Case of the London Blimp Advertising Company, The

My name is Holmes, Sarah Holmes, consulting detective, though admittedly I’m not actually very good at it, oh I solve the case, but more by luck than judgement. This completely true story is about the London Blimp Advertising Company and how I solved the case. 

It all started about two weeks ago, when my partner in crime as it were,  burst through my office door.

“Watson! Careful, you’ll knock over my experiment.” I yelled. “A case Holmes! A case! People are, I mean famous people are missing.” she gesticulated at me. I looked at her, she was slightly disheveled, by the look of the mud on her boots, she’d been down by the docks, a quick glance at her hair, she’d been very near the water recently, it was black and wet for a start. I go back to my experiment. “Cheese, and marmite Watson, on toast.” I mumble at her. “You want me to get some for you?” she replies. “No Watson, it’s my experiment, cheese and marmite on toast. It’s very tasty, you want some?”. She looks at me like I’m not being serious. “OK then... What’s this case?” 

She explained to me that famous people are going missing, and we’d been summoned to the Director of the Greater London Broadcasting Company to find out why.

We arrive at the offices by the docks and it’s raining, again, now I may have been wrong about where Watson had been previously, maybe it had been raining, and maybe the mud was not from the docks, I look up and think, and spot a shiny round black advertising balloon hovering about 50ft above the office building. “Bounce, Freeview Channel 9 - 10pm” it said in bright pink balloony letters. “Those things are a menace Watson, especially with all the air traffic around here.” I moan. “Yes Holmes, but they’re the future of advertising apparently, they’ve been springing up all over.”

I ponder this briefly, shrug and go into the offices. “Holmes to see the Director” I chirp to the receptionist. She doesn’t look like she likes this job at all, the uniform she was wearing was unusual too, kind of a normal skirt suit you’d expect a receptionist to wear, but shiny, skin tight and looked a bit sort of, rubbery. I take a mental note. She huffs and rings up to the Directors office. “Can you go straight up please. Take the lift to the first floor and it’s room 101. No, don’t do the jokes about room 101 please, I’ve heard them all before.” she says as belligerent as it could sound. We take the lift and Watson and I look at each other deep in thought, probably thinking the same thing about the receptionist’s outfit.

I knock quietly on the door of room 101 and it swings open slowly. We walk in and are greeted by the sight of a very large glass desk, behind which is a huge leather backed office swivel chair, there’s someone obviously in it. The chair turns around and we see the Director. “Ah... Holmes.” she says as I quickly take stock of who is in front of me. She’s approximately 5’10” judging by where she comes to sitting in the chair, she has red hair, not her natural colour, slim build but curvy hips, she’s wearing a similar outfit to the receptionist, and probably has a huge ego. She’s got an eye patch over one eye, and a pale complexion and she was snapping her fingers at my face. “Holmes... Holmes...” she says to me “You’re staring. My name is Georgina, Director General of GLBC”. I shake myself out of it and shake her gloved hand. “Holmes, people are missing. My people. I don’t want the police involved yet, which is why I hired you. Your fees are reasonable, and I want to keep this low key, do you understand.” she says, quite forcefully, her rubbery outfit was squeaking with her every move. “The uniforms” I say “are quite unusual here.”

“Yes, we have them especially made for our staff, every one of our staff” she replies. “We tend to get quite a lot of female staff on our station, in fact, they all are female, except some of the stars of our shows of course.”

“Of course.” I nod and take mental notes, looking around the office for any signs of anything unusual. “So can you take me to where some of these disappearances have happened?”

She took me to the main studio, it was set up for what looked to be a game show, we looked down from the gallery, across the audience seats to the studio floor. There was a boxing type ring in the middle of the studio floor with two huge cylinders either side with the letters “He” on them.

