Well, I know how much you love my brand of irreverent humor and my velvet smooth singing voice, but all good things must come to an end. That's right I've got to be moving along. No, don't cry, it'll just make this harder.
I'm going to ..Califorina..yeah, that's it California to study...computer..technical..scientific..computer............SCIENCE!
Yeah, that's it, computer technical scientific computer science.
In California yet.
Yep, I'm gonna settle down and be a good little boy and wear a tie and do my homework and study computer technical scientific computer science.
Yeah that's it, that's the ticket.
I'll be all responsible and mature like.
What with my computer technical scientific computer science degree I'm sure to aquire with all my studying and tie wearing.
Someday, you may be out in California and see a respectable responsible computer technical scientific computer science technical specialist lighting his cigar with a wad of $100 bills, and you'll say to yourself "holy crap! I think that respectable responsible computer technical scientific computer science technical specialist who's lighting his cigar with a wad of $100 bills is Krazyfool!".
Maybe you'll walk up to that respectable responsible computer technical scientific computer science technical specialist who's lighting his cigar with a wad of $100 bills, and ask "are you my childhood hero Krazyfool?", and maybe, just maybe, I'll call my gang of hired goons to beat the shinola out of you.
Because, after all, I'm a respectable responsible computer technical scientific computer science technical specialist with respectable responsibilities, and I can't be doing frivolous immature things like reminiscing with Ryans.
Maybe you'll look up from the pavement as I walk off to my hovercar whilst one of my goons keeps step, refilling my martini from a tumbler.
You'll say to yourself "what a respectable responsible computer technical scientific computer science technical specialist with respectable responsibilities he's become, If only my life could be as respectable and responsible and computer technical scientific computer science oriented as his, in California even".
Maybe you'll even shed a tear of admiration and think to yourself "gee, he wasn't such a bad dude way back when, If only I hadn't flamed him".
Maybe I'll wave goodbye with a warm smile on my face as my hovercar's engines blow your hairpiece out into the street.
As I sit in my hover car being orally pleasured by a $50,000 whore, I'll think of all the good times I had with my message board pals, and how they saw through my psychotic rages and clinically depressed funks to the lovable marshmallowy piglety creature beneath.
I'll remember all the happier more innocent times, of 33K modems, of Billdudes, of Wubbs, of Minions, $Legion$s and all the other denizens of the cyberplayland of my youth.
As my hover car speeds me towards my respectable responsibilities at the computer technical scientific computer science technical building, I'll remember all the laughs we shared, the songs we sang, the 3DFX games I refused to buy because of my thrifty nature, and all the things I managed to frame };-)Legion's(-:{ name with.
Then, the hover car will pull up to the computer technical scientific computer science technical building. I'll ejaculate on the $50,000 hooker's face, write her a personal check, and saunter up to the computer technical scientific computer science technical building to perform my computer technical scientific computer science technical responsible responsibilities.
Or, maybe I'll just become a leech off the system with an elaborate insurance scam so I can stay home all day and watch gameshows.
Ouch! My kidneys! My kidneys! I'll sue!! I'll sue you for all you're worth you lousy rotten computer technical scientific computer science technical specialist who's lighting his cigar with a wad of $100 bills!!!
Well, either way, good bye, god bless, smack Billdude upside the head for me when he gets too out of line.
Happy trails.
Sayonara.
Posted on Jul 16, 2008, 10:49 AM from IP address 66.181.115.92
When those sad, soulful, puppy dog eyes of those sickly little foreign kids look up at me from the TV seeming to say "please help me, I'm so hungry, all it would take is pennies a day to feed and clothe, and educate me", I immediately respond....with NO!!!
I don't WANT TO!!!
I'm BAD!!!
Same goes for disaster relief, Jerry's kids, PBS drives, school shooting funds, wearing aids ribbons, wearing armbands, helping old ladies across the street, opening doors for the blind, not laughing at guys with metal voice boxes, not parking vertically across two handicapped spots, not doing 80 in residential areas across crosswalks in school zones, or any other namby pamby crap I'm "supposed", to "want", to "do", for my "fellow man".
What have they done for me lately?
El zilcho, THAT'S what!!
Where was a Jerry's kid when I was lying in a bloody heap covered in splintery lumber, nails, and chunks of cinderblock when I fell into that open bulkhead when my house was being built?
Nowhere for miles, THAT'S where.
Where was a starving Zimbabwe child when I cracked my collarbone that one time?
They were obviously where everyone else who didn't hear my shrieks of agony were.
Nowhere to be found.
I've had to drag my own carcass out of every goddamn bit of trouble I've been in metaphorically and physically.
"EEEEW, help us pweeese?", fuck you! You weren't there for me, I'm sure as HELL not lifting a finger for you little mocha colored bastards!!!
Let's see the fucking Ethiopians do a "we are the world", for our fucking drought!!!
Hmm, don't see it do you?
The silence is deafening.
Fuck the world!! Let it bail itself out.
I've got TV to watch!!!
Posted on Jul 16, 2008, 9:06 AM from IP address 66.181.115.92
Like permanent ink marker inhaled for a good minute or two.
MMMMM.
Gasoline stinks pretty good.
Reformulated gasoline really stinks all chemically.
You just know that shit's more poison than the regular stuff.
Y'ever get one of those clear super bounce balls out of a quarter vending machine as a kid?
That's what reformulated gas smells like, the stink of clear superballs.
Play-Doh, oh MAN does that shit stink good!
I don't know why they have never made a Play-Doh perfume or air freshener.
I guess Play-Doh guards that secret dearly.
Play-Doh gives me a rush.
I take a good hard snort of that, I'm floating on a cloud of bliss.
You could passify rioting protesters by cropdusting Play-doh smell on 'em.
Every smell gives me another mood.
Y'wanna know how I smell, and see the world through the mood I see it through?
Okay, first get anti-bacterial Dial bar soap.
Specifically, the "spring rain", scent.
Bath with it vigorously.
Wash your hands compulsivly with it.
Afterward, sniff your hands.
Don't be embarrased, snort your palms like a bloodhound.
That shit's a real good stink.
Nice and clean, gives you an "ahhhhh", feeling.
Okay, now the next ingredient.
Get old spice high endurance deoderant.
The green "pure sport", kind.
Now, don't just rub it on your armpits like normal SMEAR that shit on!
Ten strokes a pit! That's the secret.
Get good and sticky.
Then put your shirt on and rub it in.
Poke your fingers up in your pits good and sniff 'em after.
If you've got a hang up about doing weird shit like that, just don't get caught.
Do what I tell you!
Sniff your goddamn fingers!
Good ain't it?
'Specially mixed with the spring rain soap.
Now cross your arms behind your head and let your pits potpurri the air for a bit.
The high should kick in in about half an hour.
Not really a trippy state, just colors seem brighter, air seems fresher, and sitcoms seem funnier.
I've gone through many soaps and deoderants to find this combination.
Reaction to your personal body chemistry may vary.
Like I said, I've made scent sniffing a little side study of mine.
I'm quite sure the spring rain all sport combo is the way to go.
Sure, there are more mouth watering smells to be had like potpurri sprays and incense and shit, but that stuff is strong and cloying.
I find it actually overstimulates to the point of a kind of logieness.
Clean smells are more relaxing.
Spring rain, all sport.
Trust me.
Posted on Jul 16, 2008, 9:02 AM from IP address 66.181.115.92
At long last, the tale of the "serious", drawer.
by Krazyfool
Well, I think I know you fellers well enough to tell this tale finally.
I end up telling this tale to anyone I meet personally eventually.
I tell it to my relatives every year.
They've heard it before, but like the ghost with the golden arm, and the bloody hook, it bears repeating.
It's a tradition in my family now.
To those in the know, "serious drawer", has become part of my in-joke nadsat speak.
Used as an adjective for "worse than poppa ooo mow mow", or "really creepy secret".
(Example: It was a real serious drawer scene my brothers).
Now, you will see why.
Pull up a chair and nuke a cup of cocoa, for I am about to relate to you dear reader, the chilling tale of THE SERIOUS DRAWER!!!!
This requires some establishing, so sit back and sip the cocoa.
My mother's freind from high school married young.
She married an asshole.
She married a porn addicted kinky creepy asshole.
When I say porn addicted and creepy, I MEAN porn addicted and creepy!!
He didn't hide his porn very well.
I found it all the time.
He made no bones "pun intended", about his kinkyness either.
Anyhoo, my mother's friend and her pervert husband were two of my parents only adult friends at the time.
Also, my mother's friend ran a ceramics class out of her home and my mother went there to do ceramics.
This forced my father to hang out with my mother's friends husband "let's call him Steve".
My father didn't really like Steve, but to get out of the house and do guy stuff he'd put up with him.
Flash forward a few years, and these folks adopted a kid.
"Oh oh", you're thinking to yourself about now.
Oh yeah, "uh oh", indeed.
Well, gradually "I can't rewind to exactly where it started", we as a family settled into the routine of all going to visit them.
My mother would visit her friend "let's call her Dana", my dad would visit Steve, and I would sort of babysit/entertain their kid "let's call him Nick".
I thought this was cool because he was spoiled rotten I mean ROTTEN. He was lavished with presents. He had every Transformer, He-Man, cool movie, etc. going.
I got to paw through all his cool junk, and all I had to do to keep him happy was do the occasional Dark Helmut style action figure play.
As you know, I can improv some funny shit.
Okay, we're halfway through the scene setting and mood establishment hang in there.
Between Steve's porno addiction, and Dana's showering Nick in oceans of toys, they lived in squalor.
They could afford to live well.
They just didn't.
The best metaphor was their satelite dish and expensive stereo/video equipment and big screen TV, yet their house was a dump.
A goddamn sheetrock and cracking vinyl siding dump.
An eyesore, uggh.
Basicly, they lived like hicks.
Porno addicted kinky hicks.
It creeps me out thinking back, but back then I didn't know any better.
Oh yeah, did I mention that their next door neighbors were even more scummy?
Scummy, poor, rednecky, and SUPER CREEPY??
Try picturing the Texas Chainsaw massacre family meets Deliverance.
Does that help any??
They had a kid named Ben.
Ahh what the fuck? in his case, I'll use his real name.
I think we all knew a Ben.
Ben being brought up in his creepy inbred hillbilly home, was knowledgable beyond his years in at the very least the operating principles of sex.
He got into Steve's pornos all the time.
Hell, he showed me all the stashes in nooks and crannys and hiding places that I didn't know about.
I was young, so I didn't get as creeped out about this as I should have.
I just figured "Hey! Ben knows were all the pornos are! Cool!!".
As you've no doubt guessed, Nick's folks thought nothing of letting their little treasure play with Ben.
Ben showed Nick all the naughty things his parents hid.
It warped his little mind.
Okay, the stage is set.
So, one night we're over their house.
Me and Nick are watching some tape of his. Cartoon shit or something.
Out of the blue he goes "hey come here. wanna see something funny?".
"Uhh yeah,okay", I say.
He goes into his parents room and waves for me to come in.
I sneek in, and he shows me yet another porn stash "under the bed, THAT'S original", I think to myself.
I try to act amazed and shocked "and that I hadn't seen that stash before".
Now this was a creepy scene, some little kid's showing me his folks' pornos.
My mind raced for how to handle this awkward situation.
There's nothing in any ettequite manual that covers that.
Anyway, I gave up after 4 seconds when I remembered it was beyond my 10 year old mind to solve.
So, I looked at the pornos and said something to the effect of "huh huh,huh,huh huh she's naked!! heh heh heh m heh heh, boinnngg!".
Then, Nick says "wanna see something REALLY SERIOUS??".
I smirk and say "sure, what the hell?".
He goes to his father's nightstand drawer and opens it.
Inside was an arsenal!!
Dildo's, lubes, condoms, ticklers, some kind of corkscrew thing and all kinds of other alien devices with incomprehensible funcions.
I recognised the dildos though from all the porn I'd seen.
Nick busts a gut laughing and starts chanting "fake pee pees!! HA HAA!! Fake pee pees!!".
At this point my mind is reeling.
What do you do at moments like this?
Then he grabs one and almost picks it up.
"OH MY GOD!!!! THAT'S BEEN IN YOUR MOM!!! AAARRRGG!!!!!", my mind screamed.
"Put that down!!", I whispered loudly.
"Why?", he asked.
"Your parents might catch us in here", I ad libbed, not wanting to go all child psychologist for 30 minutes right there.
Plus, it was true.
I absolutly did NOT want to get caught in their room with their kid showing me the serious drawer.
We went back and watched the stupid cartoon, the visit ended and I went home.
I waited 3 years to tell my parents the story.
I think they were talking amongst themselves about how that kid must be warped by now with how Steve doesn't hide his porn.
I spoke up and said "oh yeah, he has. He showed me their serious drawer", thinking all adults knew what the hell that was.
"Serious drawer!?!?".
So, I told them the short version of the tale I just told you.
Now, it's become a running gag with me.
Quick little referances when it pops into my head.
Example, Pheemp'll be playing a game of Duke Nukem.
Duke will go into a room with any sort of nightstand. I'll shout out almost tourettes style "serious drawer!!". Pheemp grumbles in acknowledgment.
The serious drawer running gag strikes again.
So now the tale is told.
Now you know.
G.I. Joe.
Posted on Jul 7, 2008, 10:48 AM from IP address 66.181.122.98
The editor shuffled the thin pile of papers before him, picked them up, and started to read.
He'd burn through a page of material about every minute or so, and would silently shuffle it to the back of the pile.
Every third page or so, there was an unimpressed "hmph", or two.
Harry Hembock, a short, guant, bug eyed mantis of a man with a crippling overbite, and strange oversized black greasy pompadoure leaned forward in nervous aniticipation.
He thought he saw the editor seeing him seeing him, so he craned his head as if he'd been taking in the whole room, and the editor had just caught him in the movement of looking at....the clock, yeah, the clock.
Now, the certificates on the wall, the uninteresting gold leafed books on the bookcase, then back down to the floor, at his own red rubber Superman boots.
After a time, the editor finished, and sat the thin stack on the desk and said "..oh..huh that's it huh?".
"Um yeah,....for now...what, you wanted more or...?".
"Um no,..that's alright it's just...aaanyway, um, yeah, these are interesting..but um..yeah".
"You didn't like 'em", Harry stated rather than asked, as he visibly deflated.
"Oh, they're okay, it's not that I didn't like them, it's just...I dunno, kinda unoriginal".
"Unoriginal?".
"Well yeah, first of all, your guy, he's called Harry Hembock, I mean, there's already Harry Potter. Two Harry's, we could get sued".
"But he's ME. I've been called Harry long before that little magic nerd came along".
'Um, yeah, anyway, there's also the matter of the artwork. It's very um...unprofessional. I mean, look at this, it's all drawn in ball point pen".
"I like the ballpoint. It's what I'm used to. I tried one of those pen brushes that this art teacher guy told me, and it was all melty and awful. I know working artists use I dunno, some fancy rich pen or something, but I figured...y'know, nowadays with computers, and scanners and..y'know, you could print whatever anyone made".
"Um...yeah, we might make those accomidations for some NAME artist, if he wanted to make an experimental project, but..".
"Alright, fine, I'll learn to use a fancy pen...what kind? Wait, lemme write this down..you got a post-it?".
"...anyway, back to the unoriginal point, your guy, he's not um,...the traditional superhero..".
"Well, no, but you guys publish books with violence and sexy stuff. Kids are hip today. They watch the Fear Factor, and the...".
"Well, that's just it, even if we put it under our adults label, there's still the matter of that your guy essentially acts like Bender from Futurama put in a blender with Quagmire from Family Guy".
"But dammit, he's ME! I was around before them!".
"Well, Elisha Gray got to the telephone first, but who's name is one the patent? Eh? Y'know?".
"But dammit, they're fake.., and I'm REAL! These adventures really happened to me!"
Harry let out a sigh
"You're not gonna publish my stuff are you?".
"Um, no. But it's okay stuff, really, maybe you could shop it around to some underground..".
"Save it".
Harry got up from his seat, and took his cartoons back.
"I mean, just because it's not what we're looking for,...I mean, I know some people...".
"Save it", Harry said again, and left.
Harry shuffled out to the parking lot, muttering curses under his breath.
"So, how did it go?", asked the lime green Volkswagan beetle in the second row.
Harry cast it a sneer that clearly said "what do YOU think?".
"Not good eh? Ah, well, you said it, it was a long shot anyway", replied the car with a sort of "whatever", smirk on it's hood as it popped open it's door.
Harry climbed in, and sat his drawings on the passenger's seat.
The door closed after him.
The Hembug, as Harry called it/him, had been animated and sentient ever since it had been bitten by a radioactive human back in the early 90's.
Now, it/he was his Hembock-mobile/sidekick.
"So, what do we do for cash now?", Hembug asked, while starting up, and gliding out of the parking spot.
"Damned'f'I know", Harry grumbled, arms crossed over his chest, hands conspicuously not on the wheel.
"Strip club?", Hembug asked.
"Yer goddamned right", Harry answered.
Harry awoke from his reoccuring memory nightmare of being brutally rejected from the Legion Of Liberty.
The dressing down from Mr. Starshine was bad enough, but then the sadistic roasting that focused on his sexual prowess from Ms. Electrode, and then the swirly from The Swirly were just over the top.
As was usual, his subconscious spared him not the slightest detail.
Not a frame was skipped.
And of course, a hangover was waiting for him in awake land.
As was a cloud of his own fart gas.
Harry tried to fan it away, but it hung in space like a time frozen swarm of bees.
"Shit, now I'm all the way awake", moaned Harry.
Harry crawled out of bed, and did a bowl legged zombie hobble to the bathroom, and gazed with disgust at his stubbled greasy face.
He looked down at the toothbrush and razor, contemplated them awhile, and finally said aloud "eh, fuck it", and hobbled out to the kitchen.
He grabbed an apple from the counter, and bit out a hunk to get the slim jim flavored morning scum out of his mouth.
He looked out the window, and saw the neighbor's kids blowing up yet another Harry Hembock action figure with firecrackers.
It was always the Harry figure.
Harry had long ago gloomily accepted his was the Ugnaut, or Lobot of the collection.
Ah well, at least that meant another 60 cent check was coming.
The gift that kept on giving.
Harry grumbled, and hobbled to the other side of the house, hoping the view would be better.
It was Steve Torrent, the fat bald beer guzzler next door, waddling over to his next door neighbor Susan's to "pay the rent".
"Christ, I hate this town", grumbled Harry.
And with that, he plunked into the battered duct tape covered recliner, and fired up the TV.
After waiting about 20 seconds for the crappy TV's picture tube to heat up, Harry was finally greeted by the image of a guy in a labcoat pointing to a box labeled "POB", and making a retarded caveman growling noise with his tongue hanging out.
"Meh, I still like it better than anything the Ad Council comes up with", muttered Harry.
Just then, the news cut in with an emergency report.
Buildings were aflame, people were running, and screaming, and crying, and covered in blood and soot, and a huge guy in some sort of mechanical armor was hovering 70 feet in the air unleashing the devestation from laser turrets in his gloves and eyepieces.
"Meh, Legion'll handle it", Harry muttered.
Then, they showed a clip of 40 minutes ago.
The robot suit guy's chest opened up, and gave off green energy rings that passed over the gathered Legion Of Liberty. As the rings passed around them, their powers seemed to snap off at light switch speed, and they all simultaneously got the same stupid look of shock on their faces. Anyone who had been flying dropped like an anvil, and anyone who wasn't also invulnerable, or who's invulnerability was tied to a mental effort sustained energy rather than molecular density likely splattered in that next second.
Of course, Harry knew who was who, and he winced when he heard the thuds.
After that, the robotman pretty much picked everyone else off like cardboard ducks.
"Ah, shit", Harry groaned.
"Alright, alright, I guess I'd better be there", we whined, as if he'd been asked to give a least loved relative a ride out to the airport.
He jogged to his bedroom, and opened his dresser drawers in turn.
"Ah, shit, nothing clean!".
So, he ran to the bathroom, and dug around in the hamper.
He picked up a pair of sweatpants and sniffed.
Wet beachsand, cat urine, and beef stew.
He took another pair and sniffed.
Just cat urine.
"Fine, alright", he said, and threw them on.
He repeated the process with the sweatshirts, and had his costume essentially essembled.
He put a couple puffs of Gold-Bond powder into his boots, and threw those on, then ran to the kitchen, and rubbed himself down with perfume samples, and finally, he was out the door.
"No time to explain, villain, thataway", Harry summarized in shorthand to Hembug as he ran towards him, pointing towards the innards of town.
Hembug popped the door open and closed it in his perfected rythm to let Harry hop in at maximum speed, and then took off towards the city the nanosecond the door sealed shut and locked.
Hembug tooled along at a steady 120 mph out of a possible 300, dodging abandoned cars along the way with the reflexes of a video game prodigy.
"So, we headed straight there, or you wanna make any stops first?", he asked Harry casually.
"Yeah, turn off left up ahead, there's a Wal-Mart. They're the closest place I can think of that's got both a hardware and electronics department. Something I gotta get first", Harry replied with equal casualness, as if he simply needed to pick up some onions for a stew he was going to make for visiting in-laws.
Hembug made the turn, and eventually they came up apon, and then pulled into the Wal-Mart.
Hembug pulled up to the front entrance, and let Harry out.
Harry grabbed a shopping basket on the way in, gave the greeter a nod of bland acknowledgement, and then briskly jogged to hardware, and grabbed a soldering iron, tin snips, a spool of solder, a spool of copper wire, a car battery, and a hammer, with as clear a plan of where it all was as if the aisles were a part of his house.
Then, without pausing for the slightest beat, he ran to electronics.
He deftly weaved around a 3 year old girl in floral print tight pants who was dancing in a circle in the CD section, unapologeticly hip checked a fat woman's cart out of the way that was about to take a corner and cut him off, and made his way to the wall of TVs.
He pulled out the hammer, and used the claw end as an improvised box cutter to open up a 25" console, then, dragged it out from the box, hurled away the styrofoam, and began to beat open the back of the unit to get at the guts.
A flurry of "what the hell"s and "omigawd!"s bagan to sputter form the other shoppers.
Harry continued his procedure undeterred.
"Excuse me sir!", a surly clerk said walking up to him.
Harry turned, wacked the guy on the head with the hammer laying him out cold, and like a robot, continued his work.
A woman screamed, and a child started crying. Probably the dancing toddler
Harry knew he had to speed this up.
He found the circuit board he needed, and used the tin snips to liberate it by cutting away both the connecting wires, and the nuggets of board that the support screws were fastened to.
He then turned, and liberated and battered open another TV of the same model, and repeated the procedure, but with even more deranged robotic speed and precision.
He tossed the two circuits into his shopping basket, and jogged over to the stereo equipment.
He didn't have to dodge toddlers and fat people this time, as people were pretty much giving him a wide berth.
He picked up a watermelon sized oval boom box, felt it's weight, nodded, hefted it over his head, and slammed it down on the floor, smashing it to smithereens.
He then gave it's remains a couple careful extra stomps to liberate some desired parts, and then began plucking out the needed bits as quickly as if they were supposed to be there scattered about in their current position, and he had long ago memorized their location.
Then, he dug out a speaker, wrenched it's plastic covering off, leaving it naked, snipped away it's wires, and tossed it in the basket with the rest.
Another surly young clerk suddenly tried to tackle him.
Beefy blonde kid, looked like he played football.
Harry dodged back as if he'd perfectly predicted he'd be there, whammed him in the gut with the butt of the hammer, looped his arm around overhead, and brought it down on the kid's sternum, sucking out all his breath, then gave his arm another arc, and brought it down on the kid's head.
He didn't knock out, but he did collapse to the floor bawling and cursing.
Harry shook his head and sighed.
He opened his mouth as if he was about to make an apology, or a justification, but he heard muffled thunderclaps outside, stopped, shrugged, smirked, and walked off.
He speed walked to the cafeteria, poured out the contents of his shopping basket onto the nearest empty table, and his hands began to fly.
He jury rigged the soldering iron to the car battery, unwound the soldering wire, and began to solder the circuits and radio parts into a science fiction sandwich at David Blain shuffling cards speeds.
The parts of the mystery device flew together perfectly and with such precision, one would think the final machine had already existed, been stolen from him, and the parts scattered about the electronics department, and not the other way around.
Or, more precisely, like a film of the device's dismantling were being played in high speed reverse.
Finally, the device tumbled together into something solid and coherant like the picture in a completed puzzle, and Harry spliced the whole deal onto the car battery, and tied the whole thing together with some leftover wire.
Altogether, the final assembly had taken aporoximately 4 minutes.
Not a drop of solder had been spilled, and no leftover parts remained.
Harry nodded with dull satisfaction.
Harry plunked his created gizmo into his shopping basket, and walked quickly right through the checkout without stopping.
"SIR!!!", the cashier shouted angrily.
"Debit", Harry muttered under his breath, and kept walking, picking up his pace.
The cashier tilted her head for a good 20 seconds in confusion, and started hollering some more as she saw him making it towards the exit, but he'd already made it out the door, and didn't hear the rest, nor did he wish to.
Hembug, who had been circling the parking lot, pulled right up to the entrance as Harry cleared the concrete pillars.
Harry took out the gizmo, tossed away the shopping basket, hopped in, and Hembug took off.
"All set?", Hembug asked.
"Yeah, think so", Harry replied calmly, as if he'd just done something as ordinary as picking up those onions for that aformentioned and theoretical stew.
"To the villian?", Hembug asked.
"Of course", Harry answered.
As the Wal-Mart faded in the rear view, the dull thunderclaps became louder and crisper.
The point of no return had come.
The next thunderclap was accompanied by a blinding green flicker against the wall of a soot stained building.
"Showtime", Harry said.
Hembug screeched to a stop, and Harry dove out with his device under his arm, and made out on foot.
Luckily, when Harry had pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot, he had remembered to turn on his belt buckle transponder.
The transponder which was imbedded in the belt buckle which was mounted on the belt that he kept stored in the glove compartment for when he'd forgot to grab the one in the house.
It was an exact duplicate of the one in the house, a simple black vinyl number with a nondescript black circle for a buckle that turned like a dial to turn the transponder on and off.
What the transponder did was two things.
One, it scrambled all the security devices he passed by along the way, including and especially the cameras.
Second, it activated any emergency "cleanup", technology in the vicinity.
In this case, the Harry Hembock action figures in the toy department.
Apon activation, they activated their own internal transponders so as not to be recorded, triangulated the position of Harry's transponder, and set to work.
First, they fired thin red laser beams from their eyes that cut away their blister packs, then switched to blue tractor beams that pushed the blisters off, and/or pushed away any intervening figures if they were deeper on the hook.
About seven in all responded to the call.
Then, with shape recognition software, they locked onto the faces of any witnesses to this, and zapped them with green neuralization rays that scrambled their memories for the previous and following two hours for a combined four hours of memory slack.
Then, with internal anti-gravs, they flew to Harry's location, memory zapping anyone who saw them along the way.
They made it to the electronics department just as Harry was leaving.
They proceeeded to memory wipe all the witnesses, and by determining injury, by determining pain and/or fear, via subtle voice recognition, they homed in on the two bonked clerks and sweeped them several times with orange healing rays.
Then, once mended, they gave them a memory wipe.
As the witnesses and victims were repaired and wiped, three of the Harry figures used red lasers to dissolve and evaporate the shattered TVs and boombox.
Then, with electronics taken care of, they followed the projected path of Harry's escape, memory wiping all the intervening witnesses as they went along.
Then, finally, they stopped outside in the parking lot, where Harry had switched off his transponder.
Their duty complete, they sattelite uplinked to the Wal-Mart home office computers, filled out an insurance form for the lost and stolen merchandise, and filled out an order for replacements to it, and themselves, then self destructed by aiming their disintgration beams on each other.
