Chapter 6: The Howling Tunnels of Ur-Kesh!

New York! The Big Apple! The City that Never Sleeps!
Ha! Who could sleep in a place like this? A place where nature had been beaten into submission. Where the very earth herself had been wormed into with cold fingers of steel and clad in an icy shroud of concrete. Where the streets were choked with the anonymous hordes of the disinterested.
Where Nigel lived.
These were the thoughts that Jim brooded over as he slouched over the rail. The men stared nervously at his broad back. Ever since they had left Camp Discovery! Jungle Jim had been a different man. Usually he spent the evenings by the fire with the men, swapping stories, sharpening machete, darning khaki. Of course the captain of the cruise ship they had booked passage on was a bit upset when the men had lit a fire on the deck so that had put an end to that.... but even so! Jim could have at least joined them for the 1st class/3rd class shuffleboard competition! What a fiasco that had been.
No. Jim spent his time muttering to himself, wandering about the ship, glaring out at the ocean. If the men tried to approach him he would utter dark, incomprehensible declarations.* He was like AQ, except darker and infinately more capable of tearing you limb from limb. Now as they pulled into the Harbor and the men all posed for a picture as they passed the Statue of Liberty, Jim hunched over the rail, steely blue eyes riveted on the oncoming press of buildings.
The problem, of course, was Nigel.
Nigel was the Second-in-Command's brother. The two had once been thick as thieves but some trauma in the past had sundered their relationship forever. Whenever Nigel came up, Jim was sure to spend days sulking about the canopy, hacking away at whatever came in within machete's reach.** This mysterious rift between Jim and Nigel was at the heart of every harsh word in Jim's life. The men were just dying to meet him.
Once the ship had pulled into New York and the men were all assembled on the pier, Jim straightened his shoulders and turned to address his men.
"Men, I want you all to know that we're not in the Jungle anymore."
The men looked around at the urban sprawl all around them and felt pretty sure that this was true.
"I understand that some of you may never have left the jungle and seen the big city. So I've drawn up a list of things you might see here in the city and equated them to things we've seen on our travels. " With that, Jim distributed a stack of papers. They said:
taxi cab = vine
cabbie = native guide
manhole = scary doorway
streetwalker = panther woman
streetgangs, mafia = cannibals
junkies = zombies (note: do not behead, police will be angry)
and so on. It was bizarrely comprehensive.
All the men folded the lists carefully and put them into the quick-access shoulder-folder pockets they had, for quick access. They then set about unloading the cargo and getting themselves kitted. Not long into the process, an odd piebald car pulled up and a man dressed all in dark blue got out. The men looked critically at his attire. He had very functional boots, rough and ready cotton pants with cargo pockets on the thigh (though only two, I mean, what are you going to do with only two?), a really cool walkie-talking looking thing clipped to his shoulder and, as a piece de resistance an absolutely fantastic toolbet, with guns and mace and nightsticks and ammo. Almost as good as their toolbets. Which, as it turned out, was why the man was there.
"Excuse me gentlemen, NYPD. I'd like to talk to you about your equipment."
Jim looked confused (some of the men noted this with relief), "I'm sorry, in why pee dee?"
The man pulled up short and gave Jim a confused look.
"Yeah, the police."
The "police"man tried to keep talking but was drowned out by the distinctive noise of a large group of men extracting lists from quick-access shoulder-folder pockets.
Police = Soldiers of local British Garrison ( not the drunk womanizing ones, the good ones)
The men all turned helpful eyes on the policeman.
Jim said "How can we help you officer?"
The police man pointed at Jim's toolbelt.
"What's that?"
"Toolbelt."
"I see that. I meant that there on the toolbelt."
"You mean the compass?"
"No, that."
"Ah, my canteen."
"No. That."
"Voodoo fetish wanga?"
"Oh my god. No. That."
"Ah, blowtorch."
"WHAT? THAT! THE MACHETE!"
Jim looked irritated. Maybe this man was thick.
"Well, officer. It's a machete. But if you already knew what it was, why did you ask?"
The officer pursed his mouth. It wasn't a good look.
"I wanted to see if you knew what it was, lunchbox breath. You are aware that machetes are illegal to carry on the streets of New York, right?'
All the men looked shocked. Chopper Charlie spoke up.
"But what if you need to clear your way?"
This didn't seem to make the officer happy, he muttered something into his shoulder mic.
Some of the other men piped up.
"Well, Charlie, we can always blast our way through with these handy elephant guns."
"Or this dynamite!"
"OR WITH SCIENCE."
Jim sighed as more pinto cars pulled up. He knew they should have gotten a native guide.

*e.g. "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
** A fact stumpy Stu knew all too well.

