SG/PRECOG: Sporkman #15.5 - A New Recap

[Greg Fishbone]

SG/PRECOG: Sporkman #15.5 - A New Recap

Sporkman Arc Directory:
        Sporkman #1 - #5: "Rude Awakenings"
        Sporkman #6 - #15: "Lemurs on a Dirigible"
        ==> YOU ARE HERE <==
        Sporkman #16 - #??: "Dillweed City Blues"

Posting Schedule:
        Weekly at least for ten episodes at least.


PREVIOUSLY ON THE SPORKARIFIC SPORKMAN...

     "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."

* * *

     Roger Important picked up the gun and gave it a grim look before
tucking it into the waistband of his jeans. "Guarding Uncle Nobody's
underground death factory 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...

* * *

     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. Below them, Spoonstryke
absently struck a steel I-beam over and over again with her bare
fists. Or at least, it had started out as an I-beam. Three hours of
repetitive pounding had flattened and shaped it to resemble a gigantic
teaspoon. "Eat your heart out, Claes Oldenburg!" the superheroine
exclaimed.

* * *

     "I am... I was... That is, they used to call me..." Mickey 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. "

* * *

     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."

* * *

     The airship's captain and crew stood at attention as Mickey and
Jeanette walked past. "Welcome aboard the Supersonic Airship
Unsplodable. I am your pilot, Captain Jack."

* * *

     A mobile phone buzzed, and Number Thirteen grimaced at the name
on the caller ID. "Hello, chief," he answered. "I'll be boarding any
minute now, but I'll be in coach while Miss LeBlanc preboarded to the
Luxury Level, along with her mysterious male companion."

     "The guy's not so mysterious, Thirteen. His name is Michael
Dunne, an American national with no known alternate identities or
agency affiliations."

     "So it's not a problem if he dies while I'm completing my mission?"

     "It's okay if he dies, and if the rest of the passengers die, and
if you yourself die as well--as long as the mission objective is
fulfilled."

* * *

     The luxury level had become livelier with the addition of
celebrities including Paris Hilton, Ryan Seacrest, Lindsay Lohan, O.J.
Simpson, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears. And over
by the pool... Mickey rubbed his eyes in disbelief. "Is that really
Ann Coulter and Michael Moore feeding each other peeled grapes in the
hot tub?"

     "What happens on zee luxury level stays on zee luxury level,"
Jeanette stated. "We are also not supposed to remark on Hillary
Clinton and Ted Kennedy playing strip poker with Dick Cheney and Rudy
Giuliani."

     "I have a bad feeling about this," said Mickey. "A lot of these
people are... well..."

     "Widely disliked, resented, or hated?" Jeanette asked. "Zee kind
of people zhat might be suggested if you were to ask an online
audience who zhey would like to see torn apart by wild lemurs?"

     "Exactly."

     "My hunch wasn't that zhis flight would be safe, Mickey. My hunch
was zhat this was zee flight you and I were meant to take."

* * *

     "Hey! Is there any motherfarkin' room in that motherfarkin' hot
tub?" a large man demanded of Michael Moore and Ann Coulter.

     "Hey! You're Samuel L. Jackson!" Mickey exclaimed.

     "Of course I'm motherfarkin' Samuel L. Jackson," said the man.
"I'm your motherfarkin' in-flight entertainment. Now pass me some
motherfarkin' peeled grapes!"

* * *

     In the airship's cargo hold, in an unassuming cardboard box, the
minute-hand on a Donald Duck wristwatch reached the top of the hour.
An alarm played a high-pitched digital version of Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah,
which triggered a sound-sensitive switch on the nozzle of a
pressurized canister. A cloud of mist slowly drifted across the hold.

     Thumps and squeals sounded from an enormous wooden crate at the
other end of the room. The front panel, covered in stencils reading
"WARNING: LIVE ANIMALS," strained against a dozen packing nails until
suddenly, it gave way with a frenzy of teeth and fur.

     Dark shapes scrambled in every direction, letting out wild noises
that sounded something like: "Frink-frink! P'tang! Woo-woo!"


* * *

     Rudy Giuliani startled himself awake and wondered why he was
stuck in a ventilation shaft with his arms tied behind his back, and
why his lips tasted vaguely of chloroform.

