### ### ### ### ### #### ### ### ### #### ### ### ##### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ##### ### ### ########## ### ### ########## ### ### ### ### Underground eXperts United Presents... ####### ## ## ####### # # ####### ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## #### ## ## #### # # ## ## ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ## ## ####### ####### # # ####### ####### ####### [ Castle Chronicles Chapter One ] [ By THE CHIEF ] ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ###### ###### ###### ###### ## ###### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ###### ###### ## ## #### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ###### ## ## ###### ## ###### ###### ###### ## ## ###### ###### ## ## ## ###### ## ###### ###### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ###### ###### ## ## ## ### ## ## ## #### ###### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ###### ## ## ## ## ###### ## ## ## ###### ###### ###### ###### UNASSAILABLE EXPEDITIONS THROUGH A TORMENTED BASEMENT CHAPTER ONE Steve Castle took his hat from the shelf and paid the woman behind the counter. Ah, what an excellent lunch. French toast and a cup of coffee. That was a lunch for kings! He went out to the street and started to walk down Gainsbury Road that lead down to the docks. He was to meet a man who had vital information about the case he was working on. Castle called the case "The Man & No Man" for reasons he only knew himself. Apparently, a man had entered a shoe shop in Regent Street on November 6th. This may not seem very unusual, but in this case it was, because the man had, as said, entered the store, but never left it! His wife was hysterical first, then after the first year, she calmed down. Robin and James, his kids, didn't under- stand what had happened because they were only One and Three years old by the time of his disappearance. Now, 15 years later, Castles first breakthrough was about to happen. Warehouse 86, the man had said. Castle walked slowly in the warm spring sun, facing the breeze from the ocean with great pleasure. Aaaah, he filled his lungs with the salty air and got a bug with it. Ahum, splutt! Duh! was his reaction to this. Left, Left and then Right. Aha, Number 86! He entered the big warehouse. Pitch black! Castle lit his flashlight and started to search for the door the man had said he would be behind. Johnsson, Stevens, Bartholomo-Gainsville, Turner, Jones, Harry, Imbehindthisone! That's the one. He opened the door. If it is possible to describe something that's darker than pitch black, this was it. Behind the door, Castle could just make out the stairs leading downwards. With careful steps he started to descend. The moisten air met his face like a wall. When he examined it, he discovered that it in fact really Was a wall. With the nose bleeding, he ran into a man who was hiding in a trunk filled with used condoms. "Watch it buddy!", said the man. "This is My hiding-place. You just have to find one of your own." The man closed the trunk and continued to hide (or whatever he was doing in there, I let your imagination decide here, because there's a vast number of possibilities. No? Well, consider that he May be eating dinner, reading a good book or perhaps watching the late night game between Bruins and the Vikings. See? Now I can't spend more time on this because it has nothing to do with the story whatsoever!) Castle continued to search with his flashlight, only to find that there was nothing there. The basement was about 2x2 meters big, and the only thing down there was the trunk with the... Ah, it must be Him!, Castle thought out loud for himself. "Shhh!" said the man who had re-opened the trunk. "Do you think we're alone down here!?" Castle thought for a couple of seconds, and then decided that he couldn't come to another conclusion and said "I have personally searched the whole basement, and I can assure you that we are alone." The man crawled out of the trunk, covered with slime and something that looked like a half-eaten pizza. "Want a piece?" he asked brushing off the slime. "Yes, thanks!", Castle replied and started a process in his stomach that killed 137 million germs, but also created 137 new ones. The man whispered something in Castles ear that didn't make Castle very surprised. He walked the 22 cm to the trunk, knocked on the side and opened the lock, revealing a beautiful girl with only her underwear on. "Hi beauty", Castle greeted her. "Hello" she said, "You want to join us?". "Sure", Castle said, but remembered that he was on a case and turned down the offer with apologies. The man, introduced himself as Jerry Steinberg III, king of A-Shoes. Castle stretched out his hand, but drew it right back when he saw Steinberg's filled with cheese, pizza and a little stain of greebt- ofla-bahajmatal, a deadly Indian take-away. Jerry started to tell his tale. "16 years ago, I owned a store up on Regent Street. We had the best in leatherware. Jackets, trousers, gloves, but also Shoes." "Aha", Castle said. "Continue please." "Yes, as I said, we sold Shoes. Only the best of course!.. ehm, where was I, oh yes, Shoes. So we sold these Shoes. Everyone wanted them, and we sold about 300.000 pairs a week in the beginning. "A remarkable number indeed", Castle let out with admiration in his voice. "Oh but it wasn't that, no, not at all. After four weeks, a month, our production of these shoes had reached 4 million a day, and the sales didn't go down, so in the end we sold over 5 million a day, worldwide!" "Really interesting", Castle mumbled. "Oh but it wasn't that either, not in any way! No. When LIKE, our largest competitor introduced a new design, our sales went down like a banana split at a birthday-party for 8-year olds. We were finished. We were bankrupt. We had to close the shop and fire our staff.' "Uhuh..", "So is that what you wanted me to know?" Castle asked. "No, it wasn't that! You have to listen to me Castle! Listen good. When we moved out, another firm took over, and opened a shoe shop at the very same spot, but they also sold computer equipment! Joysticks, Harddrives, Printers and so on. One of their employees used to work for me. He was somewhat of a hacker you might say. Always hanging over the computer, running something they call a Bulletin Board System and writing long stories that were greatly appreciated around the world. A very fine man indeed. Oh, by the way, it's the very same person who is writing this story right now!" "Really? Well, it seems like he's doing a good job, doesn't it?" Castle said with a smile on his face. "Sure, everything he does usually Is good!" "So, what have all of this got to do with the man who disappeared in the shoe shop?" Castle asked. "The what?" Steinberg said with a surprised look on his face. "Listen, you called me and told me to meet you here because you had vital information about this case I'm working on. The Man who disappeared in a Shoe Store at Regent Street!". "Hey, I don't know anything about no man disappearing. Aren't you from Books International? I was told to meet someone here who would print my story!" Steinberg said with doubt in his voice. Suddenly a man jumped up from behind the trunk. He was about 1.93 meters tall, not very thin, and had a large sombrero on his head. "Steve Castle?" the man said looking at Castle. "Eh, yes?" Castle replied, slightly chocked. "Good, I'm Howard Brown. I have some vital information regarding the case you're working on. I called you earlier today, remember?" the man said and reached out to shake hands. "But why didn't you show yourself earlier?!" Castle almost screamed to Brown. "Well, I enjoyed Mr. Steinberg's story quite a bit. You didn't want me to miss the end did you?!", Brown frowned. The last Steve Castle saw before he fainted was the beautiful girl crawling out of the box, completely naked but with a slice of pizza in one hand, offering it to Brown who said he would rather take her instead (and did so 2 seconds later). ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ Watch out for the next chapter of the Castle Chronicles! It will be Very revealing! In all directions! ONLY from The Underground eXperts United! (!) 1991 THE CHIEF & uXu Productions ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________