Chapter 5: Knife Dance on Irian Jaya!

"Behold!" Cried Jungle Jim. Reaching deep into the voluminous folds of his khaki he drew forth an ancient clay jar.
"Within lies the clue that will lead us to Discovery!" and with the precise archaeological technique he was famed for, Jim reached high into the hair and hurled the jar to the ground. All the men rushed in to see. Quick-hands Quigley made it first (obviously) and pulled the delicate parchment from the shards. He frowned in concentration and began to read the words.
"1) Six Yards Khaki. 2) Sharpening stone. 3) Hair gel. 4) Native Gui-"
Jim hastily interrupted. "Whoa! Guess that's my shopping list. Sorry boys. After the incident in the Himalayas I took to carrying important notes in small clay jars. It's really neat and besides it makes a great sound when you wiggle your hips."
Jim shimmied his hips and the clinking sounds of ( many) clay jars came from the complicated network of his pockets.
All the men stared.
"Right. Anyway. Let me get the right jar." Jim dove back into one of his pockets and started rummaging around. Sometimes he got like this. All giddy before an expedition. It wasn't exactly in keeping with the virile, paragon of masculinity persona he usually tried to cultivate but the men loved him for his enthusiasm.
Suddenly vast swooping noises came from the sky above the canopy. The darkness of the jungle floor grew even darker as a round and hairy shape blotted out the sun for a moment.
"Chi! Chi!" it cried.
Some of the men clung to each other. Jim narrowed his steely blue eyes at the sky*.
"Yoga student. Stay still."
After a moment the vast shape winged westward in its fruitless search for Camp Discovery!
All the men breathed a sigh of relief. Jim shook his head. Those wacky yoga students!
"All right men. Here's the right jar. You can tell because it's definitely more ancient than the last one. Let's see what we g-Hey, you two in the back! Quit clinging to each other! There's a time and place for that sort of thing but not when I'm on the dais!**"
Two of the men reluctantly parted.
"Right, let's see what we got here." This time Jim decided to ease the lid open for a quick peek. He really did have a lot of jars in there and some of them contained some sensitive information so, while hurling the jar to the ground was certainly more in keeping with the whole ethos of the Explorista! he really felt that this was more sensible.
"AH HA!" he cried, "this is what we're looking for! Behold men! Our salvation!" And with a flourish, Jim unrolled a piece of ancient parchment.
All the men stared, and the dreaded throat cleared. Jim knew that, someday, he would kill this man.
"Um, Jim?"
"Yes. Daniel."
If this is really a secret document from a Himalayan holy man, why is it in pencil?"
"Oh for GOD'S SAKE DAN! The man had some kind of... thing about pens. They screwed with his chi or something. I don't know! We never really got into it.*** But this really is the document. Do you think I could draw all these wild-ass heiroglyphs?"
All the men nodded thoughtfully, their beloved second in command was many things, but draftsman he was not.
"Now all we have to do is translate these things and we'll be well on our way." Jim turned looked at the parchment thoughtfully.
"Okay, while I am an expert in cuneiform and Estrangelan Syriac****, this particular script is somewhat beyond me. Hank?"
Heiroglyph Hank stepped forward. Truth be told, some of the men didn't care for Hank all that much. He was kind of snobby. Wore a monocle. Wet the bed... that kind of thing. But he did live up to his name.
"Well this is most interesting. Some of it appears to be heiroglyphs from ancient mesoamerica and some appears to be some sort of Ethiopic script. Very hodgepodge sort of writing. Most likely a hoax."
Jim cranked up the steeliness in his steely blues and let them shine down on Hank.
"Or rather, it would be a hoax if it was from anyone other than your beloved guru, Jungle Jim. In this case I would say that we have a fine example of hithero unknown cultural intercourse."
Some of the men sniggered.
"But whatever it is, I'm not sure I can read it."
Jim sighed miserably. "Alright men, I think we all know what this means."
They nodded sympathetically.
Jim spat out the word.
"Nigel."

*Lately Jim had been thinking that while flinty blue was pretty good, steely blue just had to be better. I mean, with steel, you can make Fire!
**There is no place for homophobia on expeditions, where long cold nights spent in wild reaches or python infested ruins can catch up with any man. That being said, don't do that kind of thing when Jim is on the dais trying to talk to you.
*** Actually, Jim was one of those men with an odd fetish for pens, watches, pocket knives and other Man-Jewelry and his guru's steadfast refusal to use pens baffled him. Many a night Jim tried to prise the secret from the old man, and all he got was some crap out of a fortune cookie. The old man died with the secret that he was deathly afraid of ink ( nasty incident with a Himalayan Mountain Squid).
****As hard as it may be to believe, this is true.