     The sound of approaching footsteps startled him. He struggled in
his bonds to turn his head, and the sight of a familiar figure
horrified him. "Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor," said the undead zombie
version of Bill O'Reilly. "I hope you've had a pleasant nap." A pack
of rabid lemurs scampered all around the zombie's heels.

     "So it wasn't all a dream!" Rudy exclaimed. "You really are a
member of the Seriously Nasty Undead Cthulu Cultists, Incorporated!"

     Zombie Bill laughed. "We're not the same SNUCCI you might
remember from so many years ago. We're a kinder, gentler offshoot:
UNCLE, the Undead Not-So-Bad Cultists Limited Enterprise. We're
working to make a nicer, more peaceful, tastier world for the Great
Devourer's imminent return."

* * *

     Mickey sighed and knelt down next to the corpse. "Male Caucasian,
approximately 65 years of age. The body is too badly mauled to
identify, but the clothes are consistent with those last seen on the
former mayor." He nodded at a 9/11 lapel pin attached to a fragment of
navy blazer. "Preliminary cause of death would appear to be an animal
attack. More like an animal swarm, really. Small animals, judging by
the bite and scratch marks in what's left of his soft tissues, but not
shaped like those of rodents. Strange. Time of death is consistent
with the scream we all heard--about ten minutes ago, give or take."

     Samuel whistled. "Man, you're good. You're like one of those CSI guys."

     "I'm okay," said Mickey, "but I used to work with someone who was
remarkable."

* * *

     Mickey peeked into the First Class passenger cabin and gasped at
the scene of mass carnage. Skeletal remains were buckled into most of
the seats, except for those who had died while attempting to run away
down the aisles.

     Samuel pushed past him. "Holy motherfarkin' cow! Giuliani was
just the appetizer. These folks were the main course!"

     "Dang!" exclaimed a voice from one of the seats. "I knew I was on
the wrong flight!"

     "Who said that?" asked Mickey. He scanned the rows of
skeletonized remains until he found a blonde-haired stick-figure that
was inexplicably still moving.

     "It's me!" The skeleton waved her metacarpals. "I'm a Survivor!"

     "Only just barely, by the looks of it," said Mickey.

     "No, silly. I'm Courtney from 'Survivor: China.' I should have
been killed along with everyone else, but for some reason those
creatures skipped right over me as if I had an immunity idol or
something."

     "Guess they figured it wasn't worth their while for the
half-ounce of meat clinging to your bones," said Samuel.

* * *

     Number Thirteen's frown deepened, which was impressive
considering the discomfort he was already in. The UNCLE operatives
were playing a particularly nasty game and here he was, pinned down in
Coach Class without an exit strategy. "Flesh-eating lemurs... Why does
it always have to be flesh-eating lemurs?"

     He would have to act soon, with or without a signal from his
employer. He would have to tip his hand, draw the ire of the zombie
cultists, and kill anyone who came between him and his objective.
Number Thirteen stole one final look out the window and blinked into a
cloud of dancing sparkles. It suddenly seemed as if the airship were
completely surrounded by fireflies.

     A smile crossed his face. "Signal received." Number Thirteen
closed his eyes and disappeared with a soft popping sound.

* * *

     "What's wrong?" asked Samuel L. Jackson.

     Mickey frowned. "Jeanette sounded a little off. Like there was
something else she wanted to say but couldn't. Maybe we should check
on the Luxury Level before we tackle the cockpit?"

     "That's not the action hero way," said Samuel. "Hey, aren't
lemurs some kind of primates? Like chimpanzees?"

     "I think so."

     "And a dirigible is just a blimp with a rigid structure, right?"

     "Yeah. So what?"

     "So..." Samuel straightened his shoulders and raised his arm in a
dramatic pose. "Let's get these motherfarkin' chimps off this
motherfarkin' blimp!"

* * *

     Mickey rubbed the edge of the crate and sniffed the thin residue
that came off on his fingertips. "These lemurs were under the
influence."

     "Of what?"

     Mickey looked around the cargo hold until he found an unassuming
pressurized canister with an unassuming timing device attached to it.
"Pheromones. Industrial Revolution Strength Spoon-o-Matic Brand
piranha pheromones."

