Thunderfunk the Superchicken - Chapter 13

Foreign Lands

After an hour in the cab, Thunderfunk leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Excuse me sir. Do you actually know where you are going?" Once again, the cabbie bobbed his head, a large grin on his face. Another half hour and finally Thunder had had enough. Leaning forward again, he spoke in a clear, crisp voice. "Listen here. I have had enough of this tomfoolery. Either take us to the hotel, or pay the consequences!" Moments later, Thunder and Straw stood in silence on the street corner, watching the cab drive away.

Finally, Straw voiced his opinion. "I told you we should have found a cab driver that spoke English." He gathered up their luggage and started walking down the street.

Quickly Thunderfunk caught up to his companion. "I suppose you know where you’re going now do you," he growled, his voice full of menace. A glance around the area showed a complete lack of English signs, which was not a surprise, given that they were currently in Tokyo, Japan.

"Not really," came the ready reply, "but it can’t be any worse than where you ended up leading us." The sarcasm in his voice was light enough that it may have been imagined. He kept walking, ignoring the furious pecking that was raining down on his head. Once Thunder’s fury was abated, Straw asked a question that had been on his mind for at least the past two minutes. "I thought you said there would be dire consequences if we weren’t taken to the hotel. Usually that means you blow up their car, or ruin their credit rating, or force them to work for Microsoft. Y’know, something evil. Yet you let this guy drive away. Why?"

A quiet chuckle emerged from the giant chicken. "Well, my young protégé, his punishment was simple, but immediate. When we left the cab, I gave him exactly what we owed him, and not a yen more!"

"Oh, that’s cold."


Three hours later, a disheveled chicken stumbled into the Marriott hotel (motto: Conveniently less than five minutes from the airport!) and made his way to the check-in counter. "I’m here…" he gasped. "To check…." he moaned. "In…" he nearly collapsed on the counter.

Behind him, Straw strolled casually into the lobby, waving behind him as he came. "Thanks for the drink," he called out, holding up a Coke. "And for the advice. I will definitely try not to bite any wax tadpoles."

Thunder looked behind him and scowled before straightening himself up, smoothing his rumpled suit and adopting a properly haughty demeanour. "The name is Thunderfunk the Superchicken, and I have a reservation." He watched with growing agitation as the desk clerk, dressed impeccably in a navy blue three piece suit, started typing in his computer and making clucking noises with his tongue. "Are you mocking me?" he barked.

Startled, the man looked up. "No sir." He tapped a few more keys on his computer before shaking his head. "I am sorry sir," he said, his English only slightly accented. "I do not speak English. Please give me a moment and I will find someone to translate." He scurried away only to be replaced by another clerk dressed in the same outfit.

"Yes sir, how can I help such a distinguished guest?" The clerk was smaller than the last guy, but was nearly indistinguishable otherwise. It seemed that the hotel was using clones.

Thunder filed that information away for later exploration and made a second try to get his room. "Yes, I have a reservation. The name is Thunderfunk, the Superchicken."

Once again the clerk checked his computer before finally looking up with an apologetic face. "I’m sorry sir. We seem to have given your room to someone else." Noting the fury that was building in the chicken’s eyes, he hurried on. "When you did not arrive for your check in time, we assumed you were not going to make it."

Leaning forward, Thunder reached over the desk and picked the clerk up by the lapel of his jacket. "Listen to me, and listen closely." His voice was quiet and threatening. "I reserved a room. I was at the airport five hours ago. I am a very rich person. I want a room, and I want a room now. If I don’t get a room, then I will rain such horrors on your head that even your ancestors will feel the pain. Now go." Dropping the clerk, he turned and stalked past Straw Daq, growling out instructions: "Make sure that idiot gets us a room." Moments later he disappeared into the attached bar, probably to drown his angst in sake.

"Nice to see the travel hasn’t dampened his sunny disposition," muttered the pilot as he made his way to the desk. Sympathetically smiling at the clerk, he waited for the man to gather his wits about him again. "Hi," he started out, "I’m with the giant angry chicken. He’s just grumpy when he hasn’t eaten."

The clerk nodded slightly and then went about finding them a room. A couple minutes of searching produced a result. Twenty minutes later, Straw was trying to calm an enraged chicken as they viewed the room they had been given. Large, containing two bedrooms, a Jacuzzi in each room, and a monster living area, it was one of the nicest rooms Straw had ever seen. Something about it seemed to have upset his counterpart, who was in all of his raging glory. "I can’t believe they would do this to me," he lamented, stomping around the living room. "Don’t they know who I am? I am a very important guest, and very rich. My business is very important to them and this is how they treat me?" A sweep of the arm indicated the entire room. "Is this all that customer service means to them? Who’s running this place, a monkey?" An incoherent flurry of clucking erupted from the enraged fowl before he stood by the massive television, fuming.

Almost scared to ask, Straw ventured a question. "What exactly is wrong with this room?"

"Don’t you know anything?" snapped Thunderfunk. "These colours are all autumn colours, and I am so obviously a summer!"

Straw rolled his eyes. "Maybe we should concentrate on what we came for, namely stopping First Lieutenant Awesomepant’s plans."

"Right." Thunderfunk sat down on the couch and pulled out a cookie. "These things are delicious," he said almost dreamily as Straw set up their mobile work station. Soon he would stop this plan. After that, maybe he could get the recipe.