REPOST: RAC Challenge! #17
Arthur Spitzer
arspitzer at earthlink.net
Mon Nov 23 19:09:55 PST 2015
Chapter by Jerry Stratton..
From: franke at ucs.indiana.edu (Jerry L Franke)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Subject: REPOST: RAC Challenge! Ch. 17
Date: 18 Nov 1995 16:37:56 GMT
Continuing the Challenge!
=========================================================================
RAC CHALLENGE
Chapter 17: MEMOREX TrackBall Program Disk. If Used Incorrectly Then The World
Will Be Conquered
by Jerry Stratton
title by Wayne "Poet" Parillo
_________________________________________________________________
Paragon the Ultimate Man pondered his fate as his dynamite-lined
cement coffin sank to the bottom of the ocean. Through his earphones
he could still hear PPP, the Ultimate Salesman, rambling on. When he
thought he could take it no more, they finally switched to the show's
sponsors.
"New, from Nike! You've got The Pump? Sorry, folks. That's yesterday's
fashion. Don't be caught dead in school without the new Nike Pump
Action! Supreme Court approved. Offer void where prohibited by state
law."
Paragon flipped the lock on the cement barrel, opened it, and swam
back to the surface. The Ultimate Salesman was gone (fortunately, his
was a bit part), and Dr. Malevo was drinking a cup of coffee and
arguing about his motivation in the next scene. Paragon dripped murky
Los Angeles water onto some scripts that the writer was tossing about.
"Thank God," he said to the director, "I thought you were never going
to end that. So how the hell are the writers going to get me out of
that one?"
"They're not. You're fired. Don't let the door hit you in the... well,
you know how it goes."
"You can't fire me! How can you fire me? Why? There's been no
indication that you were going to fire me. Who the hell's writing this
story?"
_________________________________________________________________
"Not me, that's for sure," said Poet, selecting the text of the last
chapter and trashing it--for the fifth time in the last hour.
"Are you sure you want to delete the selected text?" the computer
asked.
Poet slapped the computer up the side of the monitor and yelled
obscenities.
"Delete this you sorry excuse for a PET!"
"Poet, dear?" mumbled Rosie, from their bedroom, "We haven't got a
pet. When are you coming to bed?"
Poet let his head fall onto the keyboard in frustration.
"Jesus, Mercedes," he mumbled, "what is your mind on now?"
_________________________________________________________________
Obviously not the story, thought Dr. Mercedes Silver, as she looked
over at Tito, the Ultimate Kid, lying asleep in her hotel bed, his
mouth half open, and the cutest drool hanging out. Last night that had
been the inspiration for Tito's brain damage. This night Tito's strong
young body was a more than literary inspiration.
Keep your mind on your work, girl, she thought. Gotta have this done
tomorrow or "the villain Franke" will have my ass.
She tore the current page out of her rented electric typewriter, and
tossed it page onto the hotel room floor, where it blended in quite
well with the mess, starting a conversation with the leftover pizza
beneath Tito's socks. Bottles were strewn across the room, and there
were bullet holes in the door. She'd had an argument with a wild
turkey the night before, and the turkey had won.
The radio announcer was stammering about a tank in downtown San Diego.
She put a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter and started over.
_________________________________________________________________
"What a curious feeling!" thought Matt, "I must be shutting up like a
telescope." And so it was indeed: he was now only ten inches long, and
his face brightened up at the thought that he was now the right size
for going through the little... he stopped thinking about that and
looked up at the waitress. It must have been like this for Paragon
when he hid from the falling building, he thought.
"You don't have to pay," the waitress said.
Matt was gratified, and began to tell her of his plans for the
Ultimate Storyline, but as he was (as it so happened) a ten inch long
newt, all he did was hiss.
With one eye (because that's how newts see), he saw Poet disappear.
"I love this," said Poet before he disappeared. Poet disappeared all
at once.
The orange cat that rubbed against the waitress's legs did not
disappear all at once.
First, its right foreleg disappeared. A three-legged cat would have
looked odd, but not nearly as odd as a cat with no legs at all. Its
legs disappeared one by one, and then its tail, its body, and its
head. Except for the smile. Matt was mesmerized by the grinning teeth
left in the air, like something Giffen would have drawn five years
ago.
Finally, the grin disappeared as well. Matt decided it was high time
he made use of his position to look up the waitress's skirt.