* * *

     "What's going on here?" asked Samuel.

     "That girl sent us down here," said Britney Spears, gesturing
drunkenly with the bottle and spilling half of its remaining contents.
"That girl with the Double Double Plus Plus Plus Diamond Emerald Ruby
membership card. Jeanette Shomethin'. She had a hunch that the airship
would need a new pilot and co-pilot."

     "Hic!" hiccupped Lindsay Lohan in agreement.

* * *

     "Jeanette!" Mickey called.

     "Over here!" Jeanette waved. "I knew zhat you would save me!"

     "We're not safe yet," Mickey replied. While Samuel used his
flamethrower to keep the lemurs at bay, Mickey stepped to the intercom
and dialed the cockpit. "Blow the hatch!" he ordered.

     "Yeah! Okay! Hic!" came the reply, and a panel popped off the
ceiling with a rush of explosive decompression. A rope ladder dropped
down, leading up to the rubber-coated dirigible framework above.

     Speakers throughout the entire airship crackled to life with the
kind of announcement you never want to hear: "Attention, everybody!
This is your pilot, Britney Spears!"

     "And your co-pilot, Lindsay Lohan--Hic!"

     "And we've just turned on the Fasten Seatbelt sign to let you
know that we're about to plunge 30,000 feet straight down into the
ocean."

     "So there might be some--Hic!--turbulence! Hic-hic!"

* * *

     "Mickey, you can do this," Jeanette insisted. "Eet is the reason
zhat you are here!"

     "I don't know about this, Jeanette. I'm operating without a net here."

     "Wizhout a superguy to back you up, you mean?"

     "Exactly. People's lives are at stake and you're expecting an
awful lot from just an ordinary man with a spork."

     "You are not just a man with a spork," Jeanette insisted. "You
are... Sporkman!"

* * *

     Number Thirteen shoved the undead talk show host through the
smashed window of the Forward Observation Lounge. Zombie Bill flailed
his arms, discovering that his undead flesh was not quite as buoyant
as living flesh. He struggled to keep his head above the water. "You
win for now. UNCLE will recognize your claim on Jeanette LeBlanc, but
only because the larger battle is already won. The Great Devourer is
coming, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it!"

* * *

     Nobody Important snorted. "You? Stop Spoonstryke? Don't be
absurd, Twenty-Two. You and Roger never stood a chance."

     "But... then... I don't understand," said Roger. "You set us up
to fail? You planned for Spoonstryke to destroy your underground death
factory?"

     "Pretty much." Nobody Important removed a spray bottle and an
odd-looking lantern from his bag. He sprayed the floor and held up the
light, tracing a spiral pattern of larger and larger circles. His
smile widened when he sprayed the gigantic spoon sculpture. "Scraped
knuckles... intact epithelials... traces of blood... this will do.
This will sequence nicely!" He reached into his bag for a test-tube
and rubbed the sculpture with the business end of a Q-tip.

     "So that's what this was about?" asked Roger. "Collecting
Spoonstryke's DNA?"

     The supervillain held up the test-tube with a triumphant grin.
"Roger, my boy, you've done good work here today. You deserve a
reward. Tell me, how would you like a shiny new underling?"

* * *

NOW YOU'RE READY FOR THE EXCITING THIRD CHAPTER OF OUR SAGA!
"Dillweed City Blues" starts next week, only on Superguy (and RACC)!


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

The RACC edition of Sporkman runs on a four-episode delay from the
Superguy list, and I try to write a couple episodes in advance.  I
already have nine episodes "in the can" and a few more left to write,
so I can tell already that this will be the longest arc in the story
so far.  I think I'm finally starting to hit my stride with this
series and having a great time with it.  With this arc I'm revisiting
my old mid-90's series in a more direct way, tying up plot threads
that have been dangling for over a decade, introducing a bunch of new
characters, and setting up things that should unfold nicely in the
future.

As an experiment, I'm starting up a reader feedback feature thing.
Appropriate comments, questions, and speculations I receive will be
included, so please let me know what you think about this story.  And
if I don't get enough feedback, I'll have to make it up myself.

Thanks for reading!

-- 
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