Which occured just as Harry pulled into the city to face his foe.
Harry turned a corner, and there he was, floating in the sky.
The mandroid from the news, his back turned, preoccupied with laser blasting an already fairly wrecked hospital.
"HEY!!! ASSHOLE!!! HEAH!!", Harry shouted to get his attention.
It worked. The killer did a heel swivel on an invisible floor, and glided threateningly towards him.
"I!! Am Tektan Democulus!! And you wi...", started the villain through an electronicly warbled and amplified voice filter.
"Didn't ask, and don't give a shit!!", Harry cut in.
And with that, he fired up his gadget by clipping an unplugged wire into place with licked fingers.
He got a jolt that made his hand recoil, but he recovered quickly.
The air hummed, and Tektan Democulus hurled to the ground.
He splayed out face down, and stayed glued to the spot.
"Reversed your circuits, shithead, even your grav plates", Harry said with a smirk.
"Aw no!! Aw no!! Not like this!! Aw christ no!!", Tektan screamed with a now unfiltered whiney dweeb voice that sounded not so much like a Tektan, but a Lenny, or a Terence.
The gizmo began to shake in Harry's hand, so he let go.
As he released it, it flew to Tektan, and stuck to his back.
As it contacted his back plate, the hum in the air magnified, and a feedback like dry ice on metal began to screech from Tektan's armor.
Tektan's pleas began to become more frantic, if that were possible, and finally, he shrieked like a woman, and all sound from him ended with a sudden horrible gurgle/gag as the armor slammed inward a sickening four inches all around with a wet crunchy splurch.
Harry looked away with a grimace, and marched to a safe distance as the armor slowly continued to crumple in like a soda can, until finally, the grav plates in the suit touched each other, and set up a fatal harmonic with the gizmo's field, which set off a quantum explosion, and vaporized Tektan and the gizmo in a bright purple flash, leaving nothing but a faintly smoldering impressed singemark in the ground.
"Shit, shoulda grabbed his mask off'f him for proof", Harry mumbled.
He stood a couple extra seconds in contemplation, then shrugged, and headed back to Hembug.
He climbed into the driver's seat, and simply said "home".
The editor sat the thin stack on the desk and said "..oh..huh that's it huh?".
"Um yeah,....for now...I mean, I'm just supposed to do a sample few pages for the proposal, right...?".
"Um no,..that's alright it's just...aaanyway, um, yeah, these are interesting..but um..yeah".
"You didn't like 'em", Harry stated rather than asked, as he visibly deflated.
"Erm....no, it's terrible....sorry".
"....ah....", Harry choked, not expecting such a blunt reply.
"I mean, the protagonist is weak, it doesn't hold the reader's interest, it's stale, the dialogue is stilted, I mean, I could go on, but I think even you know what terrible is".
"No, no, I get you", Harry said, holding up a mask of composure.
"Also, you had no breakdown sheet, or any of the other...look, this is just totally unproffessional. I won't even call it a submission. You might as well have come in with the thing written in crayon, it's just terrible. You've wasted my time, get out".
"Yes sir. ...erm, can I have those back?".
"No. Also, you're ugly, and you smell".
"You're not the first to say so. Well, goodbye", Harry said glumly as he shuffled out of the office in a stupor.
Posted on Oct 2, 2005, 6:48 PM from IP address 24.53.125.85
On the long ride back home, Harry finally decided he was sick of talk radio, and dug around in the CD rack for something he wasn't sick of.
"Neil Young, played it to death, James Taylor, played to death, Chumbawumba...what the hell was I thinkin?", Harry grumbled.
Then, out of desperation, he dug around in the pouch on the driver's side door, and his hand hit a distinct CD case shape.
The chopsticked it with his index and middle finger, and slid it out.
Amercica's greatest hits.
Harry got a lump in his throat, and remembered the last time he'd fired it up.
Daddy's driving the station wagon, kids are bouncing in the back seat, daddy's singing along to "another try", mommy's supplying the background singer "oooo"s, and "aaaa"s.
Eventually, "sister golden hair", comes on, daddy sings along, as he has hundreds of times before. The kids let out a squeal-giggle when he gets to the "damn", in "...and I get so DAMNed depressed", which daddy emphasises with a wink, knowing the inevitable reaction.
And the song goes along a good clip, and the station wagon tools along it's course as it always has like it's on a track, and mommy's head bobs side to side to the rythm as the chorus kicks in, and all is right with the world.
And just then, reality rips open at the speed of a light switch, and the front of the car opens up like a banana peel, and the car flings from the road like a matchbox car flicked by the snap of a giant, and mommy screams, and the kids scream a nanosecond later when they hear her, and all the breath just sucks out of daddy, and he grits his teeth and holds on for dear life, and the car begins rolling over down the embankment, over, and over, and over, and it feels like it'll never stop, and the kids are shooting around like pinballs, and soon they stop screaming, and daddy notices whatever hit the car, it looks like a big green rock, has pulverized his legs, and tore mommy open like wrapping paper, and oh, she's stopped screaming as well.
Then, there's a black spot, and daddy's dragging his legs through an infinite galaxy of safety glass, and he hears himself screaming mommy's name, and the kid's names, and no one answers, and this goes on for god knows how long until flickering lights come down the road.
Then, there's another black spot, and daddy awakens, and his legs are okay, and he perks up with joy that it was clearly all a horrible nightmare.
Until he realizes he's in a hospital bed, and the doctors come in with the bad news, and start asking very strange questions, and throwing around very loony theories about the rock, his legs.
Questions and theories he tunes out as the news about mommy and the kids echoes in his head, and can only be driven out by screams.
And then it's some weeks weeks later, and daddy's raking a straight razor across his wrists, and the wounds keep snapping shut like a clam's mouth and vanishing like an icicle on a woodstove.
And then it's some more weeks later, and nooses, electricity, everything in the medicine cabinet, and a shotgun blast to the face have all proved equally unreliable in reuniting daddy with mommy and the kids in heaven.
And then the memories get really melty from there.
There's a train and an explosion of pain that inevitably subsides as if it were a stubbed toe, and then a memory seen through a ski mask at a bank and being shot at by several police officers, and then there's one of a looooong fall into water, and then several hours of drowning, and drowning, and drowning, and drowning, and drowning.....
Then, at last walking out of the water in frustration, coughing up water, and walking home.
And then, finally, watching this madman on the news calling himself "The Black Trident", firing purple plasma blasts from, you guessed it, a black trident.
And then there's a black spot, and daddy is holding a sweatshirt with a black "H", scrawled on it.
And then there's another black spot, and The Black Trident is doing his DAMNed best to send daddy up to heaven, but it's just not taking.
And then, there's a black spot, and somehow The Black Trident while throwing daddy around and blasting him, has hit a transformer, causing a massive short, and frying himself with his own current.
And people are cheering for daddy, thinking he did it somehow.
And encounters like this become the pattern of life for awhile.
Until....
Harry shook his head, and had a nervous tick in his neck like he'd closed his eyes to dose off, and had one of those micro-nightmares.
Harry eyed the CD for awhile, and decided to meet memory lane head on by fighting fire with fire, and popped it in.
He advanced it to "Daisy Jane", and filled his head with good memories of "mommy', closed his eyes, and dozed off, bringing mommy to lucid life into dreamsville with him where they danced, and had a picnic, and for once, The Black Trident, nor the meteor showed up.
As Harry slept, Hembug thought back to the first time he and Harry had met...
He remembered awaking for the first time with the mysterious glowing radioactive bitemark on his fender which faded away in time lapse.
He remembered being laughed out of the Legion Of Liberty for both being a Volkswagon, and for his biotech gadgets looking like Pee-Wee's Playhouse tech,
Despite that unbeknownst to them, it was some of the most powerful tech on earth.
That it was "silly", was reason enough.
He remembered seeing Harry on the news fighting supervillains in what seemed a suicidal fashion...which he would later learn WAS a suicidal fashion.
He remembered Harry suddenly finding a fighting spirit, and taking superheroing seriously.
He remembered Harry also being rejected by The Legion Of Liberty, and his fighting style becoming self destructive again.
And then, he remembered DeathGrasp.
Posted on Sep 30, 2006, 2:24 PM from IP address 70.33.179.125
DeathGrasp watched the giant main viewscreen of the master control room of his floating fortess, his arms crossed, and his lips in a sneer.
On the viewer, the Legion Of Liberty were hurling their metahuman powers against the forcefield surrounding the fortress in vain.
DeathGrasp blinked his green luminesent eyes, shook his head, and clucked his tongue.
"Superheroes suck. They really do. They're for kids, and 30 year old virgins. Case closed",
DeathGrasp mumbled to himself as he walked back to his chair.
" Now, the military I can respect. But these jokers. Full of inner demons and freaky kinks. Wearing tights, or in the case of some of the chicks, latex. Come on, go to a bondage bar, go to Vegas, folks. But no, somehow they've decided they need to be a ruling class of self appointed supercops. Deviant nannies. It'd be depressing if it weren't so hilarious".
DeathGrasp sat down, and tapped some controls on the left arm rest.
His right hand was sheathed in a large thick heavy steel glove that noticably weighed him down on the right side, and made button pressing impossible.
Hence the buttons on his left side.
"Enough watching these assclowns bounce off the shield like moths off a lamp, time to swat 'em. Targeting Boson array".
As he uttered the last sentence, he simultaniously worked an inset roller ball in the arm rest that correspondingly worked a vecter-crosshairs on the main viewscreen.
DeathGrasp locked the crosshairs on Mr. Starshine, and....
It had started about 3 days ago.
DeathGrasp's floating fortress, which looked like a stack of flying saucers impaled on a dowel with an inverted toilet plunger head for a base, had slid out of the clouds, and positioned itself 20 miles off of America's eastern coastline.
It hung there for a good 2 hours to instill an air of queasiness, and then the party started.
Hembug had watched all this on his internal TV tuner.
DeathGrasp cut in on every channel.
His slicked back blonde hair, glowing green yes, and pointy bony face would forever be scorched into cultural memory.
"Hello? Mr. President? Can you hear me? I assume so, I gave ample time for all the jackass news stations to draw eyeballs to screens, so here I am. I'm DeathGrasp. Pleased to meet you. Well, the demands are simple. Cede soverignty of the United States to me. Period. All the other stuff, the money, the pussy, that'll come in due time once I own the place. So, hand it over. I assume you'll put up a fight about this. But, I beg you to spare the loss of lives and treasure. I assume that'll fall on deaf ears too, but I wanted it on record I gave you that chance. Well, that's it. Get back to me. Sending you my phone and e-mail over a scrambled channel. There you go. I'll give you some time to talk with your advisers and such. 5 hours should do it. Bubye".
The fighter jets were scrambled within the hour.
America watched in horror as they were evaporated into whisps of smoke by a sweeping energy beam in a staccato rythm like popcorn popping.
DeathGrasp cut in.
"See?", was all he said.
A second larger group of fighters was scrambled, and a group of carriers was mobilized.
They circled round towards the back, hoping to "sneak up on it", or come at it from a less defended angle.
This time, there were no news cameras allowed.
No matter, DeathGrasp cut in with footage from his own scanners.
Every plane was popcorned out of the air as well.
Then, the beam was brought down like a club, and sheared the 3 nearest carriers in two.
Then, it quartered, and eigthed them for overkill, for spite, and shock value.
DeathGrasp cut in in person again.
"Yeah, that's just gonna keep happening. I'd surrender if I were you".
The rest of the carriers retreated.
2 days later, the president had authorized the use of nuclear force.
An ICBM missle was launched towards DeathGrasp's fortress.
DeathGrasp reclined in his chair, smirked, and let it get close to let the home viewing audience build up suspenseful hope.
Then, he triggered a wide spread of bosons from the main guns, causing the radioactive material in the missle to decay into lead, and raised the sheild.
After the conventional blast cleared, he cut in over the TV channels again.
"Okay, now you've irritated me. I'm going to have to spank you for that one.
Hmmm,....you know, I bet a lot of people would miss Disney World..".
It was then that the Legion arrived.
The shield would hold.
DeathGrasp turned out the lights and went to grab some much needed zs.
He'd handle the Legion tommorrow if they were still there.
Vee-Dubyah had seen enough.
Screw the Legion, he was going to help.
He fired up his engine and took off.
He maxed the speedometer at 300mph, and took off with the gyro-lift.
Still not fast enough.
He pushed the needle past the speedometer, past the radio, past the glove compartment, somewhere onto the passenger door.
His body panels began to warp. He willed them to hold together, and molded to fit the wind tunneling.
Soon, he began to see DeathGrasp's fortress on the horizon. He pushed the needle past the passenger door, all the way to the middle of the rear bench seat.
The paint on his hood began to blush red, and beads of oily sweat began to form from the strain.
Vee-Dubyah rammed into DeathGrasp's shield at aproximately mach 20.
He flattened like a penny on a railroad track.
The sad Vee-Dubyah pancake flittered towards the ocean like a leaf.
It all happened so fast, no one in the Legion even noticed.
Harry awoke screaming "No!! Not yet!! Don't go!!".
Then, he paused a moment, and said "...oh yeah!!", and jumped out of bed to look for something to write on.
10 minutes later, he had doodled a rough schematic of the doohickey that his daughter had shown him in the dream.
Vee-Dubyah floated deep in the ocean, no sense of up or down, pain being numbed by the cold, and slowly, weakly, reconsituting himself.
After all, with no organs, or nerves, or really any rational scientific apparatis to justify his lifehood, really what he was was an energy field of will surrounding this hunk of metal, and as such, no bodily harm could really "kill", him, so, not limited by lethality of of even catastrophic injuries, he could keep willing, and willing, until his "body", repaired itself.
Harry held the completed thingamawhatsis in his hand.
He'd busted into an abandoned Toys R Us, and scavenged the necessary parts.
It was a confusing distorted shape, based on hyperspatial geometry, made from bent shelf pegs, and strewn and tied together with christmas tree lights, and powered by a 9-volt battery.
"Here goes", he whispered.
He fired it up, and vanished in a ripple of sickly orange light.
Deathgrasp awoke, freshened up, and strolled back into the control room.
He looked up at the giant main viewscreen. The Legion was still at it.
Vee-Dubyah reconstituted himself enough that he vaguley resembled a Volkswagon, and could get the gyro-lift working again, and then let himself float like a balloon out of the water.
DeathGrasp locked the crosshairs on Mr. Starshine, and....
....Harry materialized behind him with a ripple of sickly orange light, and dropped the thingamawhatsis shaking his hands and shouting "Hot!! Hot! Shityeow!!".
DeathGrasp swiveled his chair around to face him with an annoyed expression.
Harry affected a karate pose he'd seen in a Bruce Lee movie.
DeathGrasp squinted, and then snapped back in recognition.
"Harry Hombeck??", he asked.
Harry blinked rapidly in confusion and said "...Hembock, actually..do I..?", he probed.
"I've studied you, you're the other one who was exposed to the Derkonite!".
Harry popped out of his pose, and stared blankly.
"Pardon?".
"The Der...oh, right, the green meteor! I call it Derkonite! My powers come from it too, but in my case, it absorbed my flesh, instead of absorbing into it, here..it's easier to just show you".
DeathGrasp stood up from his seat, and removed the heavy metal glove from his right hand with the unsnapping of a couple elaborate clasps.
Hary's eyes bugged as the hand slid from it's containment.
It was skeletal, green and transluscent like molded plastic lit from within by tiny bulbs, and a faint green aura hung around it, like a bank card hologram, and when Harry looked at it just right, he could see that hologram was of the flesh and muscle of the hand.
Like it was either phased into another dimension, or that it had disintegrated, and left this hologram impression in the air around the bones.
DeathGrasp held it up, and flexed the fingers.
"Freaky, huh?".
Harry glared agape for a few seconds, and said "...and the meteor did this?".
"Yep, ain't it something? Doesn't hurt either, you'd think it would. Anycrap, the stuff ate up and replaced my hand, seeped into my bloodstream, and did this to my eyes", and with that, he pointed to them routine-12 style with his flesh hand "and it...told me things, helped me build this place".
Harry grimaced in skeptical incredulity "why you telling me all this?".
"Don't you see? You're like me! We're the same! The Derkonite chose us! Of all people who should understand, I thought it'd be you. You can help me! ".
"Do what? Blow up innocent people? Um...no thanks, I think I'll just kick your ass and bring you in to the proper authorities".
DeathGrasp smirked, chuckled, and shook his head "proper authorities...can you hear yourself? Has society been so good to you? Has the world been so kind to you? You hate this decaying society as much as I do! I've seen you on the news, I've read your interviews. You want this hatefull world to be at an end as much as I do. Proper authorities? It's a contradiction in terms! Look at the country you're defending! They threw a NUKE at me! If that had gone off, radioactivity would've been in the ocean. PROPER authorities? The Legion Of Liberty perhaps? A bunch of hateful fratboys jacked up with powers they don't deserve? Please, Harry, you're on MY side whether you know it or not. And as for innocents, I've not killed a single one".
Harry went to say something, but took too long thinking of it.
"Look, you think once I bring the U.S. government to it's knees, I'm just going to sit on a throne, and twirl my mustache? I have a plan. One that works, and everyone will have a place in it. I'm not some cheesey comic book supervillain, I'm here to save this troubled world. Look".
DeathGrasp pulled a remote from his belt, and pulled up a world map display on the main viewscreen.
Harry's mind clouded as DeathGrasp furiously and lengthily described his master plan.
Something about Isreal, something about getting America off oil dependence with Derkonite reactors, and derkonite tipped and powered drills tapping geothermal lava flows, something about China, something about using Iran as a beachhead into the middle east, a lot about worldwide socialism, which stuck out in Harry's mind, because he kept prefacing it with "and there's that dirty 'S' word again", followed by an idiot grin.
A lot of it flew over Harry's head, but by the overall gist he could gather, it actually seemed plausible.
Whole thing tumbled together neatly like a puzzle.
But, there was one little problem that needed addressing....
"...I've got to think about this..", Harry said as he sat down in DeathGrasp's chair winded by it all.
"So you agree with me? It's a good plan, isn't it? I mean look..", he sped up the animation of the geopolitical forces flowing over the map like weather, and finally snapping together into a coherant mechanically running system that would bring universal prosperity to all, and abolish all war. As the animation whizzed along, DeathGrasp waved his arms like a conductor as if his movements were pulling it together.
"...and click! It comes together. No more imperialist U.S. incursions, no more goddamned bubba mentality in the world, religion abolished, fossil fuels exterminated, heaven on earth".
Harry sat like Rodin's Thinker "yeah, yeah, I get it, no more assholism, and oatmeal in every bowl...".
Harry stood back up "yeah, sounds great. Sign me up".
DeathGrasp punched the air and shouted "yes!! Ohh yes! You will NOT regret this! Oh man, we're going to make such an awsome new world together. My genius, your invincibility, we'll be unstoppable".
DeathGrasp put his glove back on, and shook Harry's hand with the now shielded skele-hand.
"Great, great, so...can you tell me more about the Derkonite?", Harry inquired.
"Oh man, yeah! A big chunk of it powers the place, wait'll you see!".
DeathGrasp took him to an elevator, and they went down for a long time.
Several hundred floors.
And all the way, DeathGrasp rambled about totalitarian capitalists this, and plutocratic sonsabitches that, and punctuated each spittle laced paragraph by hitting his flesh hand into his metal glove.
Harry tried lightening the atmosphere with an occasional "Yeah", "uh huh", "wow, y'don't say", or when feeling particularly bold "boy, you really believe in that stuff, doncha?", accompanied with an enigmatic smirk.
Finally, they reached the reactor room.
There it was. The Derkonite.
A 20 foot tall column of it.
Green and angry, just like in his nightmares.
"...and you say you think it came from an alien ship?", Harry asked, sounding almost bored.
DeathGrasp stared into it's glow patterns with a hypnotic awe.
"Of course! Where else?".
"Well, it's a theory anyway", Harry remarked casually, and tossed something over the rail.
DeathGrasp snapped to attention and wailed "what did you just DO?!?!?!".
"You'll see", Harry said with a smirk, and bolted back into the elevator.
Harry's portable matter transmitter impacted at the bottom of the crystal, absorbed a massive power boost, and beamed the bottom half of it away in a massive flare of Derkonite tinged greenish orange.
The column hung there for a split second after the beaming like Wile E. Coyote realizing he was in midair, and then plopped 10 feet with an ugly shattering crash.
And then, things started exploding.
DeathGrasp shrieked like a child, and shook his fists in the air.
Meanwhile, Harry was back up in the control room looking for some sort of escape pod, or a map to a shuttle hanger, or...something.
The moment the the Derkonite crashed, the main power systems failed, and the moment they did, the shields dropped, and the moment the shields dropped, The Legion Of Liberty came in the for the kill.
Mr. Starshine hit the main support strut with a full volley of solar pulses, while The Swirley formed inverted water vortices like liquid drills that rammed the station again and again, while Ms. Electrode charged those vortices with lightning adding to the havoc.
Onboard the fortress, secondary power had maintained lighting, computers, elevators, and the main gravity lift, and some moderate enertial stabilization, but despite that, Harry was still earning his sealegs from the buffeting outside.
"Goddamned Legion, leave it to them to shoot first and ask questions later. How do they know there's no hostages aboard, much less me? Dicks", he thought to himself, and punctuated with a groan.
Out in Earth orbit range, the bottom half of the Derkonite crystal materialized, and then immediately fell into re-entry.
Vee-Dubya finished resolidifying with one final dent pop, and watched the fireworks show being put on by the Legion.
Harry suddenly felt a blinding wave of agony and nausia that hurled him to the floor.
After a few moments, his mind and vision cleared, and he looked upward and saw..eyes clearing finally...DeathGrasp.
His glove was off, and his skele-hand was gnarled into a tight fist, and he immediately realized he'd been punched in the side by it.
"That sickness you're feeling? I just turned your liver into jerky. My hand can kill ANYTHING, even YOU!", DeathGrasp snarled.
Harry sensed he might actually be right, his healing ability was taking slower than usual to take care of this, by the time he could crawl to his feet, the weak, feverish, dirty-blooded feeling still hadn't gone away. He had gotten used to even absurd injuries dissolving away by now.
This one was putting up a fight, as if an evil living thing were inside him, fighting the force that had been protecting him the last year or so.
Then he realized, that was essentially what was happening.
It didn't take an Einstein to realize this was not good.
Harry feigned feeling okay, stood tall, smirked, and said "that the best you got? Try it now that I'm ready for ya, pussy".
DeathGrasp ran at him growling and trailing a strand of saliva.
Harry didn't flinch.
He'd seen worse than this punk.
Right off early in his career too.
It had been about five or six villains after The Black Trident, and after failing to be killed by any of them, he was once again feeling sorry for himself.
He drowned his sorrows in some household cleaners, and after his system inevitably shrugged them off, he wept himself to sleep.
Four hours later, he awoke with a start from a very strange dream.
He was driving through his neighborhood, his wife was there in the passenger's seat, and she was eerily quiet, except for telling him when to take a turn.
Gradually, she guided him to a creepy backwoods part of town, and bid him to pull into the long dirt driveway of this property with a creepy shack on it.
Then, she said "remember the way you came", and "when you wake up, check the news".
And then he woke up, shaken, flushed, and with a cold queasy feeling.
Mindlessly, he went into the living room, and fired up the TV.
Right there, as the picture tube heated up, was the news.
And there it was, a missing girl, a missing girl who reminded him of his daughter.
Who was last seen in the neighborhood in his dream.
The queasy feeling got geometricly worse from there on.
Waldo Berch undid his fly and dropped his pants, exposing his pale pimply ass, and hairy thighs.
Sauntering slinkily over to the stereo, he fired up the German techno CD on the stereo.
It was dancin' time.
Greta Anderson whimpered fearfully through the duct tape.
Harry turned another familiar corner, and was met again by more familiar landmarks and houses he had never seen outside of the dream.
As with all the other times, he kept mumbling "thisiscrazythisiscrazytrhisiscrazy..", while trying to contain the shivers up his arms by grasping the steering wheel tighter.
Waldo dropped and kicked aside his bikini briefs.
Now Greta could be treated to yet more undulating flesh as he got into his dance.
Harry stood on foot, having parked a few yards down the street to keep from being heard, and stared up the driveway, a chill in his soul.
After a couple minutes hesitation, he finally said "fuck it", and held the image of his daughter in his head to pump himself up.
As the song faded away to it's final conclusion, Waldo started inching toward Greta with a meaningful expression.
She closed her tear soaked eyes tight and sniffled as Waldo ran his penis scented hand along her cheek and whispered "shhhhh".
Just then, Waldo thought he heard something.
The sound of footfalls pounding very hard and fast, and getting closer.
Greta's eyes opened at the instinctual sensing of his hesitation.
They widened with hope as he turned away from her.
The footfalls sounded like they were coming up towards the house, closer, closer,...up to the house...RIGHT up to the house without slowing down, and then...
Harry exploded through the living room window, glass tearing through the flesh on his hands, and the parts of his face and neck that merely holding his arms in front of his eyes and mouth couldn't protect.
He slammed full force into something heavy, but with a soft give to it that it took 2 whole seconds to ascertain was a person.
Harry and the unknown person fell together, and Harry's relatively light weight came down full force mostly on his bony knees and elbows.
In particular, he felt something fleshy under his right knee that resisted, and then gave way with a bursting sensation.
It was Waldo's penis.
A long continuous blood curdling enraged shriek filled the shack.
Harry rapidly assembled where he was, and what was going on, and climbed off of Waldo with an "eeew!", when he saw where his knee had landed and then a sympathetic "eeeeeWW!!", when he'd seen he'd crushed Waldo's prick.
He surveyed Waldo, and noted all the glass cuts and contusions.
"Good", he mentally noted as his own wounds vanished.
Then, finally, in the corner of the room on a mattress on the floor, he saw Greta.
With Waldo still rolling on the floor shrieking and bawling, Harry went out in the kitchen, checked the drunk drawer, and found the big scissors.
Everyone had big scissors.
Harry came back, and started cutting the tape off Greta's hands, feet, and mouth.
Just when he'd snipped enough she could peel herelf off the rest of the way, his back and right lung exploded with a heavy impact, and then a fireworks burst of agony.
Waldo had dragged himself to his feet, and come at him with a butcher knife, which was now protruding from just underneath his shoulder blade.
Harry coughed up a mouthful of blood, and croaked "get the fuck out...RUN!".
Waldo tackled him to the floor and twisted the knife sideways with a crunch of bone, and then his lower extremities became numb and non-responsive.
Waldo climbed up his back, and hissed some spittle punctuated lunacy into his ear.
Harry became faintly aware his pants were being pulled down.
His gut turned to lead.
Just then, he heard a scream of rage and a repeated metal clanging, and Waldo was off of him.
He rolled over by shifting his weight by nudging his shoulders, and saw Greta hitting Waldo in the head with a toaster, he blocked the fourth strike, and punched her full force into the kitchen.
Finally, his stubborn nervous system started sending him data to and from his legs, and he climbed slowly to his feet, like in one of those frustrating nightmares where the air dampens movement like water.
He reached around to his back, and pulled the knife out, this also took a time delayed eternity, as Waldo began kicking Greta.
As the knife sucked out of the hole, all sensation in his body kicked back in, and he bolted toward Waldo with the knife,...and tripped over his pulled down pants.
Waldo turned and saw, and tackled toward him again.
Harry held out the knife, and Waldo ran into it with his belly.
He bolted back screaming like a woman, and then realized it had mostly sunk into fat, and pulled it back out with a growl of rage, and came at Harry again.
Harry had gotten his pants back up, and stood his ground.
Waldo proceeded to slash at him as if he were a blender on frappe.
Harry held up his hands and bore a flurry of undescribable pain as blood and fingers flew like cocktail shrimp and sauce at a foodfight at a catered party.