The cat returned with a wooden box labeled "tomatoes", tossed Matt
into it, and announced, "I'm marrying the lizard to London."
He once more disappeared--except for the smile, which leered at the
waitress, and one of the ears, which twitched in the air.
"Don't you mean you're carrying it to London?" the waitress asked.
"I mean what I say."
"You can't marry a lizard to a city."
"You can't, perhaps. But. Who are you?"
And the smile and ear disappeared as well.
_________________________________________________________________
At the bottom of the ocean, Dirk Darringer was a man without options
for the future. Trapped inside a cement barrel at the bottom of the
ocean. And nothing to keep him company except a load of high powered
explosives and a madman with an interdimensional television show. When
did my life get so strange? he thought. What happened to beating the
shit out of guys dressed in tights with names like The Ultimate Menace
or Master Webster, the Dictionary Fiend? Actually, that last one was
one of Dr. Silver's old enemies. Strange he should think about her
now.
And I never did learn to teleport, he thought. Ah, well. I wonder what
Mary Lu is up to right now?"
"Ok, kiddies," he heard through the speakers embedded in the barrel.
"The pushing of the missiles is dedicated to someone named Newt."
Next time I'm voting Libertarian, he thought.
Thlud
The barrel shook. Did one of the explosives go off early?
Thlud
He felt the cement loosening. With a mighty burst of effort, he flexed
his muscles, but since he didn't have any, any more, it had no effect.
Thlooosh
The barrel and the cement burst apart, letting the water rush in and
choke him. A little girl's hand pushed an oxygen mask onto his face,
as two men dragged him from the wrecked barrel.
"Who... who are you?" he asked, as he spit salt water into the ocean.
"I'm Alice," said the little girl. She wasn't wearing an oxygen mask
herself.
"Algernon Moncrieff," said the snappily dressed young man who was also
not wearing an oxygen mask. "And not particularly pleased to meet you,
I'm afraid. Come. I've got an appointment with D'Artagnan at nine, and
I simply will not miss it."
"Not to mention that this barrel has an appointment with two missiles
in approximately five seconds." The remaining man, who, while not
wearing an oxygen mask, was sucking on a large pipe, turned to Dirk.
"Come." He picked up an axe from the ocean floor and, holding his
service revolver in front of him, walked away from the barrel.
"Alice? Algernon? Dr. John Watson?" said Dirk as he followed them away
from the doomed barrel. "This can only mean one thing. I've been
rescued by--"
"That's right," interrupted a woman's voice from the woman floating
above him. She was wearing an oxygen mask, as well as a diving suit.
"You've been rescued by:"
"Dr. Mercedes Silver-ilver-ver-rr..."
She waited for the echo to die down.
"...and Her All-Ghost-ost-ost-st-t Literary-ary-ry-y-y
Revue-ue-ue-ue."
Behind them, two missiles slammed into the barrel and exploded. A dead
fish slapped Dirk on the back of the head. Dr. Silver motioned to the
pipe-smoking Watson.
"Dr. Watson, remove those microphones if you please. This radio jammer
won't last forever."
Alice yanked the heart monitor from his chest as Dr. Watson crushed
the microphones attached to Dirk's neck.
"Do we get to go beat the shit out of Dr. Malevo now?"
"No time, Paragon. Malevo's evil plan is already in play in San Diego,
California. Dr. Malevo has teamed up with Baron von Frankelin--"
"Ace of Clones? The villain Franke?"
"My arch-enemy. While you've been--"
"So, our arch-enemies have teamed together. And now we must team up to
defeat them. Just like old times." Dirk punched at the water. "Wham!
Bam! Socko!"
"Where did you find this loser?" Algernon whispered in Mercedes' ear.
"He used to be Paragon, the Ultimate Man, the most powerful superhero
in the world," she whispered back. "He was also the most daft. All the
rest of us heroes had to take turns teaming up with him, just to keep
an eye on him."
Algernon glanced surreptitiously down at Dirk, who was still fighting
imaginary fish.
"Okay, here's my plan," Dirk said. "We'll need to find a six-pack of
beer first--"
Algernon whispered again to Mercedes, "You have my profound
sympathies."
"At least I got to keep my name once we graduated. Tito and Tina, they
ended up having to call themselves The Ultimate Twins forever. That's
the part that drove Malevo insane."
"I didn't particularly think Malevo was insane, he was criminally
boring."
