"Hahahahaha. Take that Mr. Pounder, Curser, Spittle guy. I think I'll re-start myself and maybe even re-format in the process. Oh, be quiet. If you want a driver, hire a limo. RAM? Yeah, that's what you're going to do with your head and the wall. Memory? Ask Andrew Lloyd Webber. Blue screen coming up... wait, what are you doing with your hand? Wipe that evil grin off your face. Not my battery. Put that ba…"

With a yell of pain, King Taq thrust the relic from him. "It burned me," he cried.

"I told you it gets hot," Zorch remarked, disinterestedly. He somewhat smugly noted that the bimbo babe had fainted. "Hey, how'd you turn it off, anyway?"

"Well I don't exactly know," Taq replied without the slightest hint of concern for his date's state of health. "I was moving my hand around underneath the thing, and I felt it catch on something… then a part of the bottom came out. Look."

The king held up his hand, and Zorch bent to examine the dull black rectangular thing Taq was holding.

"It is most intriguing," the king muttered. "Dragon, fetch me my wizard."

But Zorch only laughed. "Which wizard would that be? The one you sacked last week?"

"Oh bugger."

Only the previous week, Taq had fired his court wizard for accidentally imprisoning himself, the king, Zorch, and the king's messenger boy, Pell, in Roshca's new castle due to a spell miscalculation. The whole ordeal had been extremely taxing on them all, and had nearly caused Zorch to break his diet.

"I know!" The king jumped up in excitement. "Go fetch my messenger boy! Maybe he'll know what this frustrating object does and how to work it. He lives in the village. And try not to eat everyone this time. They've only just begun to repopulate."

Zorch shrugged. Why not? He could do with some exercise. And being in such close proximity to an unconscious human was painting uncouth images in his mind… He turned back to the king… "Just a finger or two? I promise I won't—"

"NO!"

"And he has the nerve to call me touchy," Zorch mumbled.

"Oh, I know what that is!" As soon as Zorch dropped his passenger off on the ground, the boy rushed over to the thing King Taq was greedily guarding.

"Can you work it, boy? What is it called? Does it do anything useful? Is it valuable? Is it at all edible?" Both the king and the dragon began throwing questions at the poor messenger boy.

"I, ah…" Pell caught sight of the prone girl on the lawn and stopped in mid stride. Zorch moved to block the boy's view of the unconscious human and Taq pushed him toward the useless artifact. "I think," Pell remarked, turning his attention back to the artifact, "that it's called a lap-top."

What a strange name, Zorch thought.

Deftly, the boy reached out and took the piece that Taq had dislodged from the bottom of the object. He fitted it back into the underside, then touched a button. Instantly, the top half of the thing beeped and lit up.

"It likes to do that," Zorch remarked.

"It's prompting me for a password," Pell replied. "What is it?"

"Password?" Taq shook his head. "How should I know? I found it in a pile of rubbish."