SG/PRECOG: Sporkman #5.5 - A New Recap

[Greg Fishbone]

SG/PRECOG: Sporkman #5.5 - A New Recap

Sporkman Arc Directory:
        Sporkman #1 - #5: "Rude Awakenings"
        ==> YOU ARE HERE <==
        Sporkman #6 - #?: "Lemurs on a Dirigible"

Posting Schedule:
        Weekly, except when it's not. There will be a two-week break at the
        end of the year--so no new episodes during the weeks of 12/23/07 and
        12/30/07--but we'll make those weeks up with extra episodes during
        the weeks of 12/16/07 and 1/6/08. Who knows, you may see a bonus
        flashback episode or two. Happy holidays, and thanks for reading!

PREVIOUSLY ON THE SPORKARIFIC SPORKMAN...

     In a bedchamber overlooking the Paris skyline, Jeanette LeBlanc
watched the young man sleep, trying to figure out how he could look so
young and so old at the same time. Was it the careless stubble on his
cheeks or the pale scar across his forehead? Even in his sleep, he
looked tense and troubled, like he had seen the worst horrors of war
and come out on the losing side...

* * *

     "Happy birthday to me. Twenty-two of the longest years in
history." He finished his toast by downing the rest of his glass...

* * *

     The man was reliving a battle in his sleep, Jeanette realized. A
real superguy martial-artsfest, by the look of it. Graceful flips and
rolls punctuated by slashes and thrusts from his stainless steel
spoon-fork...

* * *

     "What exactly can I do for you, Miss?" he asked.

     "My life is in great danger and I need zee protection of a
superhero," said Jeanette.

     The young man laughed. "I'm Mickey Dunne, a college dropout and
unemployed loser, hitchhiking through Europe and slowly drinking
himself into oblivion. You obviously have me confused with somebody
else."

     "You are lying. I know what you are. I have zhat ability."

* * *

     Muffled explosions rocked the underground death factory, rattling
support chains, knocking machine parts from the shelves, and causing
fifteen-hundred security droids to sway back and forth on their
gyro-swivels. In the control room overlooking the factory floor,
fifteen-year-old Roger Important dropped his PSP in surprise...

* * *

     "You're not a slave, Tee-Tee," Roger told Underling Number
Twenty-Two, for what felt like the millionth time since he was seven
and she was a newly-engineered life form left for him under the
Important family Christmas tree with a red bow on top of her head.
"You're free to leave at any time."

     "And abandon my purpose? Never!"

* * *

     Roger picked up the gun and gave it a grim look before tucking it
into the waistband of his jeans. "This is officially the worst
after-school job I've ever had. For three bucks an hour less, I could
have been flipping patties at Spoonburger!" Another explosion
shattered the fluorescent bulbs above the control room. Green
emergency lights flickered on. On the factory floor below, machinery
sparked and the security droids tumbled over like dominos...

* * *

     The last droid stopped moving. The last piece of factory
machinery burst into flame. The intruder reached the ladder up to the
control booth and began to climb. It was a woman, Roger realized with
surprise, and she was only a few years older than he was--about the
same age that Tee-Tee had always seemed to be. She held a gleaming
metal staff, capped at both ends with gigantic spoon-shaped bowls. The
heroine's face and domino mask were smudged with soot from numerous
explosions, her red hair streaked with droid fluids, and her black and
red bodysuit torn in all the right places to show off her toned
muscles and swimsuit-model curves...

* * *

     The superheroine's green eyes narrowed to angry slits. "I am
Spoonstryke, one of the world's foremost detectives and a certified
forensic criminologist. I hold top belts and honors in every form of
martial arts known to mankind and three that I have invented for
myself. I save the world on a fairly regular basis and I am sick to
death of being ogled at like a piece of meat." She held the spoonstaff
in a threatening pose and shouted, "I AM NOT HOT!!!"

* * *

     Jeanette sighed. "You have to understand, I've had zhese hunches
all my life and never gave zhem a second thought. Going against a
hunch had always made me feel bad, but zhis time was so much worse. I
had nausea, 'eadaches, blurry vision, and zee constant hunch through
my first semester zhat eet still wasn't too late to quit. "

     "I dropped out of school myself. It just didn't seem important
anymore after--" Mickey looked out over the city and sighed. "You're
not the only one with uncertainties, Miss LeBlanc."

* * *

     Mickey stared at the costumed woman on the front of the shiny
holographic DVD box. The captions were in English: "Action!!!
Adventure!!! Externalized Inner Monologues!!! Emma Dunne is...THE
NARRATOR!"

     "Well?" asked Jeanette. "Does zhis have any special meaning for you?"

     "That's my mom," he said in a distant voice. "I have to get back
to the United States, Jeanette. I have to see her."

     Jeanette smiled. "I'll reserve us two tickets on zee Supersonic
Airship Unsplodable."

* * *

     Mickey took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay, I'll tell
you about my secret past--but only so you'll stop expecting me to save
you."

     "I am, how you say, all ears."

     "I am... I was... That is, they used to call me..." He had to
close his eyes before he could speak the name. "I'm Sporkboy. I have a
ring that turns into a spork--a half-fork, half-spoon--and that's it.
Other than that, I'm just an ordinary guy. My cousin was a superguy
and that was the only reason why I didn't get myself killed every time
I put on my stupid Sporkboy costume. I told myself that I was just as
much of a hero as the other members of our team, but it wasn't true.
They were the heroes, and I was just a dorky kid playing superhero
games."

* * *

     Roger Important and Underling Number Twenty-Two hung
back-to-back, wrapped in stainless steel cable, suspended above the
entrance to the underground death factory. "Wait! Hold on!" Roger
called to Spoonstryke. "You're just going to leave us like this?"

     Spoonstryke put her curiously spoon-shaped mobile phone away and
pondered the hanging teenager for a moment. "You know, Roger, you
don't have to enter your family's line of business just because that's
what's expected of you. Follow your own heart and get out before--"
She turned away, and for just a moment Roger thought he heard a
tremble in her voice. "Get out before you no longer have a choice in
the matter."


NOW YOU'RE READY FOR THE EXCITING SECOND CHAPTER OF THE SPORKMAN
SAGA--"Lemurs on a Dirigible" begins next week!


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I wasn't thinking of story structure when I started writing this
series, which was a liberating change of pace from book writing. I was
in the middle of the second arc before realizing that those chapters
were turning into some sort of transition between the previous set of
episodes and the next, almost like some sort of bridge or conduit or--
Dang, it's an arc!

That's why "Rude Awakenings" mushes into "Lemurs on a Dirigible"
without any clear transition. Putting the cut after Episode #5 was an
arbitrary choice, since it could have just as easily happened after
Episode #4, but "Lemurs" is running long already--at least seven
episodes and probably more like eight.

For the "Lemurs" arc I asked people to suggest a 000SUPERGUY celebrity
they wouldn't mind seeing torn apart by wild lemurs while on a
transatlantic airship flight. Since the RACC edition of Sporkman is
running on a four-episode delay, and since I try to write a couple
episodes in advance, it's no longer possible to get any new celebrity
lemur victims into the plot. We at Sporkman Enterprises, Inc.
apologize for any inconvenience.

-- 
Greg R. Fishbone - http://gfishbone.com
* Author: THE PENGUINS OF DOOM - http://septinanash.com
* President: Class of 2k7 - http://classof2k7.com
* ARA: New England SCBWI - http://nescbwi.org