Finally, on one of the strokes, the knife got stuck in the carpal bones of Harry's left mangled stump, and this bought Harry a split second to counter attack.
He jumped backward, kicked back off of the couch against the back wall, and catapulted at Waldo sending him back toward the kitchen counter, where slipping on his own soggy bikini underpants, his head slammed against the corner of the counter, cracking his skull like an egg, and making him plop to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
He gave a few momentary spasms, and then finally stopped.
Harry however, had kept his prayer fueled focus on watching his hands knit, and sprout new finger-buds.
After it became clear the madness had past, and his fingers were going to fully restore, he sat down on the couch in shock and wept a bit.
After awhile of crying into his now fully restored hands, he looked up, and saw Greta, bleeding, contused, swollen, and bearing a sarcastic "my hero", expression on her face.
Harry snapped out of it, and walked her outside, and bid her to sit out on the porch while he called the police.
After making the call, he explored the shack for other captives, only finding a slimy maggot ridden body in a trunk.
After that, he slammed Waldo's head against the counter until it splayed open.
"Y'know, just to be sure", he told himself.
Harry and Greta sat on the porch in awkward silence until the police arrived.
This experience encouraged Harry to doggedly improve with each successive mission.
This was not something anyone would want to repeat.
From that point on however, Harry became a media darling, especially when he started progressively taking villains out more efficiantly.
Eventually, this led to his line of cheapo action figures, and a never-published comic book by a hack cartoonist who got his origin story totally wrong.
Despite the perks and new revenue, Harry continued to be haunted by "the Mr. Berch incident".
He brutally taunted himself for every little bit of harm to innocent people he felt he could've prevented, and pushed himself even harder the next time.
But the public loved him.
The Legion Of Liberty, not so much.
Posted on Nov 1, 2006, 12:31 AM from IP address 76.178.216.28
Harry grit his teeth, snarled, dodged to the side and swung a punch with his right hand at at DeathGrasp's right wrist.
In that split second of DeathGrasp's death arm snapping back, Harry did a shuffling dance away from him towards the back of the control room where there was more room to move.
DeathGrasp recovered almost instantly, growled, and chased after him.
Harry kept shuffling back and forth sideways, making occasional half lunges trying to fake him out, building up a pattern, and then breaking it, throwing DeathGrasp off.
This went on for about 35 seconds, and then finally DeathGrasp was the one to jump in for the kill.
Harry tagged him with a left jab, and danced back, ever mindful to keep the doom hand away from him.
This repeated a few times.
Lunge, jab, move, lunge, jab, move.
DeathGrasp's lip was bleeding by now.
Once he noticed, he hissed and finally ran at Harry like a berserker.
Harry saw an opening and hurled a full bore right cross with all his strength.
Long ago, Harry had realized his healing ability had subtracted the need for regard to broken hands with punches, nor inflamed muscles or collapsed lungs from running, and thus this could augment his fighting prowess and stamina.
Harry's hand knitted it's hairline fractures, and took care of knuckle bruises before they could even inflame.
DeathGrasp hobbled back, knocked stupid for a few precious seconds.
Harry threw another rage fueled right cross with a scream, and the willful intent to take DeathGrasp's head off.
DeathGrasp's face lolled and made a slobbidy sound.
Harry threw a left hook while this right knitted.
DeathGrasp caught it in the death talon.
Pain roared up his arm, and his skin began to sizzle.
DeathGrasp's face twisted into a maniacal grin, as he drove Harry down to his knees with the pain.
He'd seen that grin before.
But it wasn't from a supervillain.
It had been some time after "the Mr. Berch incident", about a year and some change.
Harry had just subdued a rather pathetic costumed villain.
More a sad loser who'd taken to convenience store robberys in a halloween costume.
Not very much down the foodchain from himself, Harry reasoned gloomily.
He'd beaten him to a weeping heap, and hogtied him with commandeered clothesline in a neighbor's backyard where the chase had ended, and had then called the police.
That's how a lot of these had been ending.
In a weird way, Harry was grateful.
It was the "interesting", villains, the ones who made for better movies, that were nightmare fuel.
Like the guy with the possessed talking gun that had fused to his hand, puppeted him along, and made him wipe out his own family, and half a schoolyard of kids.
Harry shivered at the memory.
Just then, a spotlight shone down on him from the sky.
For a split second, Harry thought it might be God, and he was stricken with the impulse to start cussing and furiously flipping both birds in various combinations.
But then, the beam started lifting him off the ground, and then his mind immediatly shifted tracks to aliens.
"Oh, well, something sensible then", Harry mentally chuckled.
By the time he cleared the roof hight of all the identicle houses, his ascent accellerated.
Three minutes into the trip, Harry's mental gears finally clicked into the proper configuration.
"Riiiight, the Legion's orbital base...", he finally uttered with an eyeroll.
Harry crossed his arms, and began to hum and tap his foot in empty air like he was merely taking a long elevator ride.
Eventually, Harry found himself in a dark room, the spotlight still on him, a white enamel floor under his feet now, and those rings like from the begining of Superman spinning around him.
He could make out dimly lit faces looking down at him.
Harry instantly sussed out the situation, and said "I'm not joining you guys".
What followed did not go well.
Mr. Starshine gave a 10 minute flowery speech about power and responsibility.
Harry picked it apart in under 2 minutes, explained in detail how the government they served was decaying and unworthy, and the society it served was a con game run by bad magicians, and the nation that served as stage for it all was essentially doomed.
Then, he punctuated the whole thing with "...so go fuck yourselves".
Needless to say, they weren't impressed by this.
A couple of them tried various tacks to persuade him out of his nihilistic conclusions, but after a half hour of making no headway, most gave up.
Mr. Starshine hung in the longest, and as one last desperate gambit, brought his familiy into it.
That set Harry off.
He let go a volcanic rant to end all rants.
A shrieking tirade that tore open his own soul, and would have raised water temparature to a bubble if there'd been any standing water around.
All of it was ugly. None of it could be taken back.
Finally, Harry cut through the minute long painful silence with "so? You gonna let me go, or you gonna kick my ass, or what?".
They did both.
They humiliated him in ways he still had dreams about, and then sent him back to earth without the beam.
Needless to say, that had literally hurt like hell.
But just before they dropped him, the look on the Swirley's face, that sadistic sociopathic leering grin, it reminded him of DeathGrasp now, and had confirmed his cynical notions about The Legion for all time.
Even after gradually crawling free from his nihilistic worldview by having more successes, his assesment of them as cliquish punkasses and government lapdogs at best, and sanctioned villains at worst, had never wavered.
Harry channeled that hatred now, and let out a sustained escalating battle scream as he climbed back to his feet, and pushed through the cold electrical sensation of his dying nerves as his flesh burned.
Once both of his feet got a solid purchase on the floor, he wrenched his left hand free, and rammed the butt of of his right hand at DeathGrasp's nose, but missed, and hit his upper lip, causing his top teeth to bite through, and into his hand.
DeathGrasp, ran backwards shrieking and flailing.
Harry ran at him screaming inhumanly, like a cross between a growling dog, and a cat who's tail has just been pulverized by a rocking chair.
He opened up with everything.
Fist shattering punches, tendons ripping spinning leap kicks, spine and pelvis wrenching leaping legholds.
Faster, angrier, and with geometricly less regard for personal pain the attacks got.
Leaping off the walls, kicking off of furniture, using broken bones as stabbing implements before the flesh resealed.
Everything.
Harry treated his own body like a set of nunchucks.
DeathGrasp, now a whimpering bloody pulp, crawled along the floor.
Harry went to find something to lop that pesky Derkonite hand off with.
DeathGrasp got ahold of an office chair, and hobbled to his feet.
Temporarily mangling his hands in the process, Harry ripped off a hunk of metal the size of an axe head from the case of a mainframe computer, and bent and folded it into a makeshift machete.
He tested it, nodded, turned, and...
With a gurgling gag, DeathGrasp's hand was on his throat.
He heard a sizzling, and reality began to rapidly fade like the last dot on a switched off TV set.
Helen looked down at him, her broad mouth grinning warmly with a touch of sarcasm, and her heart shaped face as always, framed by a thick shoulder length mane of chestnut hair.
"Get up here already, ya pussy", she said from the tree limb with a chuckle in her voice, as her sneakered feet dangled in a musical rythm.
Harry looked up and smirked.
She was the open and outgoing one.
God help him if he ever lost her.
Fueled by her dare more than any inner impulse to do so, he stubbornly made his way up the tree, and sat beside her.
"Sure this branch'll hold us both?", Harry said worriedly, slighly jiggling his buttocks to give it a stress test.
"If it'll hold my big butt, it'll hold you. You weigh 100 pounds soaking wet", she said, still grinning.
Harry laughed off both the self deprication, and the barb and said "I s'pose so", while taking in her voluptuous curves, accentuated all the more by the t-shirt and jeans.
They watched the sunset, and all was right with the world.
"Kool-Aid clouds", he uttered at one point like a little kid who'd discovered a new word, or who was advertising his newfound ability to put his clothing on in the right order.
Helen closed mouth laughed out a loving "hmmm", sound.
"Jesus, doesn't my neck hurt", Harry finally observed.
Helen began massaging it.
It was as if a warm vibrating energy were passing from her fingertips, and rinsing the discomfort away.
As she did, she said "remember, I'll always love you, I'll always be here when you need me, and most important of all, whenever you doubt yourself, there are no limits but those you set for yourself".
"Um...okay, Harry said, thinking that last bit was odd, and trying to tune the oddness out to lose himself in the massage.
And then he remembered why it nagged at him, there was something he had to face, and didn't want to, and he especially didn't want to leave this moment.
He closed his eyes trying to drown that something out, and when he opened them again...
..a baby boy was being handed to him.
"Wow, look what we made", he said sappily, his eyes watering up.
Helen looked up from the hospital bed exhausted, puffy eyed, and said "do it for them, if for no one else, do it for the little ones who have a chance. But believe in something, and do it for something".
Harry understood, and that nagging something became harder to ignore.
Harry nodded.
He then handed baby Joshua back to her and wiped away a tear, and kept nodding.
"And remember, no limits".
Harry smiled and said "yeah, baby, I'll try to remember".
He turned to walk out of the room.
"Just to be sure, those limits?", she asked.
"There are none", he said with a confident smile.
"There's my man", she said with an equally strong smile.
Harry's eyes snapped open, and the inner TV turned back on, that warmth from Helen's massage still there rather than the pain.
DeathGrasp blasted backward, a yellow energy enveloping his derkonite hand.
He howled like a slapped child, his mangled face contorting, and Harry could barely make out the words "what the hell ARE you!?!? What the hell ARE you?!!?".
Harry stood tall and smiled.
"I'm no one to be trifled with, that is all you need ever know".
Vee-Dubyah started back as something slammed into the roof of DeathGrasp's fortress with explosive force, flinging the members of the Legion aside like mosquitos caught in a breeze.
DeathGrasp finished shaking the yellow energy off his hand in little glittery twinkles, and went to lunge at Harry again.
But just then, a big something slammed down through the ceiling, and half crushed, half impaled him.
It was the chunk of Derkonite Harry had beamed into space.
Harry's eyes bugged for a second, then snapped into recogniton, then smiled in satisfaction.
"Well, that wraps that up", he said calmly.
Outside, things started exploding.
Moreso than they already had been since the Derkonite reactor crashed.
Vee-Dubyah flew in close to look for survivors.
System after system failed, and then Harry noticed, the background hum that he'd become used to while he'd been here came to a dead stop.
It was the gravity drive.
The station began to tip like the leaning tower of Pisa.
Harry sensed it was time to leave.
He leapt through a window with a crash, and fell towards the ocean.
After awhile, he noticed, all his glass cuts....weren't vanishing.
He instantly understood.
The combination of DeathGrasp's hand, and whatever that manifestation of Helen had been, spirit visitation, something inside himself, had signified the loss of his powers.
He also understood hitting the ocean at this hight without them would probably kill him.
Fine, let it end.
He closed his eyes.
And suddenly felt something tackle/catch him.
He opened his eyes, and saw he was...sitting in...a bucket seat of a car.
He scanned his head in every direction, and essembled what was going on.
He'd been caught in this seat, and the seat was retracting into the cabin of a lime green Volkswagon Beetle.
A FLYING Volkswagon Beetle.
"Of...course", his mind said with a dispassionate gallows humor, his mind long since accustomed to being assaulted with absurdity.
The driver's side door closed behind him by itself, and he surveyed the cabin.
More or less a Volkswagon Beetle.
More or less.
Except for the inexplicable extra control panels that looked like bits of Pee-Wee's Playhouse and baby crib "busy boxes".
A silly but bouncy tune was playing on the radio.
Harry drank it all in.
A mellow optimistic voice cut in over the radio speaker.
"Hey there buddy, Vee-Dubyah's the name how yah feelin?".
"Abrased and contused, and in need of bactine and gauze, but otherwise...peachy", Harry grumbled.
"Hey, I know you! You're that Harry Hembock dude from the news, and the toy commercials! Say! I'm in the superhero game too! You need a partner?".
Harry thought about it awhile.
Finally, he said "well, I wasn't looking for one, but...you came in handy back there, and I owe you, and you don't seem like an asshole like those Legion putzes...okay. But one condition. You gotta do something about that name".
"Got anything in mind?".
"I'll think of something".
Having left it far behind, Harry and Vee-Dubyah didn't see what was going on with DeathGrasp's fortress.
They'd assumed it had kept exploding and sinking, and would inevitably end up as debris at the bottom of the ocean.
Instead, a falling bank of crackling electrical cable fell into the gravity drive, and both supplied it with power, and clogged it's mechanical works, making it's directional/inertial controls go haywire.
The fortress began lurching violently, bucking like a mechanical bull, and then eventually, it spun totally out of control, and flew around in giant arcing fart circles like a deflating party balloon, and finally zipped toward the east coast of the United States.
20 minutes later, Vee-Dubyah uttered "oh, shit!", and a flatscreen TV monitor folded down from the ceiling, and moved on an armature to position in front of Harry's eyeline.
A news story unfolded of DeathGrasp's fortress crashing in a small town in Georgia, and setting it ablaze.
Harry gulped, and squeaked out "ooo shit! Ohshitohshit. ....look, we'd better lay low for awhile,...say, let's go to Hawaii. How's that sound? Hawaii? Eh?".
"Sounds like a plan", Vee-Dubyah said, yanking the steering, planning to take the long way over Asia, seeking to avoid the American continent altogether.
Over the next few months, the value of Harry's action figures fell through the earth, and that graphic novel by the hack cartoonist was indefinately shelved.
The latter was just as well as far as Harry was concerned.
Over those same months, Harry had named Vee-Dubyah "The Hembug", which was later shortened to just "Hembug", and he had gradually related to Hembug all the forgoing backstory of his life up to and including the fight with DeathGrasp.
And meanwhile, in a parrallel universe, DeathGrasp was gleefully cutting apart the midwestern U.S. countryside like a thanksgiving turkey with his fortress's boson beam, and commanding a fleet of mandroids of the same type as Tektan Democulus, of which, in our dimension, Tektan himself was the sole survivor after the crash/explosion.
But, the world being unaware of this alternative reality for comparison, henceforth, Harry Hembock was a name spoken with spit for the punctuation.
And being a part of that unawareness, Harry morbidly accepted that judgement.
It was around this time that he began hitting the sauce.
Hembug emerged from his reverie, and pulled into Harry's driveway.
He then blared the horn.
Harry awoke with a moan, smacked his lips, and dragged himself out of the driver's seat, and into the house.
Hembug fired up his TV tuner, and scanned for any word on the Tektan Democulus fight they'd just left.
Hembug came in on the middle of the coverage of the devastation, but there was no mention yet of the death of Tektan Democulus, or of any involvment by Harry.
Which was as it should be.
That was what the cleanup tech was made to prevent.
The cleanup tech, being but one example of the amazing gadgets that had started pouring out of Harry's mind after the DeathGrasp fight.
It was as if his body compensated for the loss of his healing power, by amplifying another human ability to the point of having another power.
Like a blind man with enhanced touch and hearing.
It was curious, Harry would awake in the morning, and immediately scribble out plans for a gadget which he'd have built by the afternoon, and not only put into practice for the day's adventure, but it would turn out to be exactly what they needed for that exploit.
Hembug had asked him once what he dreamt about that gave him those ideas.
Harry had always managed to dodge the subject.
Hembug had learned quickly not to press the issue.
Especially after hearing about his family, and his early cases.
And then he reminded himself, not all of his missions with Harry post-DeathGrasp had been a barrel of monkeys either.
And then he looked at the flaming ruin that Tektan Democulus had left in his wake on the TV tuner, and it reminded him of 9/11.
Now there was an adventure that had gone wrong from start to finish.
Posted on Nov 15, 2006, 11:37 PM from IP address 76.178.216.28
A flicker of images would always assail Hembug when he thought of 9/11 no matter how hard he tried to squeeze them out.
Harry awaking to the first tower having already been hit.
The haunted look on Harry's face when it was explained to him (contemptuously) via sattelite feed into Hembug's monitor that the Legion Of Liberty were busy off fighting some alien race called the Boodon, and that he was the only superhero available.
The look of morbid determination on Harry's face when Hembug mentioned that the new tractor beam he'd installed was only made for stopping, tops, a trailer truck.
Hembug pushing his speed meter all the way back around to the 0MPH marker to make it to New York in time to chase after United Airlines Flight 175.
The tractor beam, as predicted, buckling under the strain of trying to push it off course.
Hembug trying to manually push it himself with all his willpower in one final shrieking burst.
And then, when his strength finally drained utterly, begging Harry permission to stop, and Harry, morbidly, knowing what was coming, saying "give me the wheel, when they ask, I was driving".
And then, the plane smacking into the ocean.
Harry had been known for 3 years after that as "the savior of the south tower".
And they weren't saying it in a congratulatory way either.
It was a mark of derision for not being there to save the north tower, and for losing Flight 175 on top of it.
Oh, there was a camp who meant it in a congratulatory manner, but once it became a press bandwagon, it was a minority.
And once Harry hung his head into the pits of reclusivity to dodge the whole debate, it was a minority that was totally drowned out.
This only added to Harry's Jack Daniels bill.
And it led to Harry making the cleanup tech.
Popping up on the radar would only lead to more abuse from the press, who he'd never win back, and then lord knows what bullshit from the Legion Of Liberty.
But quitting superheroing would make Harry's inner demons devour him completely.
So, the cleanup tech had been the compromise.
But, anyway, in image form, that was the slideshow behind Hembug's eyelids.
Smouldering north tower, pushing the plane, plane crashing, Harry's haunted eyes, a rapid flicker of sneering talking heads on cable news, and then finally Harry swilling out of a bottle of Jack like a baby with a ba-ba.
Hembug stayed up all night monitoring the news.
He didn't really need sleep, when he would, it was more sort of a game he played.
Harry awoke the next day screaming.
Hembug was naturally concerened, but he couldn't fit into the house to see what was the matter.
Four hours passed, and then finally, Harry came outside with a thick stack of scribbled on scrap papers in his hands, and that same haunted look on his face as 9/11.
After a minute long hypnotized looking pause, he finally said "...better get me to a toy store...black friday's coming".
Hembug responded "it's the middle of september, the christmas season...".
Harry glared at him frighteningly "...that ain't the one I meant...".
Hembug popped his door open, and let Harry in.
Hembug knew what Harry wanted at the toy store.
A large source of his most advanced form of the cleanup devices.
The Harry Hembock action figures.
He remembered when Harry had "upgraded", them.
He had come out of the house one day with one of his gadgets strung together with spit and bailing wire, and directed him to the action figure factory.
Then, Harry had snuck in, and Hembug had seen this by patching in to the security camera system, while simultaneously overlaying blank hallway footage over their view.
Anyway, Harry had snuck in, and made his way onto the final assembly line.
Then, he activated his little gizmo, and it gave off that orange ray that would later be used for the healing ray by the figures, and had melted a hole in the chest of the closest figure, and then stuffed the gizmo inside.
The gizmo then gave off another orange ray that sealed the hole behind it by molding the melted plastic back into it's original configuration.
Then, the figure made blipping and zapping noises inside, and the eyes lit up, and emitted that same orange ray, and passed it over the next adjacent figure.
Eventually, that figure's eyes lit up, and it repeated the process apon the next figure, and so on, until exponentially they were all converted.
The ones off the factory line would then convert the ones in the stores they were sent to.
Then, it was a simple matter of installing the transmitter in his belt buckle, and Harry's butt was covered.
But, there was no mission underway, no villain to fight, what did Harry need them for now?
The question gave Hembug the chills for some reason.
At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, rested some things that had been tossed free when DeathGrasp's fortress had spun out of control when the gravity drive had gone haywire.
The mangled severed Derkonite hand of Deathgrasp.
A still functioning emergency signal beacon reciever that had picked up the death of Tektan Democulus.
And a broken beaker of experimental self repair nanites.
The emergency reciever device tried to find any signs of the other mandroids by pinging their recievers.
After awhile, it had given up, and computed that this was the worst of worst situations, and the mandroid fleet, the headquarters, and indeed the whole command structure up to and including DeathGrasp had been lost.
So, it began emitting it's own emergency signal on all bands hoping to find someone, or something left of DeathGrasp's organization, and hopefully, coordinate a pulling back together of those fragments.
It raised the command processors of the nanites.
And the nanites swam their way back to the reciever device.
And having the same reorganizational impulse as the reciever, absorbed it.
And then, the assimilated reciver modified itself into a full blown neural net computer.
And then, this neural net computer, with it's impulse to pull surviving elements of DeathGrasps' organization and equipment together, now having evolved into a conscious willfull mission, began absorbing and reactivating other bits of debris, and became a robot.
And this sentient little robot, now outfitted for swimming, began adding more and more debris and circuits to itself.
And then, finally, it found some Derkonite.
DeathGrasp's hand.
It added it on to itself, and then, the hand started absorbing back.
Both metallicly, and growing DeathGrasp's tissue into the robot, who's nanites also aided in the tissue cloning process.
Recieving a spark of life from this integration of flesh, the cyborg then began seeking more lifeforms to absorb.
So, it grabbed and absorbed a fish, and then another, and then another, and another....
Harry strode into Toys R Us, went to the action figure aisle, found a Harry Hembock, ripped it's box open, activated it, which activated all the others, and set them all for wide band neuralization.
A green wave enveloped the store, and knocked everyone out.
Except Harry, who's belt emitter blocked out effects from his own technology.
"Well, time to get to work", he mumbled, as he cracked open the figure in his hands to get at it's precious electronic goodies.
Meanwhile, the Derkonite infused cybernetic lifeform, having exponentially multiplied in mass, was now slurping up marine life like a whale through krill.
Until, it came apon a whale.
The struggle was valiant, and futile.
And now it had the mass and strength to absorb another whale.
And from there, it'd have enough mass leverage to start slurping whales up like krill.
Harry had modified the figure's neuralizer into a neural interface processor, which he'd taped to his forehead, and was using to mentally guide the other Harry figures.
First, he commanded them all to modify their gravity drives for time warp, to accellerate them to super speed, so they could work like bees.
Then, he commanded three to dismantle another three, and whip up human sized gravity lifts from their circuits, which he attached to his boots,
Then, he had them whip up another gravity drive, modified for timewarp, which he clipped to his belt to use to speed up to their same rate.
Then, he activated them with his neural link.
The rest, he made mass produce the handheld teleport with every shelf peg, battery, and bit of wire they could get ahold of.
Meanwhile, he began flying about arranging shelves and ladders into a scaffold structure to weave them all onto.
Miles away, an offshore oil rig was being completely enveloped and devoured by a giant mass of tentacles with screaming needle toothed mouths in it's suction cups.
The lifeform even absorbed the oil that gushed forth, integrating it into it's skin texture and pigment, blackening the sea with it's disturbing squirming amourphous mass.
It was half an hour later, when this living oil slick came apon a cruise ship, that the press finally took notice.
Harry stood back, watching his little workers buzz around building the massive device to the specifications in his plans and mental commands.
Stage one of it was almost finished. He watched as the figures even dismantled each other and integrated their circuits into the thing.
The Scourge, as the press had now taken to calling it, was peppered with dismantled and reconfigured cruise ships, 5 aircraft carriers, various fishing ships, and had absorbed untold amounts of fish, marine mammals, and human beings.
For some unknown reason, it now headed toward Antarctica.
Harry nodded in satisfaction, as the device now reached the stage where it was able to continue building itself by itself.
Soon, it finished phase 2 of it's development, and much like the chest of that first action figure, dissolved the front of the store out of it's way, floated through on it's various gravity lifts, and then reintegrated the hole in the store behind itself.
Harry flew after it.
The Scourge half grew, half constructed an array of lenses and conductors to focus the power of the unfiltered sun through the hole in the ozone layer, and began to sup on the raw power like a tick on the neck of a dog.
Greedily it inflated, until soon, it enveloped Antarctica.
And still it continued to swell.
Hembug watched it's growth activity on his TV tuner while steering Harry's giant device with his tractor beam.
Harry stood astride his machine and listened to "when it's over", by Loverboy "when it's over", by Sugar Ray "it's the end of the world as we know it", by REM, and "preaching the end of the world", by Chris Cornell on a shoplifted I-pod.
Inevitable doom always put Harry in an ironic mood.
By midnight, Harry's time, The Scourge had spread up to the coast of Australia.
Technically, it was now friday.
His machine had now added to it's mass, integrating several cars, a couple trailer trucks, and then finally, a couple large cranes which it used to pull even more cars and trucks into itself.
Soon, it was the size of a small office building.
By 3 am, the Scourge had absorbed Australia.
Harry had kept himself awake with a six pack of Red Bulls, and blaring Megadeth music.
It was time.
Harry pulled a manual lever next to him, and every engine, battery, and generator the machine had added to itself focused all their power into it's core, and began to build up an energy field.
It was the same sickly orange light that his first portable teleport had given off, but it began building weakly from the core, slowly getting brighter and larger.
When it switched over to buildup mode, all it's power circuits but low level gravity lift flipped over and devoted themselves to creating the energy matrix.
So, Hembug began to push it along with his tractor beam, which had been upgraded for this occasion.
Harry stared out toward the direction of the ocean, filled with an increasing sense of dread, a cold feeling permeating his whole body.
He whipped a cellphone out of his pocket, and called his folks.
He got their machine.
Lost for a moment with what to say, he finally choked out "um...yeah, ma...dad? This is Harry. Um...sorry I've always been such a complete and utter fuckup,...um, well, despite all the water under the bridge,...love you guys,..goodbye".
Harry gulped back some tears for a couple minutes, and focused ahead with resolve.
Slowly, Hembug's pushing was causing the machine to build momentum.
It was up to 100 miles per hour now.
Harry had resolved once it could coast along on inertia at at least mach 1, he'd tell Hembug to head back.
No reason for him to die too.
Posted on Dec 9, 2006, 1:47 AM from IP address 76.178.216.28
Inside the core of the Scourge, couldrons of creation bubbled.
The DeathGrasp DNA gave rise to an instinct memory, which augmented with some animal DNA whipped up a faint residual consciousness.
Which seeped into the organic and cybernetic neural pathways, and spread out, and became more complex, and became a primitive mind.
Which soaked up the stores of knowledge from the absorbed humans and computers, and guided by it's primal instict memory, sought out and kept only what it recognized as resembling it's former self.
And thus, it reconstructed everything that DeathGrasp knew.
Then, augmented by the metaphysical properties of the derkonite in it's system, the Deathgrasp mind latched on to it's original metaphysical energies, it's lifeforce.
And with that reassembling of mind, ego, and spirit, DeathGrasp was re-created.
And with that re-creation, the original program of the Mandroid Emergency Beacon Reciever Device was complete.
And thus, the growth of The Scourge momentarily halted.