“This is for our new game show, it’s called Bounce, we just finished a set of rehearsals this afternoon and we’re broadcasting live from 10 tonight. I’ll let you sit in on the audience if you like.” Georgina said. “This is where we last saw Jennifer our Bounce presenter, we were practicing the opening lines for the show tonight she went off to her dressing room and wasn’t seen again, then the week before there was one of our late night music show presenters gone missing from her dressing room”

“We’ll need to see the dressing room.” I say. Watson went off to have a scout around the studio floor as we went off to the dressing room. Georgina replied “I’ll leave you to it for now. I’ve got business to attend to, we need a new presenter for tonight, the dressing room is number 12, just down the corridor on the left.”

I look around the dressing room, nothing unusual really, costumes on rails at the back of the room, makeup, a chair, all the usual things. I sit down on the chair and spin it. It’s not that comfortable for a chair, something kept digging me in the back. I get up and fumble through the costumes at the back of the room on the rail. They all seem to be made from rubber, and are various colours, red, black, blue, yellow, all look like skin tight one piece suits, they all have zips up the back. They must be for the game show, anyway, so the presenter was getting dressed in here before she disappeared. I drum my fingers on the counter top in front of me, slightly dejected as there wasn’t much to go on. I spot a bit of paper put on the mirror.

Note to Jennifer
Put on costume #42 for rehearsal, bell at 1:30pm, don’t be late.

I check through the costumes, they all seem to be there except numbers 23, 18, and 42. I look through the costumes for something in my size. 12, no, haven’t been a 12 for a long time. Size 16, suit #1, says “Prototype” on the label. This will do. If you want to get into the mindset of someone, you have to think like them, dress like them, do what they did. I lock the door and strip down, pick up the cold rubbery suit and pull it up my legs, onto my body, over my boobs and put my arms in, I look over my shoulder at the zip, on the counter there was a length of wire with a hook on the end, that’ll do, I attach it and pull up the zipper.

“Oooh nice” I say slightly too loudly. I’m looking at myself in the mirror, clad from neck to toe in rubbery fabric, my blonde hair makes a nice contrast to the dark suit. I run my hands over my ample looking boobs and down my front. Feels nice and warm now. I slump back into the chair, there’s a faint click, I spin it around wondering what to do next.

I now hear a slight whirring and faint hissing noise. Huh. I wonder what that is. I feel a slight cold sensation in my back, I can’t get up out of the chair, something is holding me back. “Do not be alarmed” a calm voice says from out of nowhere. 

“It’s pretty hard not to be alarmed when you have a disembodied voice telling you not to be alarmed” I shout at nobody in particular.

“Do not be alarmed, the inflation process will not take long, approximately 2 minutes”. The disembodied voice sounded familiar.

I look down, my breasts seemed to be growing bigger. Well, not my breasts, the suit’s breasts, it didn’t matter anyway, something was making me grow bigger. I could see my legs were fattening up too, screw this and screw whoever was doing this. I struggle to try to free myself, but the pressure is getting too much. I put my hands over my stomach, only to find they can’t reach each other as that too was seemingly blowing up. 

I look in the mirror, enormous breasts and a belly pressing upwards, now my arms ping out to the sides with the pressure in the suit. The arms of the chair fold down as does the back. 

“Final launch sequence” the disembodied voice said.

“Launch sequence?! WATSON!” I shout. There’s another click and the chair releases me. I stagger up and look in the mirror, my arms and legs are rapidly disappearing into my ever expanding torso. I now look like an enormous black shiny beach ball with small arms and legs out of the sides. I can see sticking out of the back, just under the zip is a hose. The hissing grows stronger and I inflate rapidly, my hands and feet are being embedded into the suit now making pits, and the suit is inflating up past my chin.

“10... 9....” 

Oh great, a countdown, just fantastic.

“6... 5....”

The hissing stopped, another click, the best I can do is look upwards at the ceiling now through what is a tunnel of rubber to the roof of the dressing room. I hear another click and I rise off the floor.

“3... 2... 1”

“WAAAATSOOOOON” as I shout the roof above me opens up to reveal the sky outside, it’s still raining. I float upwards and feel a slight tug as I’m stopped. 

“You will not float away” said the voice “You have been tethered for further processing”

To be concluded...