Starbreaker: An explosion of classics

2. Hard luck champion

  Of course, this haphazard jaunt through the universe marked Adrian Flodden's existence by the climax he attained, for it had elevated him to hear Deep Purple play "Space truckin'" on stage, but he never imagined that he would have the chance of living that song literally.

   As to his mission, the only thing the cyborg T-800 stated about it was its target: Randy Razor. Blimey! In what mess had Randy the dunce got himself into now? In the past, because of his tomfoolery, he had been ousted from a pub as well as from an arcade club. Still, how could be so serious, Adrian wondered, as to enact in real life an adaptation of the first Terminator film, with Randy Razor in the role of Sarah Connor? How's this: his interference with an incident essential to the development of the substance that every cyborg is built out of? 

As Randy still resented the Hell Patrol's rejection after he betrayed his own ignorance in matters of rock (see chapter 6 of STARGAZER Book I), his logic and his yearning to redeem himself suggested to him an idea: to emulate Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap (TV series in which a quantum physicist moves to different eras and takes over the body of some person in order to alter an event; and to whom "Traveller in time" by Uriah Heep suits alright, for that song seems to speak of the predicament and unease of Sam's over getting back home).

   Anyway, Randy reckoned that if he prevented Tony Iommi from suffering the slightest injury that may threaten his ability to play guitar, thus assuring the integrity of heavy metal's pioneer, he, Randy Razor, thanks to his astuteness, wold be bestowed with the designation of godfather of said genre. Yet this notion only bears out that Randy was a downright idiot, since by impeding Tony Iommi from chopping off the tips of two fingers of his right hand when he was a youngster of 17, Tony would not have had to replace his phalanxes with rubber thimbles, so he would neither have had to tune the strings of his guitar two or even three semitones lower, and hence Black Sabbath's gloomy characteristic sound would never have germinated. And that in what way affected the T-800? Well, as the T-800 was, in itself, a big lump of heavy metal (albeit in the literal sense), its survival instincts ordained him to protect the embryo of such musical style against any danger.

   The forces that thwarted Randy Razor's plan, however, were his own luck and the ecological consciousness of Bleakstone's government. In order to reduce the emission of air pollutants, all vehicles must pass an annual inspection—that was the law; and of course, fines for not abiding by that law were pretty stiff. Perhaps Randy proceeded with caution by taking the underground tunnel instead of the Palliser boulevard, where his car would have stood out among the traffic directly due to its bizarre design; even though it was also his fortune that in that tunnel, right when he entered it, a pursuit was in progress between cops and a gang who robbed electronics laden trucks in the motorways.

   Poor Randy! Then, for asserting that he knew well the bald fellow driving a Honda Civic like a maniac at the fore of the party (it was Dominic Toretto!), believing he had been the witness of a rehearsal of some scene of the next Fast and Furious instalment, yet not affording information as to where the stolen goods were stashed away, the police charged him with obstruction of justice; of which charge, of course, he was cleared after a brief investigation. 

   Nevertheless, since it bore no sticker to certify its fit condition to run around the city, the Delorean that Randy had imported clandestinely from Back to the Future wound up in an impound lot, where it was to remain quite forlorn until the fine for such a trespass got paid and, in accordance with the local regulations, have a new catalytic converter rigged up. Said arrangement, however, would lessen the capacity of the engine, so that it would not reach the speed necessary to flow through time. 

   Hence Randy Razor missed his chance to erect himself as the godfather of heavy metal; and earned, instead, because of the twist in his plan, the song "Hard luck champion" by Dangerous Toys as his alias.

   To be honest, though, this failed enterprise of Randy's had a belter of a collateral effect, for while awaiting the arrival of its objective in order to eliminate it, the cyborg T-800 revealed to Tony Iommi that he came from the year 2029, and his tale about the aftermath of the nuclear holocaust inspired the songs "Electric funeral" and "Into the void" by Black Sabbath.

   And this carnival of celebrities arose, in turn, from a casual accident: all the issues of the Black Hole magazine had been compiled in a 25 volumes anthology, and Monique allotted a shelf high at the core of her bookstore to display it. Therefore, the energy seething in those volumes disrupted the bookstore's atmosphere, where thousands of books likewise pulsated, which induced an eruption whose repercussions, along with the strategies to fix the troubles occasioned, comprise the present story.