The Exit Strategy

WOODEN BUNKHOUSE. INTERIOR. NIGHT-TIME.

BIG X-it: Right, chaps. Keep your voices down so the virus goons can’t listen in. Now, let’s hear your ideas.

MACDONALD: Well, Roger, what we usually do in these situations is tunnel.

BIG X-it: I’m afraid that won’t do this time, Mac. We’re dealing with an entirely new enemy – these virons are everywhere. Tunnelling might get us as far as the trees, but we can’t spend the rest of this war hiding in the woods. We’ve all got families to get back to.’

ASHLEY-PITT: I think I’ve found the solution, Roger. We can escape dressed up as virons. We just need The Tailor to make each of us a protein coat.

BIG X-it: Very ingenious, Eric. Risky though. He’d have to get them absolutely right, down to the last button.

ASHLEY-PITT: Spike.

BIG X-it: Spike?

ASHLEY-PITT: Their uniforms have spikes, Roger, not buttons. And not just on their helmets this time. All over.

BIG X-it: So we’ll need a lot of spikes. Better get The Scrounger onto it.

MACDONALD: But Roger, nobody even knows what colour the virons are. In some photographs they’re pink, in others green.

BIG X-it: Well, dash it – can’t we bribe one of them to tell us what colour he is?

MACDONALD: We’ve tried every viron in the camp. Cigarettes, chocolate, a home-delivery slot from Tesco. No go.’

BIG X-it: I’ve got it: we’ll persuade Hilts to escape, find out what colour the virons are, and then hand himself in so he can report back.

MACDONALD: Hilts is in the cooler. He’s self-isolating.

BIG X-it: Dash it, we have to do something. We can’t just sit here and wait to be rescued by the vaccine.

ASHLEY-PITT: I’m thinking of one more idea. We could disguise ourselves as bats.

BIG X-it: Bats? If you must think, for God’s sake think clearly. I’m afraid lockdown’s made you wire-happy.

GRUFF VOICE FROM DARK SHADOWS IN CORNER OF ROOM: Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are.

BIG X-it: Speak for yourself, Batman.

DARK KNIGHT (for ’tis he): I wear a mask not to hide who I am, but to create who I am.

ASHLEY-PITT: What Batman’s trying to say, Roger, is that the virus is harmless to bats.

MACDONALD: Eric and Batman might be onto something, Roger. It’s so stupid it’s positively brilliant.

ASHLEY-PITT: By my calculations we’ll need sixty-seven million bat outfits.

BIG X-it: That’s impossible, surely?

DARK KNIGHT: Everything’s impossible, until somebody does it.

BIG X-it: Easy to say when you have superpowers.

DARK KNIGHT: I have one power: I never give up.

BIG X-it: Excellent. Quick – to the batcave!

DARK KNIGHT: But that’s my line.

EXEUNT ALL, ARGUING.

© C P Jenkinson 10/04/2020

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