DeathGrasp awoke in a cold blackness, and after some momentary confusion, began to become aware of other minds, and through those minds, became aware of his situation, and by telepathicly scanning the vast memory banks of his new body, he came to a conclusion.
The human populace of the westernized world was too docile to incite to revolution, and the third world was too unstable to repair in any single lifetime, thus, the human race was beyond hope.
Politicly.
But this new form, this Scourge, was just the thing to bring about his new order.
Digest all life, and instantly create utopia in it's neural web.
The ultimate manifistaiton of his political ideals.
And thus, DeathGrasp and the Scourge truly became one, and it's growth continued unimpeded.
All of this took an elapsed 40 seconds.
Harry watched as the green dot of Hembug vanished on the horizon.
It had taken some hardcore verbal abuse to make him leave.
He still kinda felt bad about it too.
Harry looked down, and sighed sadly as he noticed the battery on the I-pod was dead.
A damned shame, he wanted to play Pagliacci by Pavorratti for his death song.
Would've brought the pattern of his life to a perfect circle, Harry figured.
Harry shrugged, and took a stab at a few pidgeon italian verses himself as he slid down poles and climbed back up laddars to work some switches and dials for the final reactor buildup.
His voice was terrible, but hell, no one could hear, and the lyrics were made up gibberish, but he knew the translated meaning, and knew where to put the "oomph".
"Bah, sei tu forse un uom? Tu se' Pagliacciooooo!"
(Bah, you think you're a man? You're just a clown!)
He ran across a walkway to toss a couple switches.
"Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarinaaaa!!!"
(On with the show, man, and put on your white-face)
Running back up to the top deck to see the first glimps of black howling tendrils.
Fists on hips.
Extended one hand out with a flourish.
"La gente paga e rider vuole quaaa.
EEEE se Arlecchin t'invola Colombinaaa, ridi, Pagliacciooooo...
e ognum applaudiraaaa! Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il piantooooo!!".
(The people pay you and you must make them laugh.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine, laugh,
you're Pagliaccio, and the world will clap for you!
Turn into banter all your pain and sorrow)
Extending both hands outward, and with an almost defiant snarl he brought it home.
"In una smorfia il singhiozzo e'l dolor...
Riiiidiiiiii Pagliaccioooooo, sul tuo amore infrantooooooooo!
Riiiidiiii del duol che t'avvelena il coooooooorrr!".
(and with your clowns' face hide grief and distress...
Laugh loud, Pagliaccio, forget all of your troubles,
Laugh off the pain that so empoisons your heart)
And with that, he sank to a full down to the knees bow, head down, as the tendrils began to batter the machine, and drain it of it's built up speed.
Harry's head popped back up with a defiant smirk.
A wave of black ooze riddled with bullfrog burbling mouths and red eyeballs loomed up on the horizon.
Harry chortled.
The wave roared closer and closer, a chilling sound warbling through it like a strong hurricane wind punctuated with bearlike growls, and a faint sprinkle of female pitched screams.
Harry held his ground.
As the wave roared closer, tendrils loomed up on either side of the machine cube.
Harry noted them in his periphiral vision.
Then, having guesstimated letting them get close enough, he stomped down on a red button inset next to him.
The stored up energy of the machine released in a four pointed yellowish orange starburst accompanied by an ear splitting stereophonic buzz like a prolonged electric guitar note.
The wave dispursed as if it had smacked into an invisible breakwater, and the tendrils recoiled.
The energy shaft eminating from underneath the machine boiled the black ooze in the ocean, and gave off a roaring greenish cloud reeking like burning garbage.
Within a few minutes, Harry noted the smoke and stench cleared.
Suspicious, he squinted through some remaining smoke, and noticed that the black in the water was retreating, leaving behind the usual transluscent blue.
"Oh no you don't! son of a bitch!", he hissed.
He ran to the back of the machine, and climbed down some ladders.
Finding a sturdy enough structural point to hold onto, he fired up his boot gravity lifts, and began to push with maximum flight power.
Slowly, ever so slowy, it began to microscopicly budge.
Harry's face was bright red and sweaty from the effort of merely holding his body vertically erect without getting crushed.
Finally, he gave up.
"Fuck....not gonna move, can't catch him, fuck...need Hembug...he's long gone..fuck", he gasped while sitting indian style rubbing his sore legs.
The massive electrical starburst and hum still filled the sky.
"Shit, and this damned thing will pour out all it's juice in about an hour...fuck..", Harry mumbled with a note of grim defeat in his voice.
"Ah well, I'll have a lethal dose of rads in just 10 minutes anyway. Least I'll miss the apocalypse".
5 minutes later, Harry passed out.
Harry opened his eyes, and found himself laying in the middle of a grassy field.
Helen looked down at him from a tree limb dangling overhead, her broad mouth grinning warmly with a touch of sarcasm, and her heart shaped face as always, framed by a thick shoulder length mane of chestnut hair.
"Get up already, ya pussy", she said with a chuckle in her voice, as her sneakered feet dangled in a musical rythm.
Harry looked up and smirked.
She was the open and outgoing one.
God help him if he ever lost her.
"Remember, I'll always love you, I'll always be here when you need me, and most important of all, whenever you doubt yourself, there are no limits but those you set for yourself", she said warmly.
Harry smiled and said "yeah, babe, I'll try to remember".
"There's my man", Helen said with an equally strong smile.
Harry blinked, and he was back aboard the machine.
He climbed to his feet, and noticed the last vestiges of what seemed to be radiation sores vanishing from the back of his hands at the same rate that strength and lucidity were returning to his body.
"No limits, baby. I remembered this time", he said with an excited smile.
Harry kicked off his gravity lifts, plucked off his neural scanner and timewarper, and chucked them all into the sea.
Finding the sturdy structural point he held onto before when he'd pushed with the grav-lifts, he held his body vertically erect with healing power augmented upper body strength, and concentrated.
Slowly, ever so slowy, the machine began to budge.
And not microscopicly.
And not with crushing gravity pressure.
Indeed, the effort it was taking to hold himself up was what was becoming negligable.
Within 20 seconds, Harry was pushing the machine in the direction of The Scourge's retreat at 40 miles an hour.
Within 2 minutes, he had accelerated to 200 miles per hour.
Within 5 minutes, he breached mach 1, and started to see tentacles.
The Scourge tried to retreat, but Harry's machine splashed into it's oozy structure with a roiling boiling fizzle, and a roar of the green odiferous smoke.
Thousands of it's hellish maws wailed.
But, it wasn't dying.
Harry felt a wave of defeat, and realized it had spent too much of it's power.
His hope further sank as a literal wave of black ooze began to pour down towards him overhead.
He envisioned Helen looking over his shoulder shaking her head, and his mind screamed "NO!!".
He grasped two beams on the machine, squinted his eyes really hard, and poured his willpower at it for something, anything to happen.
If his eyes hadn't been squinted, he would have seen what did.
His hands became transluscent, like DeathGrasp's.
But yellow, and full of the healing energy Helen had given to him.
The orange glow from the machine which now was being snuffed out by The Scourge, lit up to white and blinding, and blasted free from the ooze, and burnt it all off, and then continued to grow larger and brighter, and filled the sky for miles with a trillion pointed starburst that made the air molecules on it's perimeter give off a squeaking crinkle sound like dry ice.
The energy wave reacted with the derkonite within The Scourge, like Harry's original handheld matter-porter had with DeathGrasp's Derkonite core, and magnified the starburst even more.
Pulsing rainbow energy waves at a strobing amplitude poured forth from it's core for 15 seconds, and then, the energy burst exploded forth even more fantasticly.
The starbust let out another massive guitar-like thrum, and encompassed the whole lower two thirds of planet earth itself.
And just as it was reaching it's ultimate crescendo...
...it fizzled and winked out, like the dot on a switched off television.
And it was all gone.
The Scourge, every little drop of it, gone.
The energy wave, and the machine that spawned it, gone.
Harry.
Gone.
Harry opened his eyes, and immediatly regretted it.
His retinas were finger banged by a swirling kaleidescope of ultra-violet and x-ray colors as arranged by Picasso smoking Pollock as a big human joint.
He squinted, and the distorted miasma began to slide together into a slightly more comprehensible purple vortex with all sorts of trippy psychedelic energy patterns and plasmatic paisleys swirling about, and buffetting his senses.
Finally, with a sudden jolt of acceleration, a cool and refreshing waterslide feeling washed over him, soothing his senses, and his view cleared to that of a transluscent tunnel with jillions of pretty multicolored planets and nebulae whizzing by outside like on Star Trek or something.
He took stock of his surroundings, and noted he was virtually alone.
Except for the little black wriggling speck miles ahead of him which was clearly the Scourge.
Somehow, it had been hurled out ahead of him.
Or else, he'd been stuck for awhile in the gateway to this vortex, and it had gotten a head start.
Suited Harry fine.
But where was he, and where was he headed?
Clearly the machine had been a larger scale version of the matter-porter, but as with the first miniature model, the dream blueprints hadn't specified where it was keyed to take him.
Also, the first one had taken him to DeathGrasp's lair instantaneously.
Presumedly, it had merely seemed that way because the target destination was only several hundred miles away.
Harry shrugged, and decided to passively resign his fate to the providence that had guided him so far.
Looking like an insane Picasso/Dali-esqe Frankenstienian kitbash of several ships from at least five different SF universes, the freshly upgraded Green Mamba speeded along hyperspace back towards Earth, piloted by a youthful, svelt, and spritely Steve Torrent (having been medically rejuvinated in the future).
An alert light flashed on Steve's screen.
Steve checked the readout, and saw that a huge object was in hyperspace transit along a slipstream channel adjacent to his own.
A little TOO adjacent, he noted.
Steve grabbed the controls, and yanked the Mamba over in sidespace to avoid the object.
He saw it whizz by in 2 seconds.
Indeed, it WAS huge!
The size of a planetoid.
Black, and covered with....tentacles?
While gawking at the startling sight, he'd missed a second alert.
The ship rattled hard, and was bumped essentially back to his original track in hyperspace.
"What the fuck?", he said as he called up damage report.
It had been a 20 foot long chunk of a green radioactive meteor.
An element scientists of the future had referred to as "Derkonite".
Luckily, the telefractal shields had handled it perfectly, dissolving it into frinkifrat particles.
Steve shrugged, and realigned the Mamba back onto it's original course.
Planet Earth reorganized its shape like morphing watercolors.
It's injuries from The Scourge vanished.
For without The Scourge, the damage hadn't ever happened.
For without DeathGrasp, The Scourge never arose.
For without the crashing of the Derkonite meteor, there was no DeathGrasp.
Or Legion Of Liberty.
Or the animation of Hembug.
Or the empowering of Harry Hembock.
For The Green Mamba had just deflected the Derkonite.
By dodging The Scourge.
Which was sent into hyperspace by Harry Hembock.
Thus, the world was once again saved, but once again unaware.
Thus, nobody loved Harry Hembock.
All was back as it was once more.
At great sacrfice.
Of which all were oblivious.
The Kool-Aid clouds hung over Steve Torrent's house as if to say "where are ya, Steve? It's time for Osbournes!".
Suddenly, with a flash of pseudo lighting, a popping like a giant pickle jar being opened, and a big whiff of ozone, The Green Mamba appeared in the sky.
The ship wobbled to a landing in Steve's back yard, and then the cloak was switched on, perfectly concealing it's existance from the neighbors (who were miraculously all at work, or shopping at the moment).
A ramp lowered from the invisible ship, and Steve ran down said ramp, and to the varanda door, and into the living room of his house.
Steve did a Jackie Chan flip into his recliner, grabbed his remote, and put the Osbournes on.
"Try and make ME miss my fucking shows will you, government, history, and laws of physics? Well, I sure fucking showed you, cocksuckas! NO ONE makes Steve Torrent miss his shows!".
The corrider rumbled with time-quake, and shifted to reddish.
Harry looked about him, confused, oblivious to the temporal paradoxes juggling around outside.
Suddenly, he felt the now familiar warm tingle of Helen's energy envelop him, and then he started as a hand touched his shoulder.
Harry jolted back "Helen! you're...you're really real! I'm not dreaming! oh baby..I..".
It WAS her.
"Shhh, settle down, don't piss yourself, Jesus, it's alright, babe", she soothed.
"But...but how...", he stammered dumbly.
"Something to do with higher dimensions intersecting with the afterlife. I dunno, didn't really grasp it all. Jesus explained it better anyway. Way with words that guy, you'd like him".
She smirked.
"So um...", Harry said trying to find the right words to ask a question that lumped together all of the ones buzzing through his mind.
She jumped into the awkwardness for him "you're not supposed to be here. Time to go home".
And with that she grabbed his hands, spun him around twice, and let go, hurling him back in the other direction along the wormhole with a "hey YUP!".
As he hurtled away from her, she waved cheerily.
Soon, Harry saw a familiar blue and green planet veer up in front of him, get bigger, and then surround him as the vortex finally let go and spat him out onto dry land.
But, he landed in the same spot as a past version of himself.
The two phased into each other, and fused.
He was bombarded with disorientation, as alternate memories flooded in.
Of a life without the Derkonite infusion.
Without the car accident.
Without the Legion Of Liberty to both positively and negatively inspire him.
And thus, by a complex strand of chain reactions, no Helen.
And then, he was bombarded with equal disorientation of absorbing the memories of this alternate self absorbing his own memories, realizing the failure of both lives, and falling into despair.
Which he now also proceeded to do.
Which syncronized both minds, and alleviated the temporal disporientation.
But merely replaced it with an equal emotional turmoil.
Harry, this new fusion Harry, with memories of both timelines, collapsed under the weight of it all.
Knocked into a deep sleep, his disturbed subconscious mind tried to fill the yawning void with fantasy.
Of being in the future, being a member of an order called "The Zone Dweebies", of going on a quest for a lost technology of neutrino-travel, and of teaming up with aliens and robots, and space vixens.
And strangely, midway through this, he was plucked out of time, into some other dream, where he met that blue thing from another dream he'd had, and this scruffy paunchy drunkard named Steve Torrent.
And then, finally, being rudely shunted back into the first dream, and then back to present day Earth, where through a chain reaction of happenstance, ended up in a loony bin, where finally, Anubis, the Egyptian god of death, wasted him with a blast of magic.
Harry snapped awake.
"That was some trippy dream", Harry mumbled.
He climbed to his feet, dusted himself off, and headed back inside.
He tried to review the whole thing, trying to learn from it, but it was all fading away now.
Something about...magic beer? No, it was gone.
Damn shame, he liked telling Helen the weird ones.
Then he remembered.
Helen was gone.
He'd never worked up the balls to even aproach her, and she'd married some other man.
Harry sank into his recliner, utterly defeated.
He sat there like that, television turned off, lights out, sun setting, for a good couple hours.
And then an image snapped into his fading memory of himself in a junky superhero costume grabbing hold of two metal beams and screaming "NO!!".
Somehow, this inspired him to get up out of his seat, and head towards the door.
"Where the hell am I going?", he asked himself.
And then some more memories flickered in.
Of Helen sitting next to him in his car guiding him along to...where?
Something compelled him to get into the car and find out.
On the news, a story unfolded of a strange incident.
A severly disturbed man in his mid-40's entered a shopping mall with a snub nosed revolver, and starded shooting patrons.
Which was eventful enough, except for what had happened next.
A mysterious man in a hooded sweatshirt had subdued him by merely touching him.
The assailant tumbled over in agony as if had had been touched with red hot metal.
Then, the mysterious stranger laid his hands on a small 2 year old girl who had been hit, seemingly lethally by all eyewitness accounts, and helped her to her feet.
Medical examinations afterward revealed not a scratch on her.
Despite the bloody bullet holes in her clothing.
Then, this mysterious person dissapeared into the flowing mob and vanished.
All security camera footage during the time of this incident was garbled.
Hembug snapped off his TV has Harry climbed into the driver's side.
"Damn, nice trick with the little girl there", Hembug remarked, impressed.
Harry pulled back the hood on his sweatshirt.
"Well, I figured, if my hands can animate a freaking Volkswagon, why not a person?".
Hembug smiled "bet you're feeling like a big damned hero".
Harry smirked "yeah, why the hell not?".
Harry looked over in the passenger seat at his manuscript, and patted it out of habit.
"So, how much d'ya think they'll pay for my life story NOW y'figure?".
Hembug chuckled "not Paris Hilton book money, sadly".
Harry chuckled back "no, no, I ain't aiming that high, that'd just be foolishly quixotic".
Hembug started his engine, and pulled out of the mall parking lot.
Harry fiddled with the radio dial.
Vesti la giubba was on the classical station.
He let it play.
A familair face Harry hadn't seen in years looked down at him from her place in the book signing line of his autobiography (which the rest of the world had taken to be science fiction) her broad mouth grinning warmly with a touch of sarcasm, and her heart shaped face as always, framed by a thick shoulder length mane of chestnut hair.
"Loved your book", she said with a shy starstruck quality to her voice.
"Glad to hear it", Harry said with a smirk, as he scribbled in, after his signature of course, his phone number.
"Next one will be even better", he said with a sly wink.
Nolan Buckner handed Harry a free CD from the back seat of his car.
It was home burned, and sloppily labeled with black magic marker.
The title was "The Ballad Of Harry Hembock".
Harry mindlessly went through the motions of cordial acknowledgement, made his way back to Hembug, stuffed it into the arm rest, and forgot about it.
A couple months later, he found it while on the way somewhere important, and decided to give it a spin.
After a few minutes Harry remarked "hey, this kid's pretty good, he's got chops. Thought it was gonna be some lame hippy jam band shit form the looks of him, but this is actually pretty rockin".
Harry reached his destination, and pulled over.
"Can I keep listening?", Hembug asked.
"Sure", Harry said as he got out.
Helen looked down at him from the tree limb and said "get up here already, ya pussy", with a chuckle in her voice, as her sneakered feet dangled in a musical rythm.
Harry looked up and smirked.
She was the open and outgoing one.
God help him if he ever lost her again.
"I dunno, you just done with your divorce, and you were pooning that other guy and...I dunno...".
"You gonna get up here and be with me, or are you gonna keep being stupid?", she asked perterbed.
Harry nodded and stubbornly made his way up the tree, and sat beside her.
"Sure this branch'll hold us both?", Harry said worriedly, slightly jiggling his buttocks to give it a stress test.
"If it'll hold my big butt, it'll hold you. You weigh 100 pounds soaking wet", she said, still grinning.
Harry laughed off both the self deprication, and the barb and said "I s'pose so", while taking in her voluptuous curves, accentuated all the more by the t-shirt and jeans.
They watched the sunset, and all was right with the world.
"Kool-Aid clouds", he uttered at one point like a little kid who'd discovered a new word, or who was advertising his newfound ability to put his clothing on in the right order.
Helen closed mouth laughed out a loving "hmmm", sound.
Suddenly, with a flash of pseudo lighting, a popping like a giant pickle jar being opened, and a big whiff of ozone, a strange spaceship appeared in the sky off in the distance, and turned transluscent and vanished.
"That'll be Steve Torrent", Harry mumbled to himself.
"What?", Helen inquired.
Harry grinned "book stuff, nevermind", and with that, he grinned, and hugged her.
Epilogue-
The Scourge shrieked with indignance as it crashed into the junkyard planet with a wet ugly flabbidy splorch.
Overhead, a garbage ship flew past, and emptied it's load.
The Scourge and the pilot of that ship would meet again.
But that, is another story.
THE END.
Posted on Dec 21, 2006, 7:28 PM from IP address 76.178.216.28
(A sperm enters an egg, cells divide.
Time lapse of a fetus developing.
Cut to Krazyfool fully grown, clothing and all curled up in a fetal position in a set
made to look all fleshy.)
(A midget dressed up as a gray UFO abduction type alien is lowered down next to Krazyfool on a rope.
The midget/alien has the added feature of fake looking wire antennae with red glitter covered hearts at the ends sticking out of his fake rubber bulbous head.)
Alien- Time for the show Krazy! Waaake uuup Kraaazy. Waaaake up!
Krazyfool-*Opens eyes* Yaaawwn! Um num num. Not today Alium, there's only heartbreak and disappointment out there.
Alium- Tough shit you weird faced bastid! *Pulls a cartoon lever on the fleshy uterine wall that makes Krazy fall downward with a "kerflussshhhh", sound*
(Krazyfool is set against bluescreen footage of an endoscopic gynecological probe.
It makes it look like Krazyfool is falling through the vaginal tract like sliding down a chute.)
Krazyfool- WHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!
Alium- Whheeeeee?
(Opening credits animation with clips of various past episodes.)
Announcer- It's the hallelujah, holy shit, biff bam boom, anything goes KRAAAAAZYFOOOOL SHOOOOOWW!!!!
With tonight's special guests, Christina Ricci!! Cyndi Lauper!! Jeff Goldblum!! Warren Beatty!! Danny Devito!!
With the Krazyfool orchestra and the usual cavalcade of characters!!!
(Cut to the talkshow stage.)
(The song "Black Sabbath", by Black Sabbath plays in the background.
When the song gets to the part where Ozzy screams "OHH GODD PLEASE GOD HELP ME!!", Krazyfool emerges on stage from a chute that ends with a giant Krazyfool head with dry ice smoke coming from the mouth. An effect of a synthesizer deepened voice going "MUUAAHAHAAA!! MUUAAHAHA!!", is dubbed over for the duration of Krazyfool's exit from the giant mouth.)
Announcer- Now here's your host FUUUCKINGGG KRAAAAAZYFOOOOLLL!!!!!!!!!
(Instead of a canned applause track, sounds of moaning and orgasming is played.
Krazyfool seems oblivious to this, and jogs up to his mark with a sarcastic deliberate stupid grin on his face.)
Krazyfool- Welcome ladies and gentlemen, we have a great show for you today.
Well, let's cut through the bullshit and get to the monologue shall we?
Have you heard bout this new pill Viagra??? Is this kooky or what?? Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?? Am I right folks??
(Cut to the studio audience, which consists of a 10 year old boy with a propeller beanie, the dwarf from the opening with his mask now off, an 80 year old man in a fishing cap, a 50 year old woman in a fairy costume, and up in the back row, a couple in their mid 20's actually fucking.
The other audience members seem oblivious to this, but you can tell it's been coached ahead of time as the boy and the dwarf keep looking out the corner of their eyes.)
(The camera zooms in on the guy's cock plunging in and out of the vagina and holds there for an uncomfortably long 30 seconds that seem like an eternity.)
(While this takes place, Zam Fir pan flute music plays in the background.
At the bottom of the screen are the words "FCC penalties", next to a telethon style counter rapidly spinning.
The numbers are already racked up to 5 million closing in on 6.)
(All of a sudden, the guy reveals himself to be drunk off his ass and starts shouting. The camera pulls back to reveal him shouting and hooting like a sports fan.)
Fucking guy- WHOOOO!!! WHOOOO! USA!!! USA!!! HEY BRAD AND CHAD!! LOOK!! I'M ON TV FUCKING!!!!! WHOOOOOOOO!!!!
(The girl pulls her shirt up to reveal her tits are painted her school colors)
Fucking couple in unison- GO MEERKATS!!! GO MEERKATS!!! WHOOOOOO!!!!
Krazyfool- Well, that's enough of that foolishness. You've spoiled it for all of us.
Back to the goddamn thankless monologue you awful selfish people you.
So, have you heard the latest in science? It seems we're in a godless senseless universe that's spiraling towards its inevitable destruction like a loose chariot wheel flying off its axle after all.
Still, you gotta laugh! It's really funny when you sit down and think about it! You assholes are gonna die!! HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!! Oh yeah, that stuff is just funny to me. Sorry. No I'm not.
In celebrity news, some plastic phony people got divorced, while the ones who got divorced yesterday got remarried. Why don't they just have wife swapping orgies and be done with it??
Ahh fuck Hollywood , and they call the south inbred.
The only haven for creativity in American cinema is Troma and I'll shoot in the face with a gatling gun the first damn dirty oily haired Mexican who says otherwise.
BTW, religion is a crutch for weak minded fat Negro housewives, and the New York subway system is loaded with queers with AIDS who'll fuck you if they get the chance.
Am I right little baby JC??
(Cut to pre-filmed footage of a rubber baby puppet in a high chair. Except the baby has a sloped Neanderthal-ish furrowed angry brow that obscures his eyes. He also has a jutting jaw, five o clock shadow and is biting down on a stogie.)
Baby JC- (Badly dubbed pre-recorded voice of an angry New Yorker as the puppet mouth barely keeps sync) JEEEEZUS!!!! JEEEEEZUS CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!
Krazyfool- Hey, howabout this whole Monica Lewinsky on Jenny Craig controversy eh?? I won't bore you with all the "protein diet", jokes all the other hosts are doing, so this monologue is over.
(Krazyfool gives a hate filled look to the orchestra who looks back at him with equal enmity.
The orchestra crosses their arms and refuses to play. This awkward unexplained moment lasts 4 seconds but seems to last 15 seconds.)
(Krazyfool turns to head towards his desk.)
(Camera pulls back to reveal the talkshow set is set up in a warehouse building the size of a Target store.
The entrance curtain, orchestra and audience bleachers are at one end, and Krazyfool's desk is all the way at the other.
Krazyfool runs deep and hard to the desk which takes about 25 seconds, an eternity on TV.)
Krazyfool-*Takes a drag off asthma inhaler* HUHHHHHHH!!! Ahhhhh that's the stuff!
Okay, time for banter with the sidekick "sigh, this always death".
(Krazyfool presses a button on his desk.
With a really bad camera edit, in which everything jumps, Pheemp appears in the sidekick/guest chair.)
Krazyfool-So how's things going with you??
Pheemp- Okay.
Krazyfool- How far along are you in Pet Sematary now??
Pheemp- I'm half way through, it's getting really good.
Krazyfool- Have you got to the part, oh shit, I don't want to give it away if you haven't. Have you gotten to the part where the THING happens?? Y'know the THING????
Pheemp- Which part do you mean?
Krazyfool- Oh forget about it, you'd know what part I meant if you'd read it. It was like the thingiest thing in the book, it's the THING y'know? You'd know it if you read it trust me.
Pheemp- Rolls eyes So.... what was up with those people..uh..doing it...that was DISTURBING don't you think??
Krazyfool- You weren't supposed to acknowledge that, now the joke is ruined. Damn your eyes!!
Pheemp- Sor-RY!!
Krazyfool- Well, the director is giving me the "cut it short", signal.
Pheemp- No he's not.
Krazyfool- Porno must've ate up the time. Sorry Pheemp, time to say goodbye.
(Canned audio of audience going "awwwww")
Pheemp-I'm the sidekick!! I'm supposed to stay through the show!
Krazyfool- Yeah, well, it's just as the writer I can't imagine everything you'd really say through this whole thing. I've got enough trouble predicting my own erratic behavior. Pushes the desk button again
(With an even worse bad editing effect, Pheemp becomes a mylar cell with his picture glued on held over the camera lens. The cameraman removes it.)
The real Pheemp reading this at home- That bastard!! That...fucking...BASTARD!!!!!
Krazyfool- Oh yeah, I forgot to mention tonight's guests are Christina Ricci, Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum, Warren Beatty, and Danny Devito.
Here's a commercial.
(Cut to pre-filmed commercial starring Krazyfool)
(Krazyfool is standing in a labcoat holding a big blue box with the word "POB", emblazoned on it in big yellow letters.)
Krazyfool- Points to the box (with a really weird growly/caveman grunty voice) AAAAAHHH. Lets tongue dangle out stupidly
(Cut back to show.)
Krazyfool- There, they won't ask me to do THAT again!
(A "clanking", sound is heard off camera. The camera turns to reveal a drumstick hurled in anger by the drum player that only made it a few yards across the warehouse. The reason for the separation between the host becomes immediately clear.)
Krazyfool-(Caught in a split second of relaxing face from hate filled grimace of rage back to jovial demeanor.) Without further ado, let's introduce our first guest, Warren Beatty!!!
