be back before they wake up.”

“They were just awake. Vicki threw breakfast on them,” Brian exclaimed.

For some reason, Vicki follows Jamie to the store, is believed to be one of the store’s displays and locked in a closet. She escapes by ripping the door off its hinges. When Jamie and Vicki return home, they are caught by Ted and Joan. They get in trouble once again and Jamie chastises her. Feeling bad, Jamie apologizes and Vicki rips the door off his toy cabinet. “I can see I’m going to have nothing but trouble with you.”

“Trouble,” Vicki repeated and smiled.

“Yep, she’s going to kill us all,” Barry said.

“Well, that was certainly an episode of a show. A show that lasted a fairly long time. It ran in syndication, not on a network, which may have helped its renewal chances each year especially if it aired weekdays after school when kids got home,” Brian explained. “I never watched it but I knew it existed. I was more of a cartoon kid.”

“This show would probably work better as a cartoon,” Barry said.

“Possibly. Brian out.”




Brian was sitting in bed reading when Barry robotically came into the room, carrying a tray of food. He was wearing a red dress with a white apron. “Good. Morning,” Barry said, mimicking Vicki’s voice.

“What’s going on? What are you doing? Where did you get that dress and apron?” Brian asked.

“Happy. Anniversary. From. Doctor. Anderson. And. Me. And. To. Give. This. To. You,” Barry said and threw the tray of food onto Brian.

Brian could hear Dr. Anderson’s laughter echoing through the ship. “What the hell, Barry?”

“Sorry, Brian. Dr. Anderson wanted me to do that and even though I think you’re a great guy, Dr. Anderson still built me and I thought it would be pretty funny as well. I was right,” Barry explained.

Suddenly, music started playing on the ship PA system. “She’s a small wonder, lovely and bright with soft curls. She’s a small wonder, a child unlike other girls. She’s a miracle, and I grant you, she’ll enchant you at first sight…”

Gyrbynerjk #2

Brian walked into the main room of the satellite with a towel around his waist, a towel wrapped around his head and wearing a robe. “Hey, Barry, I have a question.”

“What’s up?” Barry answered.

“Where is the shower?”

“Shower?”

“Something to clean myself with. Water, soap. I’ve been up here a week and I’m getting pretty stanky,” Brian sniffed his armpit.

“I don’t think there is one,” Barry said. “Dr. Anderson is evil so he probably didn’t put one in.”

“Mm. I’m gonna start getting itchy if I don’t get a shower,” Brian said. A light started blinking on the console. Brian pressed a button. “Hey, Dr. Anderson. Did you really not build a shower in here?”

“A shower? You have a sink that recycles your urine to give you water and that’s all you’ll get,” Dr. Anderson yelled. “Now, I’m sending you a classic board game where you judge people based on how they look. It’s the mystery face game: Guess Who.”

“Guess Who? I love Guess Who,” Brian smiled at Barry. “Wait. My drinking water is made from urine?”




“Guess Who is a simple game where you try to guess which character the other player has,” Brian began explaining. He shuffled the character cards and tipped over the character portraits on the board. “You use physical characteristics to narrow down who you think the other person has. Barry, would you like to play?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Brian picked a couple of cards and then stuck them in the card holder. “Now, you can ask just about anything. Eye color, hair color, face shape. Barry, does your person wear glasses?”

“What if they were contacts?” Barry asked.

“We don’t know that. They either wear glasses or they don’t.”

“Okay. They don’t,” Barry answered.

Brian knocked down all the characters who wear glasses on his board. “Now you ask me a question.”

“All right. Does your person have crippling depression?”

“Like wearing contacts, we don’t know that either,” Brian replied.

“Have you really looked at Herman?”

Brian got closer and squinted at Herman, a balding redhead with a huge nose. “Huh. Well, still, it has to be a physical characteristic.”

“Oh. Does your person…I don’t know, wear a hat?”

“No. Is your person Frans?”

“No. Wait, can we do that? Just ask if the person is that person?”

“Not really? I just don’t like looking at Frans.”

“Why?”

Brian closed his eyes, seemingly in pain. “Hey, Brian,” said a voice from dead in Brian’s brain. It was a slightly goofy voice with a German lilt to it. “Howzitgoing?”

“It’s fine, Frans,” Brian hesitantly answered.

“Wanna touch tips?”

“NO!” Brian screamed, startling Barry.

“What the hell?”

“Sorry, Barry. Frans is just…something I have to deal with.”

“Is your person Frans?”

“No. I’d rather die,” Brian snapped back. “Okay, does your person have a big nose?”

“What constitutes a big nose? I mean, clearly Peter and Max have big noses but what about Anne and Bernard?”

“They have big noses. It either is or isn’t.”

“This isn’t as fun as I thought,” Barry said. “Does your person have blue eyes?”

“Uh, no.”

Barry looked through his characters. “Wait a minute. Only six people have blue eyes. Everyone else has brown. That makes asking about eyes completely worthless.”

