[LNH/ACRA/WRIMO] Anal-Retentive Archive Kid: A Judicious Use Of Overkill #4

[Saxon Brenton]

Anal-Retentive Archive Kid: A Judicious Use Of Overkill - part 4
     
A Legion of Net.Heroes miniseries for the RaccoWriMo writing month 
Written by and copyright 2010 Saxon Brenton 
     
     
     After thoughtful preparation Anal-Retentive Archive Kid was ready.
     This *wouldn't* be spectacular.  No fight scenes, no explosions, no 
car chases, and no life-and-death struggles where the outcome was in doubt 
and would be determined by testosterone addled determination.  ARAK saw 
no point in leaving anything to chance when he had no particular ability 
for getting a story to favour him even if he was the protagonist.  
     Actually, the amount of slog work involved meant it would probably 
be long and tedious.  It was all well and good to aim for victory through 
superior firepower - but when you were one person taking on an extremely 
large army it was smarter to ensure that the enemy couldn't bring their 
full strength to bear.  The Legionnaire had gone one better than that.  By 
his machinations ARAK expected that they wouldn't be able to bring their 
strength to bear at all.  But that would still require a bit of finessing.
     The plan itself was simple enough.  He would use the functions of 
the temporal inhibitor harness to backtrack to Elizabeth's home before 
the Yakuza had left, then use chronological suspension to interrogate 
each gangster in turn with the telepathic sifter, as well as other more 
exotic devices that ARAK was forward to employing.  You may call it mind 
rape it you want; it's as good a description as any.  In any case, once 
that was done he would... deal with them as the situation required.
     (That ominous pause is foreshadowing, by the way.  Its importance will 
become apparent once he begins the wholesale slaughter, accuses the Writers 
in general of hypocrisy and cowardice, and breaks Ultimate Ninja's arm.)
     So, first up: trace the gangsters.  ARAK did a final check that he 
had the harness set up correctly, then used the temporal displacement 
function to place himself half a second out of phase.  Now effectively 
invisible and intangible, he took to the air with the flight.thingy and 
then jumped back to when he had last seen the villains.
     Anal-Retentive Archive Kid glanced around to get an overview of the 
situation.  He was relieved to see that they were indeed kidnapping the 
now unconscious Elizabeth rather than killing her.  He had been leery of 
attacking and defeating the Yakuza at this point in the past lest he 
cause a paradox of some sort - although he had mapped out a contingency 
for that as well, had it proven necessary. That small matter having been 
dealt with, he got down to the business of finding out what was going on.
     Anal-Retentive Archive Kid searched about for the punk who had been 
all set to shoot him.  Ah yes, there he was.  Getting dope slapped for 
letting a witness escape.  As the Yakuza prepared to depart, ARAK 
activated the harness and disjointed Neko from the temporal flow and into 
a personal kairos where he would be frozen in time relative to ARAK and yet 
still be able to be examined for as long as ARAK needed.  Then the LNHer 
took out the sifter, plus another item that he hadn't requisitioned from 
the Plot Device Room.  It was a small, plain, hemispherical gemstone that 
Librarian Lady used to sort through the significance of the content of books.
     When used along with some way of overviewing the total content of a 
book or CD or database - whether by simply skimming through the index or 
using a device like a bibliognosticator to psychically dump all the 
information into one's own memory - the gem allowed its user to focus on 
a topic and become aware of all of the relevant data points.  These would 
become instantly apparent in the user's awareness, with emphasis on the 
most pertinent, and the user could then focus in on each one in turn, 
'reading' their full content and context for themself.
     Anal-Retentive Archive Kid had a list of information that he wanted 
to ferret out of each and every one of the Yakuza who had broken into 
Elizabeth's home today, and then from all of their fellow gang members 
as he identified and traced those associates out in an ever-widening 
pattern.  Using Librarian Lady's autoindexing gem would cut each 
interrogation down to something like only fifteen to thirty minutes per 
person.  Still, this would probably go for, subjectively, the better part 
of a week.  A good thing he had brought a lot of Mr Paprika with him.
     He began.  ARAK got Neko's name and nickname, who he was and what 
crimes he had committed; a general overview.  Then he moved on to what 
the gangsters were planning to do with Elizabeth, and this raised an 
eyebrow.  Not so much in surprise, but more in resignation.  This was a 
four colour superhero universe, so *of course* it had to be something 
exotic and weird.
     Then Anal-Retentive Archive Kid took note of Neko's associates and 
anything pertinent from among his knowledge of organised crime.  Finally 
ARAK dispensed with intel gathering with the telepathic sifter and moved 
on to moral judgements with the moral intuiter and karmic tracer.  Was 
Neko a good man? (No.)  Did he have any redeeming features?  (Well, kinda, 
but nowhere near enough in ARAK's estimation.)  Looking forward through 
variously karmically delineated possible futures, were there any 'It's a 
Wonderful Life' moments that could be used to deflect him from a criminal 
fate?  (No.)
     With cold dispassion Anal-Retentive Archive Kid wrote Neko off.  When 
ARAK returned to designated-present he would take steps to execute him.
     Execute.  Not murder.  Because murder is what happens to people who 
are innocent.
     
     
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Character credits: 
     Everyone here created by me.
     
     
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Saxon Brenton   University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au     saxonbrenton at hotmail.com
"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex
world of jet-powered apes and time-travel." - Superman, JLA Classified #3