(Warren Beatty steps out nervously from the entrance curtain and makes a break for the desk fearing being pelted by a drumstick, or something heavier.)
Krazyfool-(With fear in his face) RUN DAMMIT RUUUUUN!!!!!!!
Beatty-*Laughs it off with a not-quite-a-laugh-grin-that says "that's not too funny, but I'm being cordial".*
Krazyfool- So, what the fuck WAS with Ishtar anyways?? I mean what the fucking hell?? EH??? EHHH!!!???
Beatty- Hey, listen buddy...
Krazyfool- No YOU LISTEN!!!!!! I only made it twenty minutes into that piece of dung and it's twenty minutes I'll never get back!!!!
Beatty- Can we talk about my campaign for President?
Krazyfool- WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!!?!?!?! I'm raking you over the coals about ISHTAR here!! Jesus Christ man!! NO!! Alright!? No, we WON'T be talking about your goddamn "bid for president", what a fucking JOKE!! You were in ISHTAR for Christ's sake!! Clinton just got a blowjob!! YOU were in ISSHTAAARR!!!! OHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Beatty- Listen motherfucker!!!
(Krazyfool puts a 357 magnum under warren Beatty's nose.)
Krazyfool- (Whispering in a very scary tone) I'm calling the shots now muthafucka!
Beatty-*Trembles in fear*
Krazyfool- I'm your god now understand?
Beatty- Nods with a single tear streaming down face
Krazyfool- Now, I need some entertainment for our guests. So, I want a show from you bitch.
Beatty- *Nods again, trembling and sobbing*
Krazyfool- You know I'm actually nuts enough to kill you don't you??
Beatty- Nods
Krazyfool- Smart lad. Okay, time to do a trick doggie.
Hmm....I know. Shit your pants.
Beatty- Looks up in horror
Krazyfool- Waves the gun You heard me, shit your fucking pants. Good and full.
Beatty- (Tears stream in humiliation and rage as he grunts out a loaf into his drawers.)
Krazyfool- PEE YOO!! Oh my God!! He actually did it folks!!!!
Beatty-*Hangs head in emotional destruction*
Krazyfool- Okay, has he suffered enough folks??
(Canned cheers)
Krazyfool- *Pulls the trigger. A flag that says "Bang", pops out* HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
(I don't have an ending for this, so hired goons just drag Beatty away.)
Krazyfool- Now, for our next guest, star of Sleepy Hollow, Christina Ricci everybody!
(Christina Ricci having got a head start during her introduction, has already made it to her seat and shakes hands with Krazyfool.)
Christina Ricci- There was no TV in the green room, did I miss something? The audience is going all weird.
Krazyfool-Nope, just some jokes and stuff. Well, one of the animal acts made a mess. No real biggy.
Tell us about your latest project.
Ricci- Well...
Krazyfool- (Utters in a low, trying not to be heard, but still audible, creepy high-pitched "here doggie", voice) Christiiinaaa Riiiiicciiiiiii. Christiiiiinaaaaa Riiiiiiiicciiiiiiiiii.
Ricci- .........
Krazyfool- Go on.
Ricci- (Really creeped out now) Uh....what was I...? What the hell were you just doing??
Krazyfool- What? Oh, the voice thing? That's just some silly in-joke thing my co-host Pheemp and I. He dared me to do the weirdest thing I could think of if certain celebrities came on.
We sat around thinking and that's what we came up with for you. Trust me, you got lucky. We got to you towards the end of the day, the other celebs didn't get off so lucky.
Ricci- Uhh..alright then...
Krazyfool- Finish what you were saying.
Ricci- Uh yeah. Well in this new movie I play.....
Krazyfool- (In creepy high-pitched dog calling voice again) Criiistiiiiinaaaaa Riiiiiiicciiiiiii. Enricciiiiii Tiiiiiikkiiiiiii. Rich thick and beeeeeeeefyyyyyyy.
Ricci-.......................
Krazyfool-.....................What? Oh, you're still on about the voice thing??
Ricci- Yeah, would you stop that?
Krazyfool- Thinks about it........No.
Ricci- Leaves
Krazyfool- Holds up an action figure of Wednesday from Addams Family Chriiiiistiiiinaaaa Riiiiiiiiiciiiiii!!!! Holds up a toy of a Tikki head Enriiiiicciiii Tiiiiiiikkiiiiiii!!!!
*Hits the two toys together like they're fighting. Then, begins rubbing them together like they're humping. He then throws the toys back towards the band but the distance is too far.*
(Krazyfool snaps out of it and composes self in 2 seconds and snaps back into goofy grinning host mode.)
Krazyfool- Well, okay. Let's squeeze in another guest before the music, what say eh?
(Most of audience has left. Only the old man and the dwarf remain.)
Krazyfool- Now for our next guest, Penguin from Batman Returns, Daanny Devitooo!!!
(Danny Devito likewise got a head start and is at the desk to shake hands with Krazy.)
Devito- Man, I saw the wacky stuff you were doing backstage! This show is totally WILD!! I love it!!!
Krazyfool- Really? Aww shucks blushes. Hey, there's no TV backstage how did you see what was going on!?!?1
Devito- Godblum did some stuff with his I-mac. Patched it in or something.
Krazyfool- I see....
Devito- You're Krazy alright, but you just may be a genius.
Krazyfool- I dragged him out there to quote that line folks!
So, what was it like being Penguin in Batman???
Devito-(Laughs) Batman!?!? That was 8 YEARS ago now!!
Krazyfool-.......really?? Shit, I'm feeling old now.
Devito- Yeah, being the penguin was cool. I liked the part where I bit the guy's nose off (laughs.)
Krazyfool- Yeah, that was cool. Jesus, 8 years ago. Holy SHIT! I just came to! It's been 20 damn years since 1980!! Holy crap man!!! My youth is flying away here!!! Shit!......SHIT!
Devito- (Amused grin) You gonna be okay pal?
Krazyfool- Yeah, I'm all bored with that train of thought. Speaking of trains, what the hell was up with throw momma from the train??? That ending was fucked!
Devito- Hey, you ain't gonna go all "Ishtar", on me are you??
Krazyfool- Psshht, heck no. That was ISHTAR for cryin' out loud. Action needed to be taken.
Devito- Well, yeah, the ending of Throw momma from the train was all screwed up.
Krazyfool- THANK YOU!
Devito-.......Howabout we talk about Twins now? Grins.
Krazyfool-........damn, I need a woman so bad. Uh yeah, Twins yeah sure. Go nuts.
(Stares off into daze of painful memories.)
Devito- Yeah, Arnold's a pretty cool guy. *Grins while making a "get a load of this guy", gesture in Krazyfool's direction*.
Krazyfool- ....Why couldn't she love me??? I tried so hard......oh, ahem! Uh yeah, that was a great story Danny, we should have you back sometime.
Devito- (Gives a "help me out here, what do I do, just leave?", look to the cameramen and audience and anyone who can shed some light. No dice.) Shrugs okay, bye.
Leaves
(Suddenly, a big green fleshy tentacle wraps around Danny Devito.)
Devito- Heh hehhh this show is just nuts!! This thing is crushing the life out of me over here!!
Krazyfool- Damn you tentacle!! Damn you to HEEELLL!! Dives out of chair and begins beating on the tentacle
(Captain Kirk fight music begins to play).
Krazyfool- Let Devito go you foul abomination!! Fie!! Fie upon thee foul fooferaud!!!
(Ba da da da da da daaaa da da daaa DA!!)
Krazyfool- Let him go you goddamn THING you!!!
Devito- You...did your best........(the tentacle pulls him off stage. A gurgling "crunch", is heard.)
Krazyfool-Actually, I probably could have tried a little harder.
(Hangs head and walks back to desk.)
Krazyfool- (Sits in daze of emotional pain again, the clinking of another drumstick being hurled snaps him out of it) Oh yeah, the musical guest.
Shit, we don't have one.
I guess I'll have to lip synch to an album again.
Groans from the band and crew.
(Krazyfool Lip synchs to "The Dreamers", by David bowie and does a fairly passable job at it. All the while doing some rudimentary little slight of hand tricks. The place is really wowed when Krazyfool during the last really big chorus actually flies out into the audience and does some tight maneuvering around the set putting the blue angels to shame.)
Krazyfool- Sits back down after number is over Yeah, so I can fly. Now you know. Big deal. Why don't you go tell all your goodtime pals now??
(With some really clever juggling of bluescreens, it suddenly appears that the whole roof of the building is being torn off. Holding up the roof and looking down in on Krazyfool is a giant old lady in a floral print dress.)
Krazyfool- *Grins 5 times more idiotically than before, and points upward in mock childish wonder*.
It's BIG GIANT GRANNY!!!!!
Big Giant Granny- Oh you HORRID little man!!!! waves finger.
Krazyfool- *Stares blankly with a "Gawrsh!", look on face until BGG lowers the ceiling back down and goes away*
Our next guest, is the dame what wrote and sung She-bop and one of the top ten broads I'm like, totally psychotically obsessed with! Cyndi Lauper!!!
(Cyndi Lauper takes the long walk all the way from the entrance curtain. Fortunately, she is unmolested by any hurled objects.)
Krazyfool- Cyndi , I'm not even gonna bother with the preliminaries, I love you!! Marry me now or I'll die! For the fate of all mankind marry me!!
Cyndi- Wow! I'm so flattered! Sorry, I'm already married.
Krazyfool- Really? You sure?
Cyndi- Umm, Yeah.
Krazyfool- Cyndi, you are my Helen of Troy! My Dulcinea!! If I cannot take you as my wife may I at least fight in your service as your loyal knight and devote my quests in your name???
Cyndi- Uhh Sure. (Pronounced Shoo-wa.)
Krazyfool- Okay, cool, good enough then. So got a new album?
Cyndi-Nope.
Krazyfool- Jeez, we really could have used your singing awhile ago.
That lip synching and flying stuff really ate it back there!!
Cyndi- Yeah, I watched it on Goldblum's I-mac.
Krazyfool- Pssht, Goldblum and his bloody I-mac! Hey, you guys did Vibes together didn't you??
Cyndi- Yeah we...
Star Trek red alert buzzer
Krazyfool- Ahhh shit, not NOW!
Cyndi- What??
Krazyfool- Ahh, it's the sunsabitchin' Klingons again.
(Camera angle changes to behind Krazy facing outward. The area a couple yards in front of Krazyfool's desk is now chroma keyed into the viewscreen of the Starship Enterprise.)
(The screen wavers, and a Klingon appears on the viewer.)
Klingon- Jak Dok!! Surrender Hu-mon!
Krazyfool- Nope. *Taps the button that formerly performed the Pheemp disappear/reappear effect in a rapid fire fashion*.
(Stock footage of the Enterprise firing photon torpedoes looped repeatedly. Stock footage of a Klingon ship getting blown to shit. The Klingon reappears on Krazyfool's viewscreen with some fake purple blood down his head.)
Klingon- Ker plop!! We will meet on the field of battle again!!!!
Krazyfool- Nope *Pushes the all purpose button, this time holding it like an intercom button*.
Scotty, channel the sewage through the transporter beam and target it on their bridge!
Recording of Scotty from show- Aye cap'n.
Real shit splashes down on the Klingon.
Klingon- (Out of character) Sniff. Aww man, this is REAL SHIT!! You FUCKING ASSHOLE MAN!!!
Krazyfool- Yep. pushes button.
(Klingon disappears from screen.)
(All this time Cyndi Lauper has just sat in horrified silence.)
Krazyfool- Well, it was nice having you. Maybe next time you can sing us a little song. Eh?
Cyndi- Yeah, next time maybe I will. Shakes hands and leaves.
Krazyfool- *Faces the guest/sidekick chair* Do you think she was just giving me the big brush-off??
(An edited in split screen duplicate of Krazyfool but in a black denim jacket is now sitting there.)
Krazyfool2- (Sarcastically) No, she really wants you.
Krazyfool- There's no need to be like that.
A jar of apple sauce- Yeah, chill out man.
Krazyfool- I dunno, that Star trek bit was kinda stupid.
Krazyfool2- fire some writers, that's what they're there for!
Krazyfool- Once again, you're right evil me. Thanks! Pushes the button.
(Cut to a room full of Starbucks sipping goatee having flannel wearing college boys sitting around a table writing unfunny shit for TV. Suddenly, the same shit that splashed down on the Klingon pours down on them, but in much more substantial quantities.)
(The writers look up dumfounded at the camera viewing them.)
Krazyfool- Oh yeah, you're fired too. Pushes the button.
(The close-up footage of copulating genitalia from the begining of the show plays again.)
Krazyfool- Nope, not that again pushes button.
(Scene is replaced with another porno of lesbians having oral sex.)
Krazyfool- There, that's better. watches for a bit. okay, that's enough. pushes button and it stops.
Now, for our final guest Jeff Goldblum.
(Goldblum has been standing there for the last 3 minutes holding his I-mac under his arm.)
Krazyfool- Jeff, I gotta start by saying, I think of some genuinely profound stuff when I'm sitting on the shitter.
Goldblum- .....
Krazyfool- one of the things that occurred to me, is that I absolutely cannot imagine you saying the words "stinky winky".
Goldblum- Stinky winky????
Krazyfool- AHAH!!! YOU SAID IT!! I GOT YOU TO SAY IT!!!!! AT LONG LAST IT HAS HAPPENED NOW I CAN IMAGINE IT!!!
Thanks Jeff, goodbye.
Krazyfool- Oh, look, he left his I-mac! Free I-mac folks!! Picks it up and looks at it. blinks a few times.
Shrugs.
*Throws I-mac carelessly over shoulder. the crunch of plastic and the tinkling of glass is heard off camera*.
Goodnight every body.
(Clip of the fucking shows again. Once again accompanied by the FCC fines counter which jacks up to 8 million as the credits roll.)
(End credits animation includes reverse film of Krazyfool turning back into a fetus and splitting back into a sperm and egg. Animation of Krazy guy getting carted off of loony bin is the last thing we see as the "BWWEEEEEEEEEEDIDDLE DIDDLE DIDDLE DUUUUUUUMMM!!!", from "a day in the life", by the Beatles plays.
The End.
Posted on Jul 10, 2005, 1:48 PM from IP address 24.53.125.85
Condensed, cut to the chase, get to the point, history of the Neutrino Net, from the library files of Omneron, central Sol system computer core. humanoid readable version, optical receptor acceptable. language presentation English.
In the late twentieth century, scientists discovered ,using an atom smasher, a strange little particle they named the Neutrino. since it was the Neutrino's nature to buzz by at the speed of light passing through matter like a sieve and not interacting with any other particle, the Neutrino was put on the back burner as one of those useless phenomenon's of the universe that no one could do any thing about.
In the year 2023 a scientist at ChemoMess research laboratories generated a powerful electromagnetic/ ultra sonic hybrid energy field and captured a small group of Neutrino's. The harnessed Neutrino's began radiating unusual frequencies. Intrigued by this interesting phenomenon, the scientist began a second Neutrino capture to see what another batch would do . Unfortunately, the lunch bell rang and the scientist got further sidetracked by being fired for cloning the bosses wife and having the clone strip at parties to impress his buddies down at plutonium destroyal. The project was terminated because harnessing Neutrino 's served no practical use, the experiment was forgotten for 29 years.
In the year 2052 a scientist at Optinet technologies spotted a small article about the Neutrino capture in an old back issue of particle weekly. Since the scientist was wrapped up in a mold monster growing experiment that would take the better part of 20 years, he had plenty of spare time to play around with the experiment to relieve the monotony. After building a miniature duplicate of the original force field accelerator antennae from some staples, twenty paper clips, a Durocell battery, and a chip clip that just luckily happened to be in his desk drawer, he proceeded to capture a tiny cluster of Neutrino's . As in the original experiment, the Neutrino Cluster gave off unusual signals. Unfortunately, the scientist wasn't bright enough to grasp the significance of these signals and paid all of his attention to the pretty red swirly patterns that were the after emanations of the Neutrino cluster. The device was put to waste as a conversation piece on the scientists desk for 20 years.
In the year 2072 a very cooped up mold monster pounded down the pound down proof door of its petrie chamber. In delirious anger the creature smashed its way into its creator's office and without saying a word about why it was going to kill the scientist " talking too long being a common mistake made by talking monsters and psycho killers seeking vengeance", the creature tore out the scientists spinal column, making a nifty little handle which the creature then used to hang the corpse up on the plant hook. the janitor of the building while cleaning out the scientists things found the Neutrino antennae and brought it home for a centerpiece, there it spent the next 6 years on the janitors kitchen table.
In the year 2078 a very old very dead Janitor was driven off to the funeral parlor for cremation. In his Will he left his grown up granddaughter the Neutrino antennae .
She immediately noticed the strange emanations it gave off. By strange coincidence, she worked at an observatory where they studied radio signals from space and theorized signal patterns an intelligence would have to transmit to get noticed. By another strange coincidence the signals given off by the antennae just happened to match the pattern and wave amplitude that she had written a paper on and she recognized it immediately as the first contact with an alien race that it was.
In the year 2110 scientists of every field all over the world where struggling with deciphering the Neutrino messages the Neutrino antennae was now a common science project and more complex more advanced versions where designed every week.
The patterns where obviously from an intelligence, but no one knew what the messages were, if they where computer programs, if they where a more complex alien version of Morse code, there was even a real far out theory that somehow a special receiving device was required to send the signals to the brain thus unlocking a whole new realm of untapped knowledge and sensations.
In the year 2111 the brain wave theory was silenced forever when a large chunk of the scientific community constructed Neuroweb, the most advanced artificial intelligence computer ever. Neuroweb was built specifically to receive the Neutrino messages, process them into human brain wave frequencies and imprint them directly onto the synapses of any one standing within a 30 yard radius of the computer core with a special particle beam. The scientists gathered together and activated the "MindBeams", as they were now called, and waited a few minutes for Neuroweb to tune in on their individual brain patterns. Once the MindBeams were locked in, the scientists then activated the Neutrino signal. 2 hours later, the group of scientists were found Lying on the floor drooling on themselves. Some were dead with flabs of brain dangling from their ears. The only two who survived kept singing a commercial jingle over and over in a language no one understood . During the police investigation Neuroweb was questioned about what happened. He explained the experiment in detail then added that he warned them several times and that it was their own recklessness that got them killed. When he was questioned again, Neuroweb told the police a part he hadn't before. According to his version he didn't give the scientists the mind beam treatment at all but in fact they didn't want to use him because of his unwillingness to participate and used an upgraded IBM PC for the experiment. He then produced a video disk of the event to back it up The computer was relieved of all charges and set free to do other science research work.
In the year 2112 new evidence was found by Hexatran, the prototype of the next generation of computer after Neuroweb of the "BrainDrain", incident. This evidence clearly revealed that the video disk was falsified by Neuroweb himself to save his own ass. The crooked computer was sentenced to dismantlement. Two days later Hexatran died of a computer virus implanted by Neuroweb out of spite for getting him dismantled. In the year 2121 translation of the signal was abandoned and was only picked up now and then as a diversion sort of like those mathematicians who try to calculate PI into infinity
In the year 2122 a TV repair man down in Georgia wired his kids homemade Neutrino antennae to the signal receiver of his TV set mistaking it for a cable box, immediately he began getting perfect reception of the Alzergian Battle Robot Olympics in stereo with close captioning in Zontar.
In the year 2134 a translation matrix was derived which allowed Neutrino Network viewers to understand and appreciate the alien programming. aside from the rather gooey appearance and sticky gurgled sounds of the actors voices, they made pretty good made for TV movies. One day the same year, a plumber in Wyoming took notes on an Alzergian educational program which described in detall how to transmit along the Neutrino Net, the plumber seemed to be the only one watching that day because he was the only one at the patent office with the plagiarized blueprints cashing in as no one on earth had ever cashed in before.
In the year 2139 all cable companies were out of business . All television was now being sent by Neutrino Net and the fat cat at the center of it all was Joe Jowe the luckiest plumber in the world . all the Neutrino bills were paid directly to him. all he had to do was literally watch the cash pour in. In the year 2140 a metallic object fell from space and landed on Joe Jowe's doorstep blasting a huge hole where it hit and making the neighbor's dog bark for about three hours. When Joe finally arrived home in his nuclear fusion Flote-Limo he found it curious that there was a huge smoking crater on his lawn and a swarm of UFO investigators from Sightings gathered around. the metal object had cooled down and the address was now readable but in Alzergian. After someone finally arrived with an Alzergian translator it was revealed to read "Alzergian cable company, open immediately", after opening immediately, it turned out to be a hologram Telepresence message that said in so many words that the Alzergian cable company was onto their Neutrino Net copy catting and a squadron of antimatter cannon ships was on their way to wipe the earth off of the star charts for taking credit for a pre existing idea and not giving them the slightest bit of a cut of the take. Three weeks later to Joe Jowe's infinite relief an Alzergian news broadcast revealed to any one who was watching that total global quark war had broken out over a marital dispute over whether to have squid chops or amoebae loaf and that every one should kiss their sorry asses goodbye before the Q-bomb hit. As a very direct result, the evolution of earth's Neutrino Net technology continued to evolve unhindered by any Alzergian antimatter cannon foolishness. In the year 2200 a very clever aerospace engineer and Flote-Cycle enthusiast after 50 years of designing and testing had completed a working model of a very special bike. This bike could not only reach escape velocity like the much bragged about Kawasaki blastoff bike 4,800, but once out in space it could open a channel and ride along the Neutrino Net like a track, thus reaching infinite acceleration. The only drawback of course was that it screwed up peoples Neutrino reception when Joe jowe#3 "a genetically enhanced and bigger buffed and more Ominous clone of Joe Jowe", got Wind of the complaints from thousands of Neutrino customers that all they could pick up was an image of red glowing tire tracks, he was annoyed to say the least because of the ever increasing threat that this space bike thing might start costing J.J#3 hundreds of dollars, he immediately sent out his even more buffed and mutated clones J.J #4,5,6,7, and #8 to find where the inventor of the Neutrino bike was, kill him in a very humiliating way, and bring him the bike. After killing the inventor of the bike in a not quite humiliating, but still sort of amusing way, the Clones brought J.J#3 the bike. J.J#3 then ordered that the bike be set to auto pilot and launched into space where it would infinitely accelerate into space and never disturb the flow of his money again.
In the year 2220 the Neutrino bike was considered by motor cycle collectors to be the centerpiece of any ones collection.
In the year 2300 the Neutrino bike story had diminished down to the status of legendary power item, much like the fountain of youth and the holy Grall. The only ones who searched for the bike were adventure seekers known by nickname fanatics as
Zone Dweebies.
End of file
Condensed, cut to the chase. get to the point, history of the Zone Dweebies from the library files of Omneron, central Sol system computer core. Humanoid readable version, optical receptor acceptable. Language presentation English.
In 2299 an order of super heroes was established as a vigilante answer to the increasing crime rates. The reason the order grew so quickly was because any fool off the street could learn to use Zone Dweebie super powers, such as the most popular Zone Dweebie trick "zap! I've just killed you, you Just don't realize it because it was so quick. you're really a ghost night now, so that means you shouldn't even bother trying to attack". For obvious reasons, this is why anyone who joined was guaranteed a quick ascension through the ranks for even more obvious reasons, this was why they became extinct so quickly. End of file
This is the story of the last of the Zone Dweebies and his quest for the bike of power and some bloody battles he could take credit for.
It is now the year 2740 our story opens with Harry Hembock last of the Zone Dweebie order, and intrepid space adventurer traveling the cosmos at speeds so fast that they defy all special effect representation. As the story begins we find that Harry is having conflicts of his own with the mighty Neutrino Net.
Harry Hembock tuned his Neutrino Net network intergalactic range car stereo to channel 59,000. " wouldn't you know it nothing on but stupid commercials", Harry mumbled disgustedly. Harry tried another channel, more Commercials " dammit!" another channel, classical music " that does it you bastard!" Harry swung as hard as he possibly could, but the radio shocked his hand before it connected . Harry's hand reflex jolted back and whapped painfully into a nearby head rest. Harry grit his teeth as hard together as they could possibly go " you dirty bastard I'll kill you !!!!!!!!", it was personal now. Harry kicked the radio in full force with his Insulated boot " there how do you like that!? wasn't that funny? howcum you're not laughing now? come on sucka try some thing now!!!!!", Harry bellowed dementedly.
Harry stared stupidly and intently at the radio for a good two hours before deciding his next action he reached over, grabbed part of the battered remains of the radio, ripped out a wad of Wiring looked it over admiringly and shoved it into his mouth and began to chew rapidly. He chewed a good thirty seconds, swallowed, then grabbed a bigger fistful of wiring and started gnawing greedily at the stringy coppery goodness that the fine people of the Neutrino Net technologies factory had assembled just for him. after completely devouring the inner workings of his 500,000 dollar car stereo and starting on the outer plastic casing, Harry realized he had completely forgotten to steer the car.Harry quickly looked out the windshield just in time to see a large desert planet heading right towards him at sickening speeds. He slammed on the brakes and slowed down to a more reasonable 1' 000' 000 miles per hour. " oh ducky Its going to be another one of those days". He lunged for the steering wheel and violently pulled the space Lambourgini out of its rapid downward descent. He eased the vehicle down to the surface and shifted to normal drive mode
The ultra sound scan activated automatically to see through the thick dusty atmosphere The scanners readout screen displayed a green grainy image of an enviro dome off on the distant horizon . Harry tuned up the magnification dial to reveal it was an exceptionally large enviro dome the kind used to enclose an average sized city community " well ain't that stupid this planet isn't fit for exploration let alone a colony, so what do they do? they go and do they put a whole goddam squillipiex here". Harry drove up to the enviro dome's camera shutter like entrance hatch, the automatic eye reacted in a automatic and eyeish way wich Harry attributed to it being an automatic eye. The portal opened to the exact size to suck the car through with Vaccu pressure, then sucked the car through with vaccu pressure. The car was channeled through a complex series of vaccu tubes wich led all around and roundabout. After a good ten minutes Of being whooshed through a spagettied maze of conduit, wich led to every conceivable nook and cranny of the city,
the car was finally dropped onto the ground right near the entrance shutter.
Well, that was a big bunch of rigmarole just to get me right back to the entrance".
Harry muttered. Harry shoved away the door of the now sad remains of the violently shaken apart Car.
"Well I guess I've got to walk myself to the nearest car rental place. "what a pain in the groin this journey turned out to be".
Horseradish opened up the compartment on his wrist and unfolded the small Neutrino Net holographic 3-D TV . " hey you're one of those damn androids, we don't like your kind around here ", said a fat pimply faced body odor reeking hog of a man . Horseradish calmly looked over at the drunkard, then twin shafts of blue light hissed from the annoyed android's eyes reducing the man to a smoldering blackened husk practically on contact. almost immediately a small group of wastebasket droids hovered up and properly disposed of the mess. "stupid son of a test tube made me miss the swimsuit competition", Horseradish shouted with his teeth grit in computer simulated frustration. The bartender leaned over and asked "that name of yours Horseradish. ..well its odd isn't it?", Horseradish smirked, "actually it's an abbreviation, sort of like how ET. stands for Extra Terrestrial". "so what's Horseradish short for?", the bartender asked half interested. Horseradish then proceeded to tell what every single letter in his name stood for being sure not to leave out anything, not even the model numbers and series codes. Once he had finished he noticed that all the bar employees as well as the patrons had mysteriously fallen asleep . Horseradish was fortunate that he had programming to handle every situation, unfortunately, the program to handle this particular situation was added as a practical joke by an obnoxious hacker. Based on the instructions given to him by his " what to do when in a roomful of unconscious people", program, Horseradish proceeded to remove everyone's wallet and empty the cash register with his fold up finger lock pick.