"--Then, we disguise ourselves as fish and sneak into--"
"Back when he graduated from med school, he was Paragon's sidekick,
The Ultimate Intern."
"So, dear reckless Dr., what was your name in those halcyon days of
ivy?"
She coughed.
"That was before you were public domain. I don't think we have the
time to--"
"Hey," Dirk said, as he finished his remarkable plan, "remember when
everyone called you The Ultimate Co-Ed? Those were the days."
Algernon doubled over laughing.
"Mary Lu said you were happy to lose your powers."
"She tried to kill me, you know. I had to hide between her legs when
the roof caved in. Then the Ultimate Marble got broken..."
"Broke," said Alice. It was very impolite of her to do so, especially
since she was wrong.
"Whatever. When are we getting out of this water?"
"I believe," said Watson, "we're just about there. Who is this Mary Lu
person? Is she part of the criminal plot as well?"
"No, she's my ex-wife."
"And she tried to kill you?"
"That's the purpose of ex-wives, John," said Algernon. "Ex-marriage is
a very special state. If any of my ex-wives were to stop trying to
kill me, I dare say I'd assume they wanted to re-marry."
"This way," said Dr. Silver, and she swam to the surface. Alice,
Algernon, and Watson followed her, walking up the water. Dirk blinked.
"I never did get used to that. So I've been saved by the Ultimate
Co-Ed. Heh."
He swam up after her.
It was a flying saucer.
It was the flying saucer. The one he'd seen in his dream--it must have
been a dream, that's the only place he'd ever turned into a beaver
before. Actually, that wasn't quite true. He'd "turned into" quite
a... but that was irrelevant to the matter at hand, he realized, and
Dr. Mercedes Silver was yelling at him. She was now out of the diving
suit and wearing her traditional brown suit and tie.
"We haven't got all day. Do you want to come or not?"
She turned back to the inside of the saucer.
"Holmes," she said to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, "have you figured out who
this Ernie guy gave the Ultimate power to this time?"
"The Ultimate Twins. Just before they were carried off by the
Pen-Ultimate Man. Ernie, it seems, was the last of the Ultimate
Collective."
"Thank God. Their success rate at choosing Ultimate Heroes has left a
tad bit to be desired."
"How do you know he was the last?" asked Watson.
"I've told you not to get him off on that," hissed Mercedes.
"Elementary, really. The computer has a number of recordings of him
giving orders to himself."
"Okay, okay. Mary Lu said she'd dealt with them. I think she might've
gone overboard a bit. And there isn't any reason she should've tried
to kill the kids. But all in all, I can understand why she did it."
Dirk clambered into the spaceship.
"I'm here! Don't these things have teleporters? Why'd you make me use
the stairs?"
"Close the hatch," said Mercedes. "Alice, bring us to San Diego."
Then she whispered to Watson, "Why don't you keep Dirk occupied? Set
him in front of the television in the other room and turn it to
professional wrestling. See if there are any beers on board."
"Certainly, Silver."
"Dirk, my boy," cried Watson, "why don't you tell me about your old
adventures with the Ultimate Co-Ed? And you know, I think there's a
beer around here somewhere."
Watson slapped Dirk on the back and led him into another room.
"Okay, he's gone. Holmes, did the computer say anything about where
the Pen-Ultimate Man brought the kids?"
"No, it's simply a video feed."
"What kind of fuel does this thing run on?"
"Broken dreams," Algernon said. "And it's running on full."
"We must be in San Diego."
"The police scanner says they just stopped the tank," said Alice.
"They shot him! They shot the driver."
"Damn! Now we can't interrogate him."
"You take far too much pleasure in your interrogations," said
Algernon.
"You take far too much pleasure being interrogated, Algernon," she
replied.
"That is hardly the same thing."
"Nail 'im! Crush 'im!" Dirk screamed from the next room. "I can't
believe he fell for the old build up speed by bouncing off the ropes
trick."
"I can't believe you take this at all seriously," Watson replied. "I
think I need another beer!"
"I'm setting down above the tank," said Holmes.
The hatchway slid open. The sky above San Diego was grey and lifeless.
So was the guy in the tank.
The flying saucer was hovering fifteen feet above ground. Dr. Silver
pressed a button and the stairs extended to the sidewalk.
"They hardly seem surprised at a flying saucer," said Dr. Silver.
"Then again, they did just stop a tank."
"Jesus, Silver, I hope you didn't have anything to do with this!"
