Part 27, Chapter 10 - The Punchline

So there's a moment of calm as the Scots rush off to Edinburgh, and the aliens hit their apartments for a break, leaving Jonnie to wander into the ops center. He's got a lot of concerns to keep track of - Schleim's trial, how long the ceasefire will last, Edinburgh, Russia - but he remembers that book he read's advice to take things one at a time... wait, what book? I don't remember a book. When'd Jonnie get a book?

Eh, I'm not going back to look for it.

There is one question Jonnie can get an answer to, at least, and he tells Angus to get ready to teleport a camera to check on Psychlo and see if those aliens are ever going to get around to that counterattack. I'm still not sure how they could launch a counter-invasion, if Psychlo is stuck on a strict teleportation schedule that leaves it with only a few hours each year to link to Earth, and they didn't exactly try to send anything through during the most recent scheduled firing, but that's all a moot point, as we'll see next chapter.

Jonnie goes to the hospital on his way to his room, gets some sulfa powder and a shot of B Complex, is told he's perfectly fine thanks to his impressive physique and willpower-fueled healing factor, and lifts the spirits of the wounded Scots left behind with but a sentence because Jonnie is a Leader of Men. Then he meets Chief Chong-won who complains that a feast of Chinese cooking for the alien diplomats is going uneaten, and then Mr. Tsung shows up to compliment Jonnie on being a fast pupil. Turns out someone recorded the antics in the conference room for a "Best of Jonnie Goodboy Tyler" DVD... this is not an exciting chapter.

Tsung humbly requests Jonnie's "chop" (signature) to approve his family's un-exiling and reinstatement as chamberlains to the world government, plus a promotion to mandarin for Tsung's relatives. Jonnie points out that he doesn't actually belong to the world government, but Tsung says via translator "you don't know what you are." I'm inferring that Jonnie's performance as a pompous twit has made him a fully-qualified emperor in Tsung's eyes, and now wish to inflict violence upon Tsung for being a disgrace to human dignity.

Jonnie signs the papers, and finally reveals what Tsung told him back in Part 26, Chapter 6 that gave Jonnie so many ideas.

"Oh yes," said Jonnie as he left. "One more thing. Tell him how much I enjoyed that tale about the dragon who ate the moon."

So it took a Chinese folktale to remind Jonnie that he had a planet-destroying bomb?

Next chapter, the fate of Psychlo revealed!


Back to Part Twenty-Seven, Chapter Nine

Forward to Part Twenty-Eight, Chapter One