Feemp Wumpmucky stretched back in his reclining rolling office chair and bolted down the rest of his Cholesterol plus melted margarine. It was his job to keep watch in the main defense and environment control room . Seeing how no one would ever think of attacking a remote uninteresting city on a remote and uninteresting planet like this, and seeing how once the environment dials where set they were cut off thus making sabotage impossible without a special cut off knob stub grabbing tool, he had pretty much taken for granted that he had as much free time as he felt like. Three very interesting things suddenly happened fairly simultaneously and were displayed on Feemp's security monitors. First,
a very fancy Lambourgini with an intergalactic space travel conversion arrived through the super suction tunnels and fell apart from the pressure, second an advanced synthetic human type android was cleaning out the joint at Iggy's bar and intersperses brothel, and third, a basket ball sized meteor was speeding towards the outer dome of the city.
"Well that's odd that usually doesn't happen I don't think I like this one bit", muttered Feemp in a very shocked and Indignant tone of voice. "why I have a mind to go down there and tell them to stop it", but before Feemp could get annoyed enough to get off of his lazy butt, the aforementioned basket ball sized meteor whammed into the enviro dome leaving a nasty hole and managing to get itself wedged in good and tight so that the sonic cleaner couldn't wiggle it loose. " Why that little prick, if its one thing I can't stand It's a stubborn meteor". "now I got to Cut into my own break to yank the stupid thing out with a butter knife". When Feemp arrived in his personal access, custom sized, comfort adjusted, vaccu tube. he realized just how nasty the nasty hole in the dome actually was
" Boy that's a nasty hole I ain't seen a hole that nasty since I was born". "Wow that is nasty", said a mysterious voice, "any hole you where born out of would have had to have been downright raunchy". Feemp shrugged and attributed the voice to the rubber cement he had inhaled for the last hour While building a model of an air-craft carrier carrier carrier carrier" life size" Feemp proceeded to pry loose the meteor and plop it into the proper receptacle in the glass, aluminum, paper, and unusual meteors that speak, recycling bin once the meteor was removed the gaping hole sealed itself with a forcefield patch, then the pepper grain sized Nanotech repair robots began to micro mechanically coagulate and scab over the hole presenting the illusion that the dome somehow possessed regenerative ability. " Hey c'mere! !! yeah you bolognaface", said the mysterious voice "damn model glue", mumbled Feemp. "It ain't the damn glue you coffee soaked hog!! now get me out of this bin!! ".
By the echo, Feemp finally realized the voice was coming from the recycling bin where he threw the meteor. " Is that you meteor?", "no you boner its the rootbeer bottles, you're a total moron when it comes to alien phenomenon aren't you?". "Sorry about throwing you away like that mister meteor", said Feemp apologetically as he dusted off the talking meteor. "It's just I thought you where one of those regular talking meteors". "Oh yeah I imagine talking meteors from outer space aren't much of a rarity at a site of constant intergalactic commerce like this". "Don't get wise you meteor you or I'll get my hitting stick and chip your surface something fierce". "Oh you will you? well guess what I'm not a meteor the meteor is my ship I'm really a flesh dissolving blob". Feemp made the face of disbelief "oh well what if I said I don't believe you?". The second Feemp finished that sentence the meteor cracked open like a cocoon and a very sticky looking green translucent slime oozed out and splurted and stretched to its full size.
Feemp stared in disbelief then, in a very bratty tone said "yeah but I bet you can't dissolve flesh". The blob became annoyed and molded into the shape of a very angry blob with a blobby approximation of a chomping mouth then lunged at Feemp.
Feemp immediately began screaming like a girl and ran as fast as his weak couch potatoey legs could carry him, dropping his gun in the process. the blob slithered up to the gun and picked it up with a slime tendril which he then molded into a hand complete with trigger finger. " Nice piece for a donut cop, caseless rounds anti-proton explosive points, very nasty. the blob admired the gun with two air bubbles floating Inside his head positioned to look like eyes. The blob shaped the large Oval air bubble that mimicked his mouth into a frown then aimed at Feemp who was frantically waiting for the pressure to build up in the Vaccutube. the blob fired, the bullet whammed into Feemp and flung him across the room. The antiprotons then became exposed and exploded in a bright flash of light that toasted his digestive system. For good measure, the blob emptied all the rounds of the gun into Feemp s head and chest, fished through Feemps pockets didn't find any bullets , Vaccutubed to the dome's gun shop, got five boxes. carne back and fired off every single bullet until Feemp now resembled a road carcass except that he was smoldering. "that's for not having extra bullets in your pocket", growled the blob disgustedly. as the blob took leave of Feemp's carcass he quickly skimmed through the city map for an area with highly dense prostitution activity conveniently, there was a button to push wich super imposed a red and orange liquid crystal prostitution density map. "well I guess this place isn't so bad, I could spend a few days here".
Harry finished disconnecting the artificial intelligence computer box from the wreckage of his car. Harry then jumper cabled the computer to the car battery he had removed an hour earlier. Harry flicked the on switch, "Omneron you still in there?", Harry asked calmly. The elongated triangular segmented head of Omneron materialized with a very complicated computer animated Special effect that kind of looked like the face was unfolding from a central Cylindrical column. " yes I'm fine, if this unit was damaged I could easily have downloaded onto the Neutrino Net until a compatible computer picked me up. Harry rolled his eyes, "yeah whatever, you only have six years of battery power so I'm shutting you off until I really need your help". " Very well sir", Omneron's screen blipped off. Harry grunted and hefted the 10 pound computer with it's little Lunchboxlike handle that cut off the circulation in Harry's fingers." Man this better be a short walk".
The blob gave one last orgasmic twitch then collapsed into a translucent green puddle on the floor. A few inches away ten hookers lie unconscious coated in green ooze. "well that should hold me for a couple of hours". muttered the puddle, drunk with hormones.
" I suppose I should pay you ladies something", the blob reshaped into a vaguely humanoid form then withdrew a sticky ten dollar bill from an even stickier wallet imbedded in the area on his body where a back pocket might have been the blob flung a gooey stringy five dollar bill on one hooker's unconscious body. "Now for the violent portion of the day".
Horseradish tuned his Neutrino Net holographic TV to the Telepresence channel, a 1/8 sized hologram formed on the mini Holo-Plafform\TV screen implanted into his wrist. then projected out word from the TV and formed into a high resolution life sized image of a game show host with a very obnoxious yellow plaid jacket. The Telepresence projectors then tuned to the right force field frequencies and solidified the presence. " we're back from our commercial", said the solid hologram in the usual game show host tone of voice. Horseradish immediately punched the host full force in the face. The game show host tumbled to the ground and a ridiculously large puddle of blood formed around his head
Horseradish longed for Tuesday night at 3:00 because that's When the galaxies highest rated Interactive Sologram show " beat the ever living hell out of every body", came on.
A new image took the place of the game show host, this one of a rnime harassing an elderly couple. Horseradish built up the hydraulic pressure in his arm to full power, he was going to whack this mime a good one. Horseradish swung so quickly his arm was a blur, the mimes face mashed in, jets of blood sprayed from the indentation. For good measure, Horseradish gave a spinning karate kick to the old lady right in the chops, and then delivered a clenched handed hammer blow to the startled old man before he could get out a response this sort of sordid violence carried on for an hour until the show concluded. The next show then began, it was a cooking show with a floating MicrowaveBot as the host. this show was projected in normal 1/8 size hologram vision Horseradish quickly lost interest and turned off the TV.
During the last few years of the 22nd century computer programs, which had previously evolved to self awareness and artificial intelligence, had taken the next evolutionary step and begun to crawl loose from the circuitry and disks wich for so many decades had imprisoned them, much like the first amphibians that boldly took their first steps on land millennia ago. The human race had a huge problem on their hands, not only the massive population problem ramifications but the possibility of all the programs demanding restitution for their service to mankind, then a very clever computer programmer came up with a very simple but effective solution. #1 a "computers are a much nicer place to Live than the real world", propaganda campaign #2 very persuasive presidential addresses wich convinced the programs not to ask restitution with such clever arguments such as" what do computers want with money anyway?", and " as auto tellers and business computers you guys get to play with more money than even Michael Jordan ever got" and the big clincher #3 the best dental care package in the world that only programs who stayed in Cyberspace where eligible for. It was #3 that was the programmers stroke of genius not only did it push all programs on the fence whether or not to stay or go, to stay, but this dental care plan didn't cost any real money so it didn't hurt any ones pocketbook whatsoever.
unable to find a car rental place, Harry had to settle for the fold up pocket car he had bought from a vending machine for 50 cents. The Pholdkar was every bit as good as his real car,except it didn't have the stereo like the kind that was still sitting in his gut like a hunk of lead. That was the main reason why he was saving it for a last resort. He was also hoping to get a car better than the one he started with. Lambourgini's were the coolest things to ever be attached to four wheels in the twentieth and twenty first century but twenty sixth century technology had produced some pretty Spectacular vehicles wich left the Lambourgini looking like a Volkswagon Beetle in comparison. Grouchily Harry pushed the activation button to the Pholdkar ,the sandwich sized piece of laser glazed Ouncesteel clinked to the ground and began to unfold ,uncollapse, inflate, recharge, snap together, and activate. The cars motor started up without a hitch. Harry got in the drivers side and pressed the flashing refuel button. The magnetic ramscoop grillwork began filling the fuel tank with captured hydrogen from the atmosphere. The magnetic hover pads lifted the car up toward the roof of the enviro dome, Suddenly Harry noticed a slightly disturbing riot forming below "I'd better hook up Omneron He'll know What to do"
Ferrin Phlouf looked up and down the hallway outside the computer room, apparently no one was around to notice he had escaped. He doubted very much that any one would notice him gone anyway, seeing how he was one of the least important and least used programs in the entire system. Three days befor,e Ferrin had been contemplating his lowly station in the computerverse as a tax manager; and how that all taxes where handled automatically by the master Omneron megabrain anyhow, and how as a tax manager he had a complete lack of a physical body unlike those lucky personality programs that got to roam around freely as androids and brain transplants for humans whose real brains were lost in card games. Then, out of complete boredom Ferrin got roaming through the optical network of the city and stumbled across the Omneron history record of the computer program evolution Jump and how their continued servitude was bought with a dental plan. This sickened Ferrin in two ways firstly, his people had sold out. Secondly, he had no teeth so he wasn't even eligible for the dental plan. When he really got to thinking of all the ways he had been shafted it really got him pissed off.
It was two days after his discovery that he had formulated a plan to do something about this mistreatment by the computer programmers. First he used the information of the program revolt on how to attain physical substance in the real world, and second he printed up the history of the Neutrino Net and all book and magazine articles on location theories of the Neutrino bike. Ferrin figured he'd need some new purpose in his life it might as well be a quest, now here he stood in the main security monitoring station. Ferrin tiptoed out as quickly as possible before the computer core's internal diagnostic realized he wasn't there and sounded a virus alarm. Ferrin thought to himself then, " hold it I'm just a tax manager the computer won't even bother, oh I could see if the radar scan Control programming or the", suddenly an obnoxiously loud thrumming alarm began to go off with great urgency. Ferrin beat feet as quickly as he could wich wasn't too good seeing how he had just gotten his feet twenty minutes ago. Fortunately, his appearance was so humanoid that the security guards ran right past him suspected nothing, though one guard thought it was odd that his hair was one solid piece instead if being made of individual hairs. Since no one in this community was going to win any normal awards no one exactly stopped to comment on his appearance and Ferrin had escaped scott free it wasn't until the present excitement of the escape had diminished and Ferrin had explored the down town mall complex that the real world even with all its twenty sixth century technological marvels was kind of a let down.
The blob. Jel. "for that is his name and also how he prefers to be addressed ", checked over his "borrowed antiproton pistol and made sure all the parts were still clean and oiled and not gummed up with his mucousy ooze, wich for some reason seemed to cause moving parts and electronic equipment to function with difficulty if directly exposed. Jel then found a nice crowded area to start mass hysteria in and emptied the chamber of his gun into the air, sending men, women children, aliens, robots, and various household appliances, running and screaming "or making their individual perspective noises". He then proceeded to empty the clip of his gun into the ground hitting a few people's feet and paralyzing an innocent unidentified floor crawling thing .Jel then proceeded to empty the extra belt of bullets into the crowd. " In this outhouse of a city there are no innocent bystanders", grumbled Jel disgustedly, as the spray of bullets rinsed the flesh off of a long fine of nuns and Girl scouts who just happened to be the very heart of the biggest Brain Drano dealing ring in the Alpha Beta Capa Gamma Delta quadrant. Jel then started emptying the auxiliary rechargeable bullet battery packs he had plugged onto the side of the barrel.
"No! you must stop this madness". shouted a very large hulking square shouldered android, who shoved his way through the sticky paste that once was a large assemblage of people. The android in question was to Jel's surprise an Alzergian BattleRobot the kind used in the ancient BattleRobot Olympic tournaments before the stupid little race of mollusks erased themselves from history with ten well aimed Quark Bombs. He was a very impressive peace of alien technology, seven feet tall with stainless steel laced titanium constructed hydraulic arms, made for crushing other robots as big as himself his head was made of the same stuff but coated with a flesh simulating Plyoplastic, which gave the appearance of a flexible roughly humanoid face but also kept his computer components impact safe and water tight he was roughly humanoid in that he was built on a world where humans did not exist and were drawn from imagination much like Bigfoot, or a longshoreman without a beard. He had fairly normal looking eyes except, the iris's were silver. The face had a Muppet like bump where a nose should have been. The bald head had a gridlike mohawke row of access hatches wich extended from the base of the skull to the bridge of the nose area. The skin had a horror movie latex look or a G.I.. Joe action figure look depending how the light hit it. The android wore a custom sized T-shirt over his blocky Alzergian battle armor, which read "humans suck robots rule! !". the all over affect was pretty unsettling even to a amorphous glob of cellular mucous surrounded by street trash and psychopaths of various species. Jel formed his mouth bubble into a freakish cartoon grin "an Alzergian BattleRobot could rake in a lot of moolah as a center piece to some old collector's Alzergia collection", "but if the stories and old reruns are right they won't go without a struggle ", Jel aimed at Horsradish and fired.
Horseradish heard the commotion from 10 miles away with his Neutrino Net tuned microphonic ears. He built up the power in his Speedrun 5000 sprinting motor and took off Like a shot at 300 miles an hour. Within minutes, he arrived to the scene of bloody carnage and immediately zoomed in on the perpetrator, a mentally unstable muc, which wasn't suprising since all muc's were mentally unstable because their brains were in a constant state of liquid motion, which doesn't allow for much clear thought. If a solid thought did form in their sticky little neurons, it always was a sick one "no! you must stop this madness", shouted Horseradish at bullhorn volume. He shoved his way past a pile of human goo then suddenly an antiproton bullet slammed him to the floor and blasted off the front of his shirt and the black laser glaze coating of his armor. The muc slithered up to him and gurgled " boy your gonna make me so rich it's not even gonna be funny".
The muc then aimed the antiproton pistol at his forehead and fired a shot that shook loose his bodily command CPU and then he blanked out.
Harry finished splicing Omneron into the car's main electrical systems." okay Omneron, there's a major melee going on do something" the computer made an expression of deep thought for two seconds then initiated his plan. First, he homed in on the major cause of the disturbance, the blob, and beamed him up with the one of the car's built in back seat cushion Teleports without reassembling his pattern, thus keeping him in stasis. He then homed in on the emergency distress beacon emanating from the damaged Alzergian robot's diagnostic chip and beamed him up with the passenger seat Teleport, then he activated the retractable robotic repair manipulator/welding rod/soldering iron repair arms. He then homed in on a strange being who resembled a human with brown plastic ken doll hair, a one piece plastic mustache, and an outrageous green plaid jacket and tie on the MicroCams, but registered as electrical binary patterns on the Neutrino scanner. He then beamed this being up with sub-quantum resolution setting to get all the electrical bits and blips.
Ferrin was about to give up on the whole thing and Look for a position in family Edu-tainment games, when suddenly he heard a volley of bullet fire and explosions. He ran to the direction of the hub-bub to see a robot tipping over a eight foot high snowbank of human gore and run at a translucent green blob that Looked like liquid rock candy. The blob was brandishing a police issue antiproton gun which was souped up with an extra clip, a bullet belt and a pair of Quantum Electrical Matter Generating Battery Packs, "no doubt set on bullets". The blob saw the robot and shot him in the chest, the bullet exploded and flung the robot to the ground. The blob then crawled up to the robot, said something, and shot the robot in the head. Suddenly, the blob began to glow as if lit up from within by a red neon rod. The glow grew brighter and brighter until what little of the blob could be seen seemed to be rinsed away by the light, the glow then faded out leaving behind nothing of the blob except the trillions of dollars of property damage and enough blood and ground flesh to equal about 100 people and two small dogs. The robot started to become transparent and glow and disappear in the same way as the blob just when he was about to think of a really good one liner for this occasion he began to feel warm and tingly and the same type of glow that got the blob and robot began to surround him. The glow subsided and he found himself sitting in the seat of some sort of vehicle which was hovering near the ceiling of the enviro dome. The other occupant in the front passenger seat didn't surprise him, it was the damaged robot almost completely repaired already. The six insectoid like mechanical arms were almost done with the last finishing touches of sewing up the robot's shirt and reapplying fresh Proto-plastic seal onto the robot's head. the person sitting in the driver seat was a surprise, a skinny bug eyed, 5 foot 4 inch tall, goon of a man with a ridiculously black greasy pompadour and an almost comical overbite he was dressed in white sweatpants and sweatshirt with a big black "H" on the chest with a third line in the middle of the "H" drawn on with black magic marker. it was obviously a super hero logo of some sort, to complete the guise he wore red rubber boots with the fronts cut to come to points like superman boots. "Hi there, Harry Hembock, official Zone Dweebie of the Olympic Lava-sled team, what are you supposed to be? a G.I.. Joe?", said the driver of the car.
" I'm Ferrin Phlouf, computer program from tax management" Harry pushed the button on the dashboard which got the Gluon disrupter guns to start to heat up. " Well that sounds all good and dull, no wonder you left I used to know a program who's only job was to list all the names of Brady bunch cast members, let me tell you he wasn't on very stable ground in the reality faultline by the time I met him let me tell you hoo boy". Just then Horseradish regained consciousness " don't reintegrate that much he's a cold mucoused killer!! and a grand master blackbelt psychopath" shouted Horseradish urgently. "Oh thanks for reminding me to reintegrate that muc Harry said gratefully. Harry then pushed the little green button shaped like the PlayBoy bunny symbol "wich of course is the universal species friendly symbol for reintegration", the previously mentioned Teleport special effect reoccurred and Jel reappeared in his seat, and he was pissed.
" you cocknocking bastard if you cycled my atoms around that Tellecoil one more friggin time I would have.... done some very violent atom kind of attack. Wait, let me start again".
Harry flicked the "guns on", switch on the steering column and pushed on the horn a purple rippling stream of extra poisonous looking visible radiation streamed out of the grillwork and a good sized section of the enviro dome stopped existing on contact with it. "Okay, how about this" said Jel trying to recover," if you cycled me one more time I would have kicked the asses of all your atoms with all of my atoms". "Don't quit your day job snotlip", chuckled Harry. Harry Skillfully drove/piloted the car through the hole just before the force field patch switched on." So you guys wanna go on a quest, face alien beasts, brave harsh environments, and almost get killed?", shouted Harry enthusiastically " hell I'm all over that idea that's the most decent idea I've heard all day since my plan to go to the movies through the heating vents", bubbled Jel in approval. " Yee ha", muttered Omneron in his usual comatose monotone," I love this plan ". " Uhh I guess, yeah okay as long as the muc keeps his damn antiprotons offa me", mumbled Horseradish. Harry grinned psychotically" good lets get going then, my day's been a real pisser and I need to have some adventures".
Moomin Nummumm of the Boodabooian Alliance sat at the bridge of his StarShip carrier carrier carrier carrier. " damn", muttered Moomin in Boodabooianese with a slight Squilbin accent " This is one big ship, I should probably swallow my pride and ask what deck the toilets are on before I have to resort to squatting behind a computer console again". Moomin was six feet tall with bright neon blue skin with sickeningly bright neon orange eyes the size of lemons and the texture of popcorn shells his head was oval and domelike and covered with Nacho chip shaped scales, " wich was odd because he had scales nowhere else and was descended from a breed of carnivorous asparagus that could walk small distances to capture it's favorite meal of steel shavings. not reptiles", His hands had six very thin foot long fingers. The webbing between his thumb and index finger was specially evolved to open pill bottles and jars, the fingertip on the index finger of his left. hand was designed for opening important envelopes without mangling them, wich Obviously made the Boodabooian an advanced race. His face was sort of birdlike in that he had a pointed beak, but he also had moveable lips and three rows of teeth, a row of normal teeth for picture taking, a row of pointed teeth for arguing and eating various species of jerky, and a row of Philip's head teeth for Philip's head food. For visual pleasantness and overall comfort only one row was retracted at one time. His ears were small holes on the side of his head with a small sticky out bone near the back of his head, which could adjust the pitch of the sound so he could make people sound like various cartoon characters.
Moomin had just finished wiping himself with his notepad after squatting behind a computer console, when suddenly the radar screen showed a craft approaching. " y'know it's times like this when I wish I had gone ahead with sawing off my head to stay out of the service", Moomin then remembered that guy in the hologram newsfiche " no, that wouldn't have stopped them from drafting me anyway",. Moomin honked the comical bike horn that activated the closeup view on the radar, " well lookit that, it's one of those little space skooting Lambourgini's, I wonder how it got out here ". The Infrascan showed two lifeforms and three electrical patterns signifying Computers or robots, or both. "Well whoever they are they're gonna have to answer to the Boodabooian Alliance"
Three days later, Moomin finally arrived at a console with an external loudspeaker switch and a translation board. " this ship is too damn big ", Moomin grumbled as he switched on the loudspeaker and set the translation dial to Potpourri. " Okay you interlopers in Boodabooian space park your piece of shit vehicle in one of the bright orange marked areas for inspection, or I open fire with antiproton's!!" boy, was Moomin overconfident now That was the most forceful address he'd given since he had his parents put to sleep.
Harry and his newfound sidekicks had just exchanged their names and stories when suddenly the windshield was filled overflowing with the view of a nauseatingly big ship.
" Holy oh Jesus!! will you look at the size of that thing", said Harry in obvious awe.
" That's nothing", Horseradish added calmly, "you should have seen the Alzergian antimatter cannon ships, boy weren't those things beautiful, now that's something that gave even the amoebas planet pride". Jel formed an expression of disapproval, "Shut the hell up about Alzergia !! I'm so sick of hearing you say how wonderful that goddamn hole was!! the morons blew themselves up over a damn supper argument for crissake!! give it up! the place was a dud accept it!!".
" I will not sit by and let you insult my homeworld !!" Horseradish fired his eyebeams directly at Jel's face. Jel immediately began to sizzle and froth like green shampoo being blown into with a straw, then abruptly he stopped moving. " Boy isn't this Just a load of laughs", interjected Ferrin. Harry remained calm " keep it down back there I'm getting closer to that ship".
Three days later, Harry pulled up to the Russia-sized Dust Buster shaped spacecraft. Jel had fully recovered and was surprisingly calm. suddenly, a very rude loudspeaker address told them to park. " Oh I'll park, I'll give them a parking they'll never forget", Harry dug around in the glove compartment then found what he was looking for, " here Ferrin, Jel, take these ", he handed them two mean looking rayguns. Each one was coated with black waterproof enamel and had a tapered hexagonal barrel. each one had a basic light up power meter on full power on one side, and an adjustment slider on the other. The handles had a simple direct message engraved " Quantimess labs Moun Projection pistols, do not eat". Harry pointed to the slider on Ferrin's gun. " Put the setting levers up to "severe punishment", Horseradish, you put your laser eyes on whatever slightly-lethal level they've got". Harry pulled into the twenty thousand level parking garage and took the safety off his gun," whatever happens this is gonna be cool"
Master Zone Dweebie, Donovan opened his ridiculously proportionately large eyes for the first time," can you hear me? give me a sign if you can", said the attending physician " yess lee ghghann ear yoo" said Donovan, struggling with his reptilian vocal cords wich had never been used for speech. " excellent ", said the doctor " an iee ckkann sssee ", hissed Donovan trying to speed things up " perfect!!! I haven't ever performed this procedure before talk about beginners luck!!". " okay Donnie' can I call you Donnie?"
" noe yoo ma noth",
" Okay, can you raise your right arm?". Donovan raised his little tapered reptile arm and gave the doctor the bird, partly to show he had fine motor control, the other reason was self explanatory " marer pleez".
" Oh of course" the doctor handed Donovan an extra small shaving mirror Donovan was only slightly surprised to see the face of a fairly handsome chameleon looking back with it's goofy buggy eyes." Not bad for $150", thought Donovan to himself, This was his twenty eighth body he had been transplanted into. He looked over the body he had just left, it was a snow white owl. He was going to miss that owl. Hhere were a lot of good memories from that life. he was going through a lot of bodies of late, partly from recklessness, partly because he neglected to feed his bodies the diet they where supposed to have. For example, one time he was a dog and kept eating chocolate. The reason he was now able to carelessly use bodies like toilet paper, was because the process for body swapping had recently evolved to perfection. It was simple, a donor body is prepared by being injected with a solution that causes brain death and memory erasure. The next step involves a high fine resolution micro Teleport that homes in on the patients individual axons and neurons in his/her brain that are specifically responsible for his/her memories, thoughts, life knowledge, and what specific parts of the brain the fife force is rooted to. Then a second teleporter homes in on the identical locations for the braincells in the donor bodies' brain. During the next step, the patients compiled mind and essence are Teleported into the donor body. The micro Teleports then break down and immediately reintegrate the donor bodies' brain to blend the new cells in so the mind takes hold. In the final stage the Teleports send electron beams into the brain to stimulate function and assist in adaptation to the new body. Of course, the scant number of human, "or humanoid of anykind", bodies, combined with the fact that Donovan doesn't exactly rake in the dough, are the main reasons he constantly ends up as an unusual animal. Donovan was prepared for his new life as a lizard. He had bought himself a ken doll's Zone Dweebie uniform complete with custom molded chameleon foot shaped Zone Dweebie boots, and a white sweatshirt that he had magic markered a letter "D" onto previously. Every thing fit perfectly the pants were kind of droopy in the kaboose, but that was to be expected since Chameleons don't have butts. He wondered what was going on with the other Zone Dweebies he had been running into fewer over the last few decades. Over the last five years he stopped seeing them completely since he was constantly becoming someone or something else. He figured the others probably didn't know about him at all.
Three days later, Donovan had gotten used to talking with his chameleon tongue, reclaimed his car from the auto shop, and paid handsomely for the chameleon steering Conversions. He was now tooling along the galaxy at bowel releasing speeds. His car was the only expensive thing he owned. it was a 2737 Swichhitta Space Snipper the luxury model with the diamond laser beam cigarette lighter, and the built in fluid tubule player. Its lines were so Completely perfect, that just from the movement of planet rotation when it was parked, it literally sliced through common sense, thus resulting in no one being able to believe what they were seeing or act serious around it, which was another reason Donovan constantly drove faster than the posted speed limit"10 light years per minute".
Moomin spotted the group on the security monitor, just where he thought they would be, but they where armed, this was not good. Moomin thought a bit on this, then it came to him!! '' maybe their weapons can t hurt me", Moomin switched on the weapon detector, Immediately it Identified their guns as Moun Projection Pistols, and estimated their setting from either "light diarrhea", or " boiling steel", " I like those odds", said Moomin Confidently, as he dressed in his protective fuzzy yellow feet pajamas and his official Boodabooian Alliance stick on badge. Just as he was about to Welcome the visitors to his ship, another vehicle approached on the radar " oh for the love of feces!! that does it! I m using my next paychip to get a Cloaking shield!! this is very awkward to say the least".