“Does your person have facial hair?”

“Facial hair? That gets rid of nearly everyone on my board,” Barry exclaimed.

“Narrowed it down to five,” Brian gloated.

“Uh, I don’t know. This is so stupid. Is your person a soulless ginger?”

“It’s 2019, are ginger jokes still funny?”

“I don’t think they were ever funny. Humans just like mocking people they feel are beneath them,” Barry said. “Now does your person have red hair or not?”

“No.”

Barry knocked down two more characters. “That was a stupid question.”

“Does your person have long hair?”

“Argh. Yes,” Barry grumbled.

Brian knocked down George and Eric leaving only three women—Anita, Maria, and Susan. “Your person is clearly a female.”

“Mm,” Barry grumbled again. “Does your person have a beard?”

“Not going facial hair?” Brian asked.

“I have a plan.”

“My person does have a beard,” Brian nodded approvingly.

Barry knocked down several characters leaving only three—Philip, David, Richard. “Checkmate.”

“Does your person have a hat?”

“No.”

“Damn,” and Brian knocked down Maria.

“Let’s see. I gotta make this count,” Barry sighed. “Does your person…have red cheeks?”

“Yes…”

“Your person is Philip,” Barry smugly said.

“You got me. Is your person Susan?”

“Yes,” Brian took the character and threw it down.

They sat in silence for nearly a minute. “So that killed, what? Ten minutes?”

“Yeah, you have to play about three to five games before any time starts being killed,” Brian said. “It’s a good game for younger people but once you enter puberty, it’s
kind of boring.”

“You could, however, give each character a backstory and have the players figure out the character from that. Like Bill. Bill once tried to get microfibers like Donald Trump to hide his baldness but it was too expensive and who wants hair like Donald Trump?”

“I guess you could do that but I feel that if you have to start giving the players character information sheets then you might as well just play Dungeon and Dragons.”

“True, true. So tell me more about Frans.”

“No.”




That night, Brian was lying in bed, just moments away from falling asleep. “Hey, Brian…” a goofy voice echoed in his head. Brian rolled over and attempted to force the voice back to the back of his head. “Brian…”

Brian’s eyes snapped open. The voice wasn’t coming from his head. “Hello?” he called into the darkness.

“Hey, Brian. Do you wanna touch tips?”

“I don’t even know what that means. Who asks someone that?”

“An ignorant young man curious about his sexuality,” the voice said. “You told everyone. You made me a laughing stock. Because of that, we’re going to touch tips. Touch tips forever!” The Frans card appeared around the corner holding a knife.

“What the hell?” Brian screamed and scrambled out of the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m not like that anymore. I was a stupid teenager and I understand the damage I did. Please, Frans. I’m sorry.”

The card lunged at Brian, who dodged relatively easily. “You’re trapped on a spaceship, Brian. There’s no running away from me.”

“You’re just a playing card. This isn’t really happening,” Brian ran out of the room and into the main part of the ship. Barry was powered down near the console. “Barry, wake up. We have a problem.”

He slowly powered on. “Hey, Brian, what’s going…What the hell is that?”

“The Frans card came to life and now it’s trying to kill me,” Brian explained.

“Oh, I’m not trying to kill you. I’m gonna chop your tip off. Touch tips forever!” the Frans card declared again. Another lunge and both Brian and Barry dodged. “You can’t escape me,” the Frans card began laughing maniacally.

Brian and Barry ran to another room and shut the door. There were only three rooms on the ship. They could still hear the laugh coming from the Frans card. “I can’t believe that I’ve been on this thing for a week and I’m already going to be killed,” Brian said to Barry in a hushed tone.

“He clearly just wants your tip. Just give him your tip,” Barry said.

“It doesn’t just come off, Barry.”

“Well, then, just let him cut it off. How much could it hurt?”

“I don’t really want to find out.”

The door flew open. “Guess who?!” Frans exclaimed and slashed at Brian.

Brian grabbed Frans and began wrestling with it and ultimately knocking the knife away. Brian began pinching the card between fingers and moving his hands apart. The card ripped in half and Frans went silent. Brian breathed heavily. “Does your person have a giant rip across his face?” Brian asked.




If you would like to support my writing or research, you can buy me a cup of coffee on Ko-Fi.

Gyrbynerjk #1

“The ship is ready,” Dr. Anderson said. “But I don’t have anyone to go up in it. Since Planet 4000 has stopped funding my projects, I have to do things in a bit…unorthodox way. Who do I get for this? Who? Who?!”

“Hey, Dr. Anderson,” Brian Gyrbynerjk came into the lab with a giant trash can on wheels. “How are you doing tonight? You’re working late.”

A light came on in Dr. Anderson’s brain. “Why, yes, yes, I am, Brian. I’m good. How are you doing?”

“Can’t complain,” Brian smiled, picking up a trash can and dumping the contents into the bigger trash can.