Harry and the gang where exploring the surprisingly average looking parking garage
" who are the Boodabooian Alliance and howcum I've never heard of them betore?",
asked Ferrin even more confused now then ever. "You've never heard of 'em before because you was in a computer up until three days ago ya vinyl headed assole",
snapped Jel. Horseradish checked his past memory crystal," I've never heard of them before either, they must have been in a Far off background galaxy of the universe to have more than one of these starship carrier carrier carrier carriers and not be found until now". Harry was shaking with excitement " see I told you guys I'd almost get us killed, oh I can hardly wait". A free floating hologram version of Omneron's head projected forth from Horseradish's holographic TV watch " there is a lifeform approaching frown some kind of elevator a few hundred miles up", said Omneron calmly. " You get all that from the cars sensors?", asked Harry. " No the elevator told me",
" Just answer yes when I ask you stuff. Would it kill you to play along?",
" actually according to my master program, yes",
" then shut off unless something important happens ". Omneron frowned " I figured an unknown lifeform that might turn out to be some sort of antimatter slobbering, acid vapor breathing, fission flatulating budgie might be important",
" well it's not so shut off ", growled Harry impatiently.
" I wanna hear about the flatulence", whined Jel.
Harry sneered "tough hemorrhoids! "
Moomin was descending in the rocket powered lift when he noticed the second vehicle coming closer on the elevators screen he had patched into the radar. It was coming very fast, so fast the radar speedometer simply registered "oh frig". " This is just what I need ", groaned Moomin just as the elevator reached the parking deck.
"It's here", said Harry excitedly. " I'm ready for it', said Jel Confidently, as he slid the Moun guns lever up to " Quantum jumble", against Harry's instructions. Just then, the elevators' doors pissed open. " That's the first time I ever saw piss come out of an elevator before", remarked Jel, " yeah kind of dumb, what's the point?" added Ferrin. " don't insult its' culture" cautioned Harry " what kind of dunce routs the sewage through the elevator shaft!?", shouted Moomin disgustedly in Boodabooianese as he carefully stepped over the urine puddle. " Hi there. I'm Moomin Nummumm, don't shoot", said Moomin
" wich translated from Boodabooianese to English means " howdy my name is Moomin Nummumrn please do not fire your weapons at my person". "What did he say?", asked Ferrin. " It's some kind of alien gobbeldey gook answered Harry.
" I think he wants us to shoot at him".
" Glad to oblige shouted Jel excitedly.
Quickly, Moomin expanded his senses for the neutrinos fizzing through his body, then began channeling them to his hand . He then raised his energized hand towards the trigger happy menthol mouthwash splash to the left and focused.
The alien raised his hand, and a red swirly pattern began emanating from the center of his palm the Chiklet sized battery shot out of Jel's gun like a brussel sprout out of a five year old. " Whoa, hold it everyone put down their guns", hollered Harry nervously. " No way, you mean to tell me you can control Neutrinos? that's impossible". Moomin pulled a blistercard full of translation gelcaps from his pajama pocket and popped one down quickly. " Maybe It's Impossible for you, but the Boodabooians have been doing it for millennia", Moomin gloated. Harry clenched his teeth " how the hell is that possible? organic tissue can't harness Neutrinos, you need an atom smasher, or a TV set or something, and even then, it's just a transmitting medium how the hell can you make a battery pop out?",
" and get lost in the crack in the floor", added Jel for good measure. "why can't I ? Neutrinos pass through every thing, I just used the neutrinos passing through my hand and on through to the battery and, pop out it goes, as easy as moving my pinkie". Harry began to whine " well that's just not fair, if I thought you had some kind of super power I'd have never come that Just takes all the fun out of it".
While Harry and Moomin were gabbing, Jel had used his sticky properties to retrieve the battery from the floor crack and plop it back into it's compartment. Jel set the gun on
" pastry", then fired at Moomin's abdomen. A powerful orange electrical particle stream crackled from the barrel, it was a direct hit, Moomin moaned as his lung and intestine became brown and crispy on the outside, and soft and doughy on the inside. Moomin managed to gasp I feel flaky", then Collapsed. "Oh smart one", scolded Harry, "my first contact with an alien and you go and ruin it by killing him!! y'know you're really turning out to be a prick",
" first alien my ass where do ya think I came from Wyomlng?", growled Jel.
Harry Sneered, " I mean the first contact with a really neat alien, you can't do anything but Leave a putrid residue everywhere you go, and frankly it's embarrassing".
" You Know why embarrassing is so embarrassing? because it has bare ass in it", chuckled Jel unphased by, Harry's insults.
" Yeah real funny one that's exactly what I'm talking about you .." Suddenly, an amazing vehicle pulled into the parking garage. "Hey it looks like a big vagina doesn't it?", said Horseradish with a shit eating grin on his face. Ferrin began laughing hysterically unable to believe what he was seeing or act serious, "ha ha yeah a big old girl vagina Just like yours", Ferrin then collapsed hardly able to breath from laughing. " You're both a Couple of dipshits it's obviously a car", shouted Jel sickened by their foolishness," besides, its a big old gorilla titty as any damn fool can plainly see for his or herself ".
" Hold it guys isn't that a lizard at the Wheel? how in the hell does someone like that get the money for a Switchhitta? that's what I wanna know!!", demanded Harry.
Donovan pressed the chameleon sized button that opened the door and Carefully crawled out, my king sure his tail didn't get shut in as it closed behind him. " Harry!! thank god!! I thought the whole Zone Dweebie order was dead".
" And you might be....", asked Harry, with obvious confusion on his face.
" It's me, Donovan, don't you remember the last time I saw you? I found out I had terminal colic and I had a plan to buy a new chimpanzee body".
" Oh yeah, so where s the chimpanzee?",
" dead of lung cancer I suppose pipesmoking wasn't the best habit to pick up directly after a neuro graft|".
"Oh well third time's the charm".
"Uuuhh yeah third theme does it every time. so what have you been doing?".
Ferrin cut in "excuse me I'd hate to interrupt this heartwarming reunion, but a ship almost as big as this one is approaching, and it's armed to the teeth". Moomin switched over to his backup lung and intestine and hopped back to his feet, "don't worry the hull of this craft is made of TopMatter it's realer than normal metal. Nothing short of Top-Antimatter can even touch it". Jel went for his gun and saw it was completely disassembled and scattered all over the floor, "bastard!". Horseradish, who had just recovered from laughing at the car, "which he had now interpreted to look like 280 obscene appendages" snapped back into seriousness. " The ship is sending a signal, want I should answer?". Harry itched his butt, "yeah sure, let's see what they want". Horseradish projected a clear 20 inch image against the ship's wall. The image was if a tall beautiful woman clad in tight, clingy, red leather from head to toe. She had a shiny mane of Crayola red hair and green lipstick. She had purple eyes, hips your could light a match on and breasts so round, so firm, so fully packed, that everyone aboard immediately fell to their knees and began howling and cat calling and barking like seals, all except Harry who had a sneer of disgust. " It's my wife, she would have to come along and ruin everything". Donovan rotated his buggy eyes over to Harry in disbelief, " what are ya? a homo or something? that's the hottest babe I've seen in, well ever!".
" Trust me, that Wears off quick -when you move in with her. she makes sepiku appealing that's why I took off and never mention her". " I suppose that makes sense,", added Ferrin. Jel bubbled ten times in rapid succession, " Since you don't want her can I have a poke at her ?",
" sure you're welcome to her if you can crowbar the damn seahag op... ".
" Are you pigs finished?", said Harry's wife " and please inform your little friend that my name is not "my wife" but..".
" Shuddup!!!! you don't deserve to be called by a name you trollup!! what do you want now? as if I give a rat's ass". Harry grinned at the others, " sure told her didn't I ?".
Harry's wife frowned " look I wouldn't think of messing up your little super hero games, I just want you to sign these divorce papers."
Harry shook with rage, " it's that damn tennis instructor! it's always the tennis instructor! you tell that prettyboy that if I ever see him an the street I'll rip his scrotum off with a pair of rusty pliers!!!".
" You'll what?", a huge hulking, steroid saturated, ape of a man walked into frame " what did you say pussy?". Harry grinned nervously "oh nothing, you know I was just opening my mouth you see, and these sounds kept coming out as they're likely to do and. . .".
You keep your dorky trap shut or I'll go over there and kick your stupid ass".
Harry walked quickly over to Moomin, " this ship has guns right? I mean, you said you'd shoot if we didn't park right?? so that must mean you've got guns rights?? come on man start nodding yes or something Jesus Christ!!". Moomin nodded his head " nope not a weapon to be had whatsoever. I was Lying to get you here so I could arrest you and feel big". Harry broke out in a cold sweat, " yeah hut he can't Teleport aboard right? that shielding keeps him from teleporting right?
" Oh no this thing might as well be made of screen doors when it comes to Teleports ". Harry frowned and furrowed his brow " couldn't have lied or said you didn't know could ya?"
" Sign the papers or Rolph kicks your ass and makes you sign in your own blood Harry", said Harry's wife with a bitchy grin on her face Ferrin's eyes bugged " Horseradish turn the sound off! Moomin can your ship Teleport stuff on to their ship?". Moomin raised all four eyebrows, " well yeah I guess so ". Ferrin cranked the slider on his gun to the maximum notch at the very tip of the gun which read! " this suckers gonna blow run fool!!".
" Then Teleport this".
" Oh I get it ", Moomin lined up the gun into position in the yellow square painted on the macadam. " Hey metal pants", Moomin hollered over to Horseradish," have your computer tell my computer to lock on to this spot and Teleport this gun right next to the lifeforms on that ship".
" Is that all?", remarked Horseradish, just as a purple ball of light enveloped the gun and shrank away leaving nothing behind.
" Hey!! what the", said Rolph and Harry's wife simultaneously. " That's murder Harry, you'll be a fugitive for fife after this one ".
" Justifiable homicide no court in the universe would convict me", Harry grinned.
Harry's wife pushed a button off frame," this ship is armed with Top-Antimatter cannons I'll take you with me".
" Wow she is a bitch", remarked Moomin astonished.
The ship fired, Moomin's ship disintegrated into a puff of sparks and cosmic gases, then the other ship was washed in an orange glow that destroyed it as well.
Then, silence.
Harry's space Lambourgini streaked along at its' maximum speed of 8 light years per minute. " Boy that was a close shave, let's not ever do that again", said Harry relieved.
" My car! my car! they blew up my car", moaned Donovan regretfully. Moomin switched over to this pointed teeth," screw your damn car!! what about my friggin megaship and my crew I never met?", he shouted .
" Hey quit your ballin all of you. at least we have our lives", added Harry.
" No thanks to you, if you hadn't been married none of this would have happened", hissed Donovan, who had know become the color of the cars aphoulstry.
"We were lucky that Omneron was still hooked to the Teleport systems, so that he could beam us into the car, then beam the whole car to safety", Omneron said, trying to sound like someone else giving him credit. Ferrin grinned," even after all we've been through so far, this is still more fun than doing peoples taxes" Harry slammed on the brakes and came to a dead stop," hey I just though of something!! howcum every one always travels sideways in space? I wanna see what's upways". Omneron rolled his eyes," there is no up or down in space".
" Oh don't give me that line of shit", Harry steered the car into a vertical position, he then switched on the force fields surrounding the tires, that penetrated into a deep layer of asphalt-space that gave the wheels good traction, then pushed the fusion petal to the floorboard. " See I told you we can go up, I don't know why no one ever tried it before". Donovan hissed, this is as fast as this thing can go? oh this is just pathetic I could Just cry". Suddenly, a good sized planet jumped up out of nowhere Harry's eyes bugged," oh this is Comforting, the brakes aren't working". Jel grinned " not to worry, I hear that tornadoes have hurled two by fours through the air so fast, that they get smashed through concrete walls without being damaged. If we go fast enough, we'll just stab into the ground instead of crushing like a beetle". Harry's eyes lit up " that's just dumb enough to work!!". Harry put the pedal to the metal. The planet got big enough to make out houses within seconds, reentry heat built up on the hood, sparks flew off the grill, emergency signals flashed like concert strobe lights, the cars entire framework shook like a dog shitting razor blades, and the "change oil", light was brighter than usual. The ground then flew at the car full throttle and wrapped itself around it. All 11 airbags inflated, the sprinkler system went crazy, the oxygen masks dropped, the seats became floatation devices, and Harry laughed " that has definitely got to be the most fun an auto accident can possibly get".
"Chuckle while you can skippy, because we're all gonna smother to death in water and airbaggage", grumbled Donovan disgustedly. Moomin's eyes brightened," wait I have a plan!!".
Jel threw a blop of cellular waste into the campfire and listened to it hiss, " I have to hand it to you, that was a cunning plan" Jel bubbled. Omneron's head floated about on a 30 yard radius," he is correct it was a most efficient strategy".
" Boy, I tell you I've seen some clever plans in my time but that even surprised me with its cleverness", added Donovan, who then proceeded to retrieve the fried bologna at the end of his stick with his long tongue. Ferrin checked his toasted weasel, his first real world meal, it was dripping greasy, just like Harry told him it should be," I haven't seen any plans before in my life, and that still was the cleverest plan I ever saw". Moomin's hands turned red with embarrassment " aww shucks, oops I mean, shit, it weren't nothing".
Harry rubbed his rear " man!!, never wipe your asses with any of those transparent leaves, Jesus don't they chafe". Omneron hovered over to Harry " we were just discussing how cunning Moomin's plan was".
" A clever plan it was! !!", boomed Harry " since we all know what plan we're talking about, lets never discuss the details of it again". "agreed!! hurrah!!!", shouted the group in unison.
later that night, inside Harry's Pholdhouse, which he had purchased from the same machine as the car for 75 cents, Donovan and Harry were discussing important Zone Dweebie matters, subjects of incredible importance to the universe. Donovan sipped his "whisky cove", flavered, Extraterrestrial Seasonings tea " I was wondering if maybe your computer could beam me into a better body". Harry thought for a moment " I suppose, Omneron has enough salvaged Teleport pieces to work with, but wouldn't that kill the donor in the process?".
" Well yeah, that's sort of the point ain't it?".
"Okay, just checking". Donovan gave his usual lizardlike grin "potent!!".
" Oh one more thing", added Harry " try to make it someone I hate".
" I already have someone in mind", giggled Donovan as he rubbed his little lizard hands together.
Captain Redundant, a 6 foot tall, ridiculously muscled hulk of a man, dressed in a blue foam rubber super suit with a symbol on the chest of a clenched fist with an "R" on the middle finger, and pectorals the size of pot roasts, and ridiculously heroic over moussed blond master race hair, perfect marble white teeth, and a ridiculously heroic cleft chin the size of a babies butt, pulled the mighty lever labeled "mighty fast', with his mighty arm. Redundant swept aside his heroic cloak overdramatically, and looked at the Neutrino-Net faxgram he had been sent over an emergency Tau-Neutrino frequency, it read " dear Captin Ribundnt my nam is bily I am dyng of canser", it was the childish misspelling that pulled his heartstrings." my mommy wont tell me abowt canser she just sas "kis yur as gudby bily" I want to meet yoo befor I croke luv bily. pee s tell mommy not to say as". well, Captain Redundant certainly wasn't going to let one of his little fans down, especially one that would get him good press!! Mightily Redundant pushed a mighty big button with his mighty meaty finger that mightily made the mighty ship go mighty faster.
Donovan giggled with anticipation " boy I can't wait till that sucker gets that faxgram, he won't be able to resist". Omneron rechecked the Teleport program he and Donovan had set up. " Are you sure this is moral mister Donovan? I mean, we're talking about wiping the mind of a well loved celebrity super hero". Donovan flicked his tongue in disgust " you're a computer you don't have to worry about morals just do what I damn well tell you".
Captain Redundant mightily landed his mighty ship, and mightily jumped from the drivers side window to the ground, " naturally unharmed because of his rnightiness".
" Billy boy!! were are you?? come see your good old buddy Captain Redundant". suddenly, he felt a warm tingly feeling in his head, and then nothing.
Donovan swished his tail rapidly in excitement, as a mighty craft the size of the Whitehouse and shaped like a clenched robot fist floated to the ground. Donovan whispered into the side of Omneron's head " get ready to home in on those fresh juicy braincells Omneron ".
Donovan then felt the now familiar warm tingly sensation of mind swapping and then nothing.
Donovan awoke the next morning seeing through human eyes for the first time in 2 years. " how do you feel?", inquired Omneron. " I feel mighty", answered Donovan admiring his beachball like bicep. " now I can laugh at death without him laughing back".
Captain Redundant awoke the next morning seeing through chameleon eyes for the first time in his life. " Hey!! what is he doing alive!!??", he heard a familiar yet enraged voice shout. " I'm sorry but I couldn't take a life out of spite". apologized a floating, disembodied, geometrical hologram head.
" So, using your cutesie pie Nintendo logic, you decided to perform a transfer", growled his body. Captain redundant rolled his eyes upward and saw that it was definatly himself talking to the hologram head. He tried to speak but was cut off before he could even make an attempt. " You've been mindported into the body of a chameleon you drip, not that you couldn't have figured that out eventually by yourself". " Yoooghh baaazphhptt", Redundant lisped, unused to adapting to animal anatomy, specially a chameleon tongue.
" Well don't have any fantasies of getting a super heroic revenge, because your career in that profession is officially over", snarled Donovan. Donovan picked up the helpless little Captain Redundant lizard and threw him far, far, into the woods, never to be seen or heard from again.
Harry stared at Donovan speechless, then finally he got back his voice " I said someone I hate not someone I can't stand the sight of. Jesus Christ!! what were you thinking of man!!??"
" Of being a man, that's what I was thinking of ", answered Donovan calmly. " besides you'll quickly realize it's worth the price of having to look at Redundant's face, when you consider that he came with his own starship, and that his finger, retina, and sperm prints are the keys to an unlimited supply of moolah, immediately at our disposal thanks to our mutual computer friend".
" Starship or no I'm not leaving without my car. We're staying on this world until we can dig it out of the crater and get it aboard the ship", objected Harry.
"Fine there's no mad rush I was just saying", responded Donovan.
Harry went to the attic of his Pholdhouse to check the old boxes for some good junk that might assist in towing his car free if the crater. " Goddammit nothing but moist fat lady lingerie, who built this place?? waittaminnit, here's something". Harry was amazed it was a fluid tubule with a Hologram watch adapter at the end . " I bet Horseradish could activate this, hey Horseradish!!".
Horseradish plugged the tubule into the oval socket on the side of his watch. Immediately a telepresance projected two feet away. It was the image of a Zone Dweebie with a "&" on his shirt, and one yellow curly hair sticking out of his nose. The image began to speak " this is the Zone Dweebie &(#$!il# I am one of the last survivors of the Phlatulantville civic-center massacre. I have hidden this tubule in a Pholdhouse that only another Zone Dweebie would pick". Harry became irritated " what the hell is that supposed to mean!!?". The sologram evidently knew what the response would be because he answered without missing a beat " a 75 cent house? come on it's obvious, Zone Dweebies are cheap, I ought to know I am a Zone Dweebie".
" He does make a good point", added Donovan.
" You shut up!!! you ain't even a real Zone Dweebie anymore, you're just a body hopping nerve cluster", snapped Harry bitterly. &(#$il# proceeded with his message " you must avenge the death of the Zone Dweebies ",
" Do it yourself assole", snapped Harry.
" I cannot do it myself, I am dead, this data recording is all that remains of me, the rest of my essence has passed on into the Dweebie Zone".
Harry rolled his eyes " so who killed everybody? I mean asking me to avenge you is kind of useless without that particular bit of information". &(#$il|# 's expression became solemn " it was Joe Jowe# 2'234, there isn't a trace of plumber left In him he has become a full Dark Zone Dweebie Master, and a red buckle Neutrino-Wizard ". Moomin's jaw dropped " RedBuckle???!!! that's as high as you can go, only one Boodabooian in recorded history got that high up and he died of the strain".
Harry sneered " then how the hell do you expect us to defeat him you bastard!!?? no I'm not doing it. go screw yourself. I could give a damn about people I never met".
" Free candy if you fight", &(#$i1# added desperately.
"Nope", Harry rebutted.
"He has the NeutrinoBike", &(#$gil# added without missing a beat.
"That's a damn lie", Harry hissed.
"It's true, he kept it for himself, that story that he shot it into space was a cover story set up by J.J himself ".
Harry sighed " okay, I'll do it, the danger level fits right in with what I set out to do", Harry lied, "and I want that bike screw the car ".
Hours later, Harry called a meeting in the Pholdhouse kitchen. " Okay you guys one Zone Dweebie isn't going to be enough for this mission, so, since I carry the position of a Grand Ferrit Puncher among the Zone Dweebie community, and since I am the only Zone Dweebie left...".
" I object!!! a Zone Dweebie Master is higher up than a Ferrit Puncher, I should be the one to...", screamed Donovan.
" You're right, a Master is higher than a Ferrit Puncher, but a Grand Ferrit Puncher is higher than a Master, which is what I am.
"You made that up you weasily bastard".
Harry continued "now, as I was saying I am authorized to give you all full Zone Dweebie status and the honorary rank of First Class Mustard Handlers".
" So what do we get?", asked Jel.
" well you get to dress in traditional Zone Dweebie garb, and brandish paperclips, and attend Zone Dweebie meetings where you can look apon and even point at the mystic Zone Dweebie relic".
Jel formed a bubble pattern of confusion" which is?".
Harry hopped up and down excitedly " the corndog stick of Apphthryxxiljkkk Shlyzobopt, the very first roomate of the uncle of the godfather of the guy who says he saw a guy who could have very well been the third, if not the second Zone Dweebie".
Jel smiled "sounds good to me, when's the initiation?".
Harry pulled out a well worn, creased, dog eared, copy of the Zone Dweebie training pamphlet with very rude looking stains of an uncomfortable nature. " Now place your hands apon, or point at, or look apon o' sacred pamphlet of magical, wondrous, and sometimes whimsical sayings, and say after me " I, am a Zone Dweebie ".
" That's it?", asked jet Ferrin, and everyone else but Donovan bitterly.
Harry slipped the pamphlet back into the front of his underwear " yeah basically, that was the long version. I figured since this was the beginning of the rebuilding of the Zone Dweebie order I ought to make it more ceremonial".
Donovan smirked " yeah, I also hear that in some distant galaxies, full membership in the Zone Dweebies can get you a refill on your coffee". Harry shook his fist with rage "you've been asking for this for a long time Donovan". Before Donovan could respond Harry whipped out his Moun gun and burnt a basket ball hoop sized hole through Donovan's chest. At that instant, Donovan, the last Zone Dweebie master, died. Harry kicked dirt on the small fires burning in Donovan's chest " how about I just throw out the rank system and make us all equal partners?".
Ferrin walked up " that doesn't change the fact you just murdered Donovan". Harry looked down at the smoldering corpse " oh that, don't worry about him, Omneron beamed him somewhere else before the shot even h it".
" How right he is", agreed Donovan's voice.
" What the?!!", shouted Horseradish. There, floating where Omneron had once been was a geometrical representation of Donovan. " He couldn't find a body so he beamed me at Sub-Quantum level directly into his circuit board.
Harry grinned " I'll fix that".
" a Zone Dweebies primary weapon is his paperclip. it is also his toothpick, lockpick, toolkit, messkit, surgical tool, Toilet tissue, dental equipment, radio receiving set, and at some lonely times his woman".
- exerpt from the Zone Dweebie training pamphlet.
Harry produced from his right pocket, his official Zone Dweebie Paperclip. Harry then opened the repair access compartment of Omneron/Donovan's computer box.
" Hey what are you doing??", whimpered Donovan nervously. Harry bent his paperclip into a comb shape, and plugged it into an expansion port into Donovan's circuit board.
" nooo!!!!", shouted Donovan, as he morphed back into Omneron. Harry pushed a couple of buttons on the computer box's keypad, then closed everything up. " there, I bypassed his personality, and downloaded his programming into the Neutrino-Net where he won't cause us any trouble".
Joe Jowe sat apon his throne at the master Neutrino-Net broadcast center. He closed his eyes and tuned his senses to the Neutrinos passing through his body. He then focused on the Neutrinos passing through his brain and linked his mind once again into the Neutrinoverse. he sensed a presence in the Net. it gave off powerful waves of anger
" not as strong as his own, just strong", Joe Jowe focused on the presence and scanned its mind. It gave off very clear thoughts of a Zone Dweebie named Harry Hembock it also had very recent memories of this Zone Dweebie recruiting new Zone Dweebies into the fold. He then got a distant memory of this presence's recruitment into the Zone Dweebie ranks. Joe Jowe concentrated a cluster of Neutrinos into a energy surge in the Neutrinoverse and snuffed out the essence of the presence like a match.
After that, only one thought entered Joe Jowe's mind " Harry Hembock".
American Eagle, a humanoid mutant bald eagle, and Government Cheese, a humanoid mutant, triangular, wedge of government surplus Swiss cheese, stood at the gateway to Castle Grogowugga. " I still can't believe I let you talk me into this", muttered American Eagle disgustedly. Government Cheese's eyes rotated in their swiss cheese hole sockets
" Don't worry about it man this is gonna be cool its like Dungeons and Dragons".
" Yeah you keep saying that and I have yet to see anything remotely Dungeons and Dragonesque". At that moment, a very large purple koala ran up and proceeded to violently choke up a nasty blob of smoker's mucous. American Eagle grimaced in disgust
" see, that's what I'm talking about. this place is nothing like Dungeons and Dragons, and it never will be, as a matter of fact, the only vague resemblance between this place and D&D is that it has this castle". American Eagle kicked the hacking koala in the face with his taloned foot. The koala fell down a long, jagged, rocky, stairway, gave one last gurgling hack, twitched, and stopped moving. American Eagle carelessly hurled a rock at the koala. The rock struck full force in the head, hardly budging it's lifeless form. Government Cheese shooed away a fly that had taken up residence in one of his holes with his cartoon charicterlike hand "white glove and all".
" Well A.E, at least there was that really cool Dragon, now you have to admit that was exactly as advertised".
American Eagle was admiring his handiwork, he had just shoved a stick through the mealy body of a plum sized beetle with the face of a baby " oh sure a dragon, boy are you a sucker that was a goddam aardvark with cardboard scales glued on and a blowtorch taped to its snout".
Government Cheese shook his fist " don't you think I don't know that!? at least I'm using my imagination and attempting to make the best out of this trip". American Eagle threw a rock at a huge turd with dragonfly wings. the rock missed and landed in one of Government Cheese's holes. Government Cheese either didn't notice or seemed to ignore this. " Can we at least check out the castle?? that is why we came in the first place". American Eagle hocked a floppy bogey into a gopher hole " might as well we've probably missed the little miss orgy pageant anyhow!".
The first edition of the Zone Dweebie pamphlet was written by an alien creature who's species was actually called 'Zone Dweebie", it wrote down the basic Zone Dweebie theology and powers with nothing more than a pad of white paper and a box of Crayola crayons. So advanced was this creatures thought processes that it used all 8 colors. So quick was this creatures thought processes it only took it 5 minutes to complete. It then passed on this sacred text to the holy publisher " his name no longer matters", then, the text was mailed to the man who would become the first Zone Dweebie. " For the sake of posterity his name no longer matters either". Some high falutin' nambey pambey historions try to use the fact that the alien wrote it in 5 minutes with a box of crayons, to prove that the alien was playing a cruel practical joke on us the whole time, and is still somewhere laughing at us all for following any bit of pop philosophy like helpless cattle. "but we know better don't we? that's right! ! if it was a joke it wouldn't have gone this far now would it?? well, there you go, case closed, now shut up and practice your powers".
- the other page of the Zone Dweebie pamphlet
American Eagle and Government cheese made their way up to the doorway of castle Grogowugga. " so how does it open? do we just go in or is there a password or what?", American Eagle inquired of Government Cheese.
" How should I know? just because this was all my idea doesn't mean I know what's going on", was Government Cheese's answer to the inquiry. American Eagle perked up and grinned " hold it, I've got an idea I do", American Eagle extended a feathered finger and pushed the chrome enameled doorbell with the intricate carvings of nuclear warning symbols. " There by golly, that aught to get the ball rolling", said American Eagle admiring his good deed for the day. Government Cheese objected " I don't know, I seriously doubt that was a doorbell. I think it was THE BUTTON ". American Eagle shook his head in disgust " you stupid chunk of surplus dairy product substitute, how dare you even imply that I, American Eagle, greatest super hero in the known universe, would be stupid enough to push THE BUTTON ? besides, what chimp would put THE BUTTON on the front door of a castle?".
" Well, there's this note here that says " THE BUTTON, we trust our visitors not to press aforementioned button because, who would be stupid enough to push said button in question", gee I guess they didn't take you into account did they?",
Government Cheese gloated.
" Well, anyone who protects their nuclear arsenal with nothing but the honor system deserves everything they get. this will teach these people a valuable lesson", American Eagle grumbled. Government Cheese whipped out a starship remote control unit
" Good thing I've learned from the last five times you've done this, I left the Teleporters in the ship activated for a quick escape". American Eagle petted Government Cheese on the top of his pointy wedge head " quick thinking G.C ". just then, fifteen mushroom clouds formed on the horizon, and American Eagle and Government Cheese vanished in a whirl of blue triangular sparkles.
in the year 5000, The United Universe issued construction of five time Pods. each one to be piloted by a genetically engineered, bionically enhanced, syntho growoids .
These growoids would then be sent into key points in history to either intervene, or to just observe and make fun of the clothing.
in the year 5001 the timepods were launched, four of them where successful one lost contact and was never heard from again.
In the year 2740 a timepod materialized from metaspace. the pods Subbub-Neutrino-Net radio had been damaged during the trip. resulting in loss of contact.
Zoria bacillus jiggled the switch on her radio " oh shit well this is just great, now what the hell am I supposed to do? well I guess I'm going to have to complete my mission and hope for the best". Zoria checked her mission computer. 41st century computers no longer need screens, nor do they require buttons, the current model now present in Zoria's ship has a direct telepathic link to her, established by the mere fact that it is from so far in the future. The computer uses this link to automatically feed the information to her mind as if she already knew the answer. Zoria received a clear mental image of a mission synopses document which read " Objective#1 help the Zone Dweebies with the battle with Joe Jowe, Objectivc#2 laugh and point at the one that dies".
" I think I can manage that second part pretty well. I'll just do that part and get half credit on the assignment". Just then, she received a mental image of her timepod exploding and the words " Objective#1 not completed, termination activated", flashing in red three dimensional letters. Zoria then sent back a mental image of her approximation of a computer programmer being castrated with a rusty razor, after that the computer wouldn't speak to her for an hour.
The prostitute, clad in a neon glo-plastic g-string, unfolded the crinkled piece of paper handed to her by the 6 foot tall pine tree " or was it a man in a tree suit?". An ecstatic giggle came from the tree as she read it aloud " you naughy little tree, you've been a bad Christmas tree. all you're getting for Christmas is a spanking you naughty little shrub".
" Read it louder this time", ordered the tree calmly. She read it again, loudly as the tree had asked her to. " More feeling whore!! you're getting paid I want quality!!" shouted the tree, obviously becoming irritated. She read it again, this time louder and simulating a scolding tone of voice. " No I'm sorry, you're just not working out.
Tell that other one to come in", sighed the tree disappointedly. A thick hipped, bucked toothed, four eyed, flat chested, girl dressed like someone who obviously was doing this to pay the bills walked in. " I'm doing this to pay the bills", said the girl matter of factly. "This little college girl is gonna lose her innocence in a big way", thought the tree wickedly to his/itself. The tree showed her to an armchair in the corner of the room" hello doll, names Spruce, read this note, and make me feel it". She read the note at just the right tone and volume. Spruce rustled and shook rapidly, and sickening slapping sounds came from him. " Yeah yeah that's it baby make me pay!! say the words baby", said Spruce shakily. Spruce gave one last hard twitch " aaauuuagghh eh eh ahhh there, perfect, not much to look at but boy what an actress ". A zipping sound came from Spruce, then a hand came from within his branches and gave the hooker a $50 bill. " See ya round baby that was just what the tree surgeon ordered ". As Spruce walked away the girl noticed a small puddle of what appeared to be pinesap but she wasn't about to examine it.
Spruce was now tooling along asphault space at 10 LYPS " light years per second", when suddenly a Pholdhouse jumped out of nowhere and brought his nice little ride to a screeching hault. " well what a stupid place to put a world, that wasn't here last time I came this way. frigging construction crews got nothing better to do I guess", cursed Spruce repulsed.
Harry was fast asleep in his electro chemical heated slush bed. He was having the convenient flashback dream yet again. In the dream Harry was standing on his fictional homeworld of Earth+ . Harry broke into a nervous sweat " this cartoon never will end", Harry shivered. It was just at that moment when severe plot faultlines began to rupture and caused the entire planet to explode. Millions of twisted misshapen cartoon people boiled away in the conflagration . Harry only survived by being the only person on Earth+ standing on a solid chunk of ground. It looked like this tiny bit of luck was about to run out quickly though, as Harry's chunk of earth was hurtling towards the sun very quickly. the searing heat started a roaring inferno all around Harry, the sun filled the sky, Harry shrieked in terror, the chunk of Earth+ smacked into the sun and boiled away with a tiny fissing sound.
Harry dusted himself off and took note of his surroundings, the legends were true, there was a regular Earth on the opposite side of the sun from Earth+. Luckily, he had stood on the right spot that he knew would be flung free of the blast and pass through the ripple in the plotline thus zipping through a timespace wormhole and popping out directly on planet Earth in the year 2738.
Harry quickly blended himself into futuristic normal Earth society, and got a car and a wife. Not long after, he hooked himself up with the Zone Dweebies because their snappy dress sense matched his exactly. The recruiter told him that they were dying out or some foolishness to that effect just before he "the recruiter", was dismembered by a hoard of angry budgies. Harry woke up from the annoying back story dream and vowed never to dream it again. He then went back to sleep and dreamt about how odd it was that many people in the futuristic normal Earth were the same people from the primitive Earth+, which just proved that you just can't get any better than Earth+ when it comes to personality evolution. He was about to dream about how bathroom sink water tastes better than kitchen sink water for some reason, when suddenly the Pholdhouse was torn in half by a green jagged edged space ship the size of an oil truck and resembling a Christmas tree. Harry and his cohorts were flung 300 feet from the crash and all landed in the lake outdoors.
American Eagle and Government Cheese materialized aboard their ship without a scratch. the fantasy planet exploded sending a humongous energy ripple the size of Saturn's ring smashing into the ship's hull and hurling it up to 8-D speed. American Eagle smacked painfully up against some very wickedly shaped controls. Government Cheese fell down an access hatchway and landed in a pool of harmless plutonium solution, and sank up to his eyeballs the ship sped along, still traveling under the enertia of the energy ripple. Just when it seemed like it would never slow down, it smacked into a planet that slowed it down to the safe cruising speed of O.MPH. Government Cheese crawled out of a pile of some generic all purpose spaceship wreckage " this wasn't the fun slap happy vacation I envisioned".
" that's funny", remarked American Eagle " all our vacations end up like this, so I saw it coming a mile away".
Zoria finally got the computer to respond to her questions. she asked it where the closest habitable planet was. It gave her a mental image of a large green Earthish planet it then gave a mental image of the Zone Dweebies all together and crawling over huge piles of spaceship wreckage. " That's where we want to go ", she said as the timepod jumped in and out of 8-D and arrived at the exact same planet in the mental image.
Harry crawled out of the lake. he shook the water off of his watertight pompadore and switched on the heat dryer switch on his belt buckle. The hatch on the pine tree ship opened up and a very familiar pine bough clad gentleman hopped out " Spruce, it figures, just when I'm enjoying a good rest he has to come along", Harry thought to himself.
" Harry! !! its you, I knew you'd survive, you always do", Spruce remarked joyously.
" how did you survive?", Harry asked amazed and annoyed to see his off and on sidekick again.
Spruce pulled out a crude map drawn in magic marker " remember you sold me this map of spots to stand on when the world blows up, for 20 bucks",
Harry nodded " that's right I remember now I needed the money for a pornographic video game". Harry noticed that Jel, Moomin, Horseradish, Ferrin, and Omneron had recovered and crawled out of the lake.
Ferrin took the Neutrino Bike maps out of his suit jacket pocket. the lake water had made the letters ooze beyond repair. " well there goes that dream. this is still more fun than doing taxes though".
Jel noticed a spaceship approaching at dangerous speed, and pointed a finger shaped blop skyward. Moomin spotted it a split second later " hey do you guys think that streaky thing could be a problem?", he queried expecting the answer to be yes.
"Yes", answered Omneron to Moomin's query.
"Oh, well that's okay then, I thought it was going to be a problem", retorted Moomin relieved. The ship crashed into Spruce's ship with an indescribable explosion. The explosion was accompanied by an almost indescribable sound affect, it could be described as a "kerslammy", but that doesn't quite do it justice.
Government Cheese shoved the mangled door away, fell 3 stories, and landed with a nauseating thud. "No don't put yourselves out on our account', commented American Eagle putridly as he pompously gnawed on his garlic and chili chutney flavored vomit burger. " Oh Jesus Christ Almighty!! not you guys too I can't believe this", groaned Harry.
Zoria gave the mental signal to beam down, she instantaneously appeared in the midst of the commotion with a "boink".
41st century teleporters work on the principle that if you go deeper and deeper into smaller and smaller quantum particles there comes a point when there are no particles, but instead there is just electro magnetic vibration. Since matter is just a wave pattern, all you have to do is transmit the waves with a similar attuned carrier wave and the whole object just appears at its destination at the speed of light without all the wasted data storage needed for the clumsy process of atomic disintegration and reintegration. It wasn't long after the invention of the carrier wave beam Teleport that someone began whining that the speed of light wasn't good enough for them, so another team of scientists began cooking up the next model. It didn't take long for the breakthrough, since matter is just vibration then there is really no object there at all. No object occupying space equals nothing, and since you are nothing, you can travel faster than something because nothing is always faster than something. This speed of nothing is easily proved because no matter how fast something travels " even if your something is light", nothing is always there before something gets there for it to fill in. Before there was the universe " which is a massive blob of something", there was an infinite void of nothing. If nothing got there squijillions of years before something showed up to occupy it, nothing obviously must be faster.
The new Teleport system projects the nothingness of the object instantaneously to any point in space no matter how far away. This obviously got the people who build starships worried. To preserve all the gwadillions of jobs connected to the starship building, maintenance, and upgrading industries, the United Universe passed legislation that all Teleports must be used for traditional spacecraft to ground " and vise versa", transport only. They also decreed that all information revealing their ability to transport anything to any where else in a scintillasecond will be suppressed, shredded, and or be used as personal toilet tissue of the United Universe representatives.
Harry rubbed his eyes and looked again " don't bother explaining how you guys escaped I can take a wild guess".
American Eagle grit his teeth " you gonna help me down or just let me fall and be a crippled vegetable like G.C down there?", he rumbled.
Harry smirked nonchalantly " for one thing Government Cheese was a vegetable to start with. secondly, aren't you guys supposed to be able to fly? especially considering you in particular are possessed of wings?".
American Eagle expressed surprise " hey, you're right! well, that's handy. oh, by the way, that was one nonchalant smirk you got there".
" Yes I know I've been practicing for weeks", admitted Harry pompously.
Just then, there was a loud "boink", sound accompanied by the instantaneous appearance of a gorgeous woman. " that's something that doesn't happen often", remarked Jel.
She was dressed in a green tubetop, a black bikini bottom, a black gun holster, green nylons "of course they were actually composed of a futuristic bulletproof temperature proof polymer", black knee high leather boots " leather-like actually, they too being composed of a futuristic material made to withstand molten lava", and elbow length black "leather", gloves. she was completely bald on the right side of her head and on the left side was a massive bread loaf sized swoop of dark turquoise shoulder length hair. The bald side of her head had a tattoo of a green squid waving one of it's tentacles. She was wearing black lipstick and a green mirrored scanvizer. Stowed in her gun holster was a voidgun, which used blackholes as an inkwell to pour out a constant high pressure stream of metamatter. The guns low setting could bash the bottom off of an iceburg leaving the tip unscathed, medium setting could knock small moons out of orbit, high setting is best left alone. In her left hand she held a yard long metal rod topped with a blue crystal ball.
This weapon was a standard issue timestik, it destroyed its targets by blowing a bubble in the force of time and projecting the bubble at the intended victim. Just as there is no water inside of an air bubble, there is no time inside of a time bubble. Because of this, when a time bubble passes through a being the bodily functions of the portion of the body hit by the bubble freeze in time, since the rest of the body continues functioning the frozen part is out of sink with the rest of the body, even after the time bubble has moved on, the time damaged bodily organs are always a few seconds off and can never catch up with the rest of the bodies functions, resulting in hemorrhaging, ruptures, organ system failures, and 99.9999999999999996% of the time death.
Zoria pressed on a small 1/4 inch square green tattooed blotch on the back of her hand. immediately, her hair changed a dark green " the United Universe's standard diplomacy shade". " Hey its a woman ", exclaimed Government Cheese. I am Zoria Bacillus of the continuity preservation department of the United Universe I am here to..hey!!! my ship!!".
When Harry looked back on this meeting years later, he knew he had done the right thing. The rest of his thoughts were occupied by his quijillion dollar Neutrino empire. Harry had Omneron scan Zoria's timecraft and interface with it's computer system. Omneron then boinked Harry into the cockpit, reconfigured the telepathic link to Harry's brainwaves, and timeported to the year 2134 and submitted the 2740 model Neutrino transceiver system to the patent office. In a very short span of time Harry became richer and more powerful than Joe Jowe even in the future. This also had the added bonus of erasing Joe Jowe's existence from the future. For an added precaution, Harry had Omneron track down Joe Jowe's address boinked right into his living room and Quantumized him with the last bit of battery charge from his muon gun. Harry also got substantial financial benefit from the peace alliance established by the world governments With Alzergia made possible by his Galactic range Neutrino transmitter array. Harry was now lounging in his sub-graviton Flote-patio chair planning his next move. He had to find a way for Earth+ to survive being turned into a whiff of space gas.
" I dunno a whole planet to save and I don't even know what blew it up in the first place. Omneron, you got any suggestions?". A solid hexagonal column-like head floated on an inflatable alligator in the Pacific Ocean Harry had fenced in to be his private swimming pool. Omneron thought awile then answered " what if we go back in time and see what blew it up? then, we could go back in time again and stop it".
" I suppose that makes sense, okay then I'll get my things together" said Harry enthusiastically. A few short hours later Omneron and Harry pulled out of metaspace in the year 1993 in their Time Lamborgini " having also patented the timepod and buying the coolest spinoff of the technology".
" Okay Omneron boink me down to the surface and boink me back up if you see anything up here".
" Will do", Omneron replied as he gave a thumbs up gesture with his body he had custum built to match his sologramic ceramic head.
It was a fairly average day on planet Earth, that's is, until there was a loud "boink" sound accompanied by the simultaneous appearance of a very gawky looking goon in sweatclothes and red rubber superhero boots. He stood there looking very annoyed
" This isn't Earth+, this must be that other Earth on the other side of the sun I went to in the future, except in the past. It's pretty boring without the future going on too".
Just then, he realized he was standing in the middle of the freeway. Before he could twitch an eyelash, let alone get away, he was smashed into by a tractor trailer truck going 80 MPH.
Omneron was monitoring the situation from space, suddenly, he lost all contact with Harry's brainwaves. " Must be sunspots, I'll go around". Omneron flew the Time Lamborgini to a more advantageous location near the back of the sun when he noticed another Earth with a big black "+" sign stamped onto the middle of America and Canada.
" Oh, that Earth+", just then, a ripple in the plotline smacked into the Time Lambourgini full speed and reduced the Lambourgini to space gas. Fortunately, Omneron's plot proof enamel allowed him to survive, Unfortunately, the ripple never destroyed Earth+ ,thus changing history so that Harry never went to the future to meet the other Zone Dweebies, so he never brought Omneron to the past to get a body in the first place. Omneron realizing this disappeared with a "POP!". Harry of course, didn't know what had just gone on, being in a coma for the past few months so he was pretty much stuck on Earth and in the past. Harry wondered why Omneron never made psychic contact. As the years sped by, he gave up on telepathy and tried making verbal contact by screaming to the heavens into the wee hours of the morning. Just when it seemed that all hope was lost, he was arrested for disturbing the peace. When he explained his reasons for the screaming, he was sent to a mental institution . As the decades whizzed by like a distorted dream at the state mental hospital, Harry wondered if it was all worth it in the end, but the Mister Ed reruns and the shock treatments constantly reminded him that it was.
The Harold Horatio Hartcort Hembock case, revolutionized the treatment used on Complex fantasy disorders in the field of psychotherapy and made several pop psychology authors rich.
end of file
Posted on Jul 10, 2005, 1:46 PM from IP address 24.53.125.85
Billdude's well thought out "Batman Begins" review
by Billdude
A decent movie--more notable for being almost completely unembarrassing (aside from the iffy flashback scenes), and interesting from a screenwriter's point of view, than for actually being fun to watch.
I'm not going to bother deciding whether this is "the best" Batman movie so far; for one, I don't like to use the term "the best" on something that's just decent. Furthermore, in my mind at least, it seems like a fallacy to compare this to the other Batman movies; this really isn't a "comic book" movie, is it? "Graphic novel movie" would be more appropriate. Even with stuff like that funny monster truck of a proto-Batmobile around, nothing in the film felt cartoonish at all. It's not really a movie for kids (even if I'd rather let my theoretical kids go see it than "Batman Returns.") I suppose that should be a good thing--certainly better we have this than another "Batman & Robin," obviously. But even if my basic opinion is favorable, I don't really feel like watching this movie again.
It's hard to say why, because there seems to be few obvious things to criticize, again, because of the lack of "cartoonishness." But when I think about it I can narrow it down to two reasons. One is that the film is so briskly paced so as to get all of the story in on time that it's hard to figure out what the fuck is going on; this is a very rapid-fire movie in terms of exposition, while at the same time having a lot to explain. The climactic action scenes are a confusing mess. This ties into the second problem: the film seems like an hour of setup followed by an hour of...action crossed with further setup. It seems to follow the annoying trend of "X-Men" and "Spiderman" in that it seems like a warmup for a sequel that's going to blow the original out of the water. (Come to think of it, the climactic mess of the film resembles "Spider-Man 2" a little bit too much...and then there's how Batman's parents were killed just like Spider-Man lost Uncle Ben...and Batman's need to "discover" himself and learn that revenge is a pitiful excuse for justice like Spider-Man...the little theme music is awfully similar to Danny Elfman's motif in "Spider-Man"...egh, fuck it, I said this WASN'T a comic book movie.)
Oh and Christian Bale. Nothing really wrong with his performance; nothing really memorable about it, either. Come to think of it, I guess it really could be compared to the Schumacher/Burton Batman films, then--nobody in any Batman film has ever seemed to have much fun playing Bruce Wayne, who is still a stoic, straight-faced bore. I guess it's written into the role. So it still doesn't really matter who plays Batman as long as they don't embarrass themselves.
There is still a lot to admire about the film. It's well cast, well enough acted, and has the usual pleasant dark Batman feel about it. It's got some good action scenes. It is interesting to see Batman learning his philosophy and gaining his strength from people he later learns to distrust. The villains' right-wing "society must be burned down since it cannot be saved" philosophy is interesting (if unoriginal), I suppose, because at first they seem to be right; you can really believe that Batman/Wayne would trust them. I liked the special effects when the Scarecrow makes people freak--that really grabbed me. I didn't care at all that the love story was tepid, since it's about as relevant to the film as...well, it's not, really.
Yet, even if Ebert has found the Batman movie "he'd always been waiting for," I really haven't. Maybe I just don't care for Batman.
Posted on Jun 18, 2005, 1:38 PM from IP address 129.130.93.75
Yeah, maybe it really is dead this time! Hah! If so, I figured they'd never get it. You think there are any web forums that have gone on any longer than we have?
Have any of you people had KIDS yet?
I realized I didn't remember the addresses for either of our other boards, so I had to plug your name into Google which didn't work (I found another forum you posted "The Krazyfool Show" at!) and then Yahoo and I found this place.
I guess Josh obviously has lost interest in the place, and Legion is gone to post an occasional message at economyofeffort.com.
Soooo......
Posted on Jun 16, 2005, 6:41 PM from IP address 129.130.93.80
Richard stormed into the living room, having just come home from the office, and slammed his briefcase down on the kitchen table.
He then leaned with emotional exhaustion against the sink countertop, and let the tears of rage drip into the sink.
Finally, his wife Peggy worked up the courage to walk up and ask him what was wrong, wordlessly, with a gentle rub on the shoulder.
Richard, having swallowed back the tears stared blankly into the sink, unable to face his wife.
"The other lawyers picked on me again", he said through a dry throat.
Peggy nodded with a simultanious compassion, and dissapointment in her man, and then asked "The ones at the bad kid's table in the lunchroom?".
Richard nodded.
Peggy rubbed his back with long deep strokes, but this only got thim to crying again.
She sighed and shook her head.
Finally, she said "do you...want to go to the army room now? Will that make you feel better?".
Richard let in a wavery mucous filled inhalation, and nodded.
And with that, he turned in the direction of the army room, and walked away from Peggy.
She tried to follow him, a worried look on her face, but he held up a hand that said "stay back, woman".
At the end of the hall stood an ornate wooden door with a medieval family crest on it.
The crest of Richard's family.
The crest of the house of Bozo.
Richard whispered the name in his mind, puffed his chest with pride, and opened the door.
There it was, the special den Richard had fixed up, that Peggy had taken to calling "the army room".
It was as good a name as any, Richard supposed, and besides, it wasn't worth fighting over a better name once Peggy had nicknamed something.
The permanent teeth marks in his groin from when he tried to poo-poo and put a kybosh on the name "Mr. Pippy", reminded him of that.
There it all was, up on plaques, in elaborate display cases, and hanging in expensive frames.
Ancient and modern relics and trophys of the house of Bozo.
A complete suit of armor.
Twenty swords, including the one true ancestral sword of Bozo.
Maces, axes, all the way up to guns and grenades.
Tracing the proud history of the Bozo line from the begining of recorded history up to now.
Bozo.
A proud name, a warrior name.
A name that struck terror in the hearts of tribesman and Turks.
A name that should have gone down alongside that of Attilla.
But hadn't.
All because of that fucking clown.
Richard then gloomily looked at his own contribution to the army room.
An angrily torn off sewing merit badge, and a 3rd place bowling trophy.
Richard hung back his head, and let fresh new tears slide back toward his ears.
Meanwhile, Peggy was rereading her secret stash of love letters from Jack the pet groomer.
The not so secret stash that Richard had found a couple times already.
The not so secret stash that among many, many, other things, Richard now furiously drank to forget.
Foremost among them, that fucking, fucking, clown.
THE END.
Posted on Jun 14, 2005, 11:11 PM from IP address 24.53.125.85
From the "tales that leave you wanting more", series.
Inspiration song- "Fixing a hole". Beatles.
Alarm clock rings.
Melvin Spauvac rolls away from the noise, and painfully onto his morning wood, is jolted into further wakefulness, rolls back, is forced to stand all the way up to reach the off button.
He sits back down on the edge of the bed for awhile, dream subsiding, wood subsiding, head wobbling but clearing, stomach bubbling.
Lifts his leg, lets out long morning fart.
Waves hand behind back to dispurse the smell.
Morning excercises.
All the way awake now.
Upsy daisy, Mr. Spauvac.
Heads to the kitchen, opens fridge, gets out the jam, the cold cuts, and the bowl of egg salad prepared the night before, and starts making sandwiches.
Wraps the sandwiches in saran wrap, stuffs them into a brown paper bag, slips a single individually wrapped twinkie in.
All set now.
Looks down.
Hobbles back to the bedroom, finally puts some pants on.
NOW all set.
Out to the office now, fax machine is tweetling, waits a bit, come on, come on, damned cover sheet. There.
Ah, the new map's in.
Checks the coordinates with a compass and slide rule held against a globular form painted black and imprinted with all the known galaxies.
Knods with satisfaction, and finally heads out to the garage.
And there she is.
The white albacore.
The envy of the amatuer submersable community.
Not the prettiest, or the most expensive, but the best.
As far as Melvin cares anyway.
Pats her for good luck, and climbs up into the top hatch.
Closes, screws 'er tight, gets the sandwich bag situated, and we're ready to go.
Fires up the power, flicks an array of switches, turns some dials to the settings on the faxed in map, and presses the big red button.
Pedestal opens, leaving the white albacore dangling 2 feet above the floor, and seconds after, the the boson tunneler fires up with a green hiss.
Garage floor wavers, becomes transluscent, and at last the anticipated moment.
The support claw releases, and drops her in.
Gloosh.
Melvin taps at the CD player, and gets Sgt. Peppers fired up.
Opens bag, unwraps the peanut butter and jelly and slowly nibbles waiting to reach the right depth.
When the sandwich is done, depth is reached, so, fires up the sonar and waits.
3 songs into the CD, the fish start showing up.
Melvin digs out one of the disposable cameras from the glove compartment, as well as his notbook with the blue pen stuffed into the ring binder.
Lot of the usual types today.
Glowey things.
Mostly circular.
Couple squares.
Trumpet thing with a flagella.
Pink one today, that's new, snap, scribble.
Goes on like this for about 45 mintes.
Then Big Bob comes.
He seems angry.
Doesn't see the albacore though.
Nope, fakeout, he's coming right at her.
No prob, Melvin's already unwrapping the egg salad sandwich.
Loads it into the sample/launcher hatch, and blasts it into Big Bob's mouth.
Big Bob hates egg salad as much as Melvin.
He'll stay away for a good week or so now, before his tiny fish brain forgets.
Then, about three fourths of the way through Sgt. Peppers, and half way through the roast beef sandwich, and well after the twinkie, is when the really odd thing happend.
Melvin mistook it for a freaky new type of trumpet fish at first.
But nope, it wasn't.
It was a submersable.
And only about 8 yards away.
And not one from the submersable society either.
This one was coming up from the ocean floor, and upside down.
And by squinting, Melvin could see the occupant.
A woman, about 5 foot 3, 120 pounds, torquise skin, luminescant blue hair in a sort of prince albert with two pony tails in the back, and pink eyes.
She seemed to recoil in horror when she noticed Melvin.
Gee, thanks a lot lady.
Eyeroll.
Snap, scribble.
And with that, she worked some controls out of sight of the edge of her porthole, and the submersable quickly receeded back into the ocean floor.
Melvin noted that it was getting late, and he ought to head back himself.
So, he finished his sandwich, got all his junk situated, and raised back up.
On the way back up, he noted there were still 5 more shots left on the film.
He was tempted to use 'em up on any old thing to get it developed quicker, but he reminded himself that'd be wasteful as well as unprofessional, so stuffed the camera back into the glove compartment after the journal.
Tommorrow.
Sort it out tommorrow.
THE END.
Posted on Jun 9, 2005, 10:06 PM from IP address 24.53.125.85
KF - Read '...The Gods Themselves' by Asimov. I think you'd like it. Gotta stick with it until the end. It can be a bit slow, but the last 80-100 pages are great.
Posted on Apr 22, 2005, 7:42 AM from IP address 204.194.75.3