“Well, that’s good. Uh, you know, there’s another trash can inside the ship and I think it’s getting pretty full,” Dr. Anderson said, tapping the tips of his fingers together.

“Thanks,” Brian said. Brian went into the ship. Dr. Anderson quickly slammed the door shut, went over to the control panel and pulled the launch lever.

The ship rumbled to life and slowly lifted off the ground and then blasted off into the sky. The ship broke through the atmosphere and came to rest in Earth’s orbit with the rest of the space junk.

“What’s going on?” Brian exclaimed.

“You’re part of my next project,” Dr. Anderson began. “I need money to pay for my evil experiments and you’re going to help me.”

“How?”

“I’m going to send you stuff and you are going to review it,” Dr. Anderson continued. “I’ll record you and upload your review to YouTube, get a bunch of views from loser desperate for nostalgia and make millions.”

“Then you do it. Why do you need me?”

“I don’t have time to do that. I’m an idea guy. I have evil to do!” Dr. Anderson shouted. “But you won’t be alone. You will have Barry at your side at all times.”

“Barry?”

“I’m Barry,” a robot suddenly appeared next to Brian.

“Bwaah!” Brian jumped back.

“Barry will make sure you stay on task. If you need some motivation to do what I order you to do then he’s going to give you a little poke. Go ahead, Barry, show Brian your stabbing knife.”

Barry pulled a knife out from behind its back. Barry thrusted it a couple times at Brian. “Don’t worry. I’m mostly harmless.”

“Well, I’ll give it a try but I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it.”

“If you’re not, I’ll just find some other idiot, turn off your food and oxygen supply, killing you slowly, and send the new idiot up there. Now, for your first episode, I have something easy for you. The 1985 classic Nintendo Entertainment System video game, Super Mario Bros.”

“I love that game,” Brian said. He turned to Barry. “You know, that’s just about the only video game that I can beat.”

“That’s sad,” Barry said.

“The game is in the delivery chamber next to the door and the Nintendo is in the other room,” Dr. Anderson said.

Brian went over to the chamber and took the game cartridge out and went into the next room with Barry following closely behind. He put the game into the Nintendo, turned on the TV and turned on the game. He pressed start to begin the game. “Do-do do, do-do do do,” he hummed as the game began with the familiar image of Mario standing on the vast plain of the Mushroom Kingdom with trees and hills in the background. “Everyone knows this game. It’s classic and is one of the best games to introduce someone into video games. The controls are great and considering that since this game was packaged with the Nintendo Entertainment System it’s hard to imagine why so many other games’ controls were so bad.”

“What’s the goal in the game?” Barry asked.

“The goal is to get to the end of the stage and rescue the Princess who has been kidnapped by King Koopa, or Bowser as he was later called. Give me a couple minutes and I’ll get to end of the world.”

After a few minutes, Brian arrived at the end of World 1-4, approached the bridge over the lava and ran underneath Bowser, grabbing the key and destroying the bridge. Mario crossed into the other room. A mushroom boy was standing in the room. ‘Thank you, Mario. But our princess is in another castle.’

“Another castle? What the hell?” Barry complained.

“Yeah, and you will see that screen a lot,” Brian said. “It’s at the end of every world but the last one. It’s to show players that these aren’t your old video games that are over in a matter of minutes but epic games that could last a couple hours.”




“World 5 is my favorite. I like how everything looks like it has snow on it,” Brian commented as he continued playing. A few minutes later he was in World 6. “I like World 6 a lot, too. I’ll explain more when I get there,” he said.

“You’re pretty good at this game,” Barry said.

“Like I said, it’s just about the only one I can beat. It’s pretty easy compared to other games but it’s Mario—good games that offer a fair chance that are hard enough to keep you playing but not so hard that you quit.” He played a few more minutes and got to World 6-3. It was in gray scale while every other level had been in color. Only Mario had any color to him. “I love this. I love how everything is gray. I’ve never figured out why. Is it to throw you off? Disorient you? Was it a mistake? It’s corrected in other formats. Or just an odd choice from whoever programmed this stage?” Brian questioned.

“Do you need some time alone with World 6-3?” Barry asked.

“No, I’m good.” Brian paused for a bit. “Maybe later,” he shrugged.




Another half an hour and Brian finally beat the game. He avoided the real Bowser who was not only shooting fire but tossing hammers as well. The Princess thanked Mario and encouraged him to try a harder quest. “The enemies move faster and the goombas are replaced with buzzy beetles,” Brian explained. “All-in-all, still one of the best games ever made and it set the standard for every video game after it. I give it six out of six Brians. What do you think, Dr. Anderson?”

“I think this will have two thousand views by the end of the week, Brian. I’ll see you later. Dr. Anderson, out.”

Brian turned to Barry. “Do you want to play two players?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Okay. I get to be Luigi. You can be Mario.”

“You don’t want to be the character the game is named for?”

“No. I’ve never understood that. Luigi is so much cooler.”