It was one of the police officers down below.
"Officer SalomÈ!"
"Are you coming down here, or do I have to come up and drag you down?"
"I'd appreciate it, but I don't have the time right now. Saving the
world, and all that."
"Damn."
"I need to examine the tank!"
Officer SalomÈ looked around.
"Yeah, go ahead. What the hell is this about?"
She climbed down the stairs and hopped into the tank.
"Baron Frankelin. He's out to conquer the world again."
She stepped out of the tank and went back up the stairs to the saucer.
"I'll give you the details later. I'll be staying at the Pan Pacific.
Come on up and see me some time."
"So what'd you find out?"
"It's a tank."
The hatchway slid shut, and the saucer lifted off at speeds far in
excess of normal comfortable ranges.
"So it was a tank? I wouldn't have guessed."
"Take this, Holmes. Find out what's on it."
She took a floppy disk out of her pocket and handed it to Sherlock
Holmes.
"MEMOREX Trackball Program Disk?"
"Careful with it. Use it incorrectly, you'll conquer the world. Or die
trying."
_________________________________________________________________
The orange cat arrived in London the same way it had left Providence:
one body part at a time, and right in front of Buckingham Palace.
"Oh, drat. I never did get the hang of this teleporting. Come on,
Newt, let's take the tube to Westminster."
The cat opened the box to let Matt the Newt get some air.
"I don't want to go to Westminster," said Matt, though it just came
out as hissing.
"Of course you do. We're going to Westminster Cat-hederal."
"Don't you mean Westminster Cathedral?"
"No, I mean the Coronation Chair."
The cat slapped the lid of the box closed and headed for the tube.
_________________________________________________________________
"Spurgo."
"Not only Spurgo," said Holmes. "He has a nuclear bomb in his
basement, an army of clones, and the ultimate diversion set to hit San
Diego."
"Malevo," she said. "Malevo and an army of crazed Flemish bent on
regaining their superpowers."
She smiled, and had Dr. Malevo seen that smile he would have
recognized a kindred spirit.
"We have our own ultimate diversion. Let's divert the Flemish with
Paragon, the Ultimate Diversion! One look at Paragon and they'll
forget all about Dr. Malevo."
"They'll kill him when they realize he has no more powers."
"Hey, it's the world or him."
She walked into the next room. They were now watching some Goldie Hawn
thriller.
"Paragon!" she cried. "Get that costume on."
"But I'm watching the movie! Goldie is one hot babe."
"San Diego needs you, Paragon. Your country needs you."
"But I have no powers."
"Neither do the Flemish. They're about to invade San Diego."
"Let me take a shower."
Dr. Silver took a battered, moldy, soggy piece of sandwich out of
another of her pockets.
"Eeeuw. Mercedes, that's disgusting."
"It's the last of the Ultimate Sandwich. Mary Lu--the Ultimate
Woman--gave it to me. I'm giving it to you. We have no time for
personal hygiene, Dirk. The fate of the world is at stake. Eat this
sandwich."
"Awww... dammit."
He took the sandwich and popped it down his throat.
He choked.
He motioned frantically at Dr. Watson.
"Hmm? Oh. Here."
Dr. Watson handed him a beer. He washed the sandwich down with one
Ultimate gulp of the Ultimate horse-piss.
"Love this American beer. All the other superheroes drink that icky
foreign stuff. Ah! I can feel the power coursing through my veins
already."
"It might be the penicillin."
"No, it's definitely power. Look at the bulge in my pants."
"Sir!" said Watson, "Is that any way to speak to a lady?"
"That's no lady, that's Dr. Mercedes Silver, the Ultimate Co-Ed."
And he leaped into the air and flew straight through the roof of the
flying saucer.
"Look out, Dr. Horst Bock-Pilsner Malevo! It's you or me this time,
and I don't think it's going to be me! Honest, officer, I've only had
four beers. I can fly! No, of course, I don't have a license. I'm a
superhero."
The flying saucer tilted towards the ground.
"Oh, god, this is my punishment for giving him superpowers, even if
they will only last an hour. We're going to crash, we're going to die,
and the world will be conquered by an army of clones."
"Buck up, Mercedes. I'm sure Alice can pilot us through this. She's a
resourceful kid."
"Waaaaaaah!" came the cry from the bridge.
"Yes, she's probably already filling the saucer with tears to feed to
her pet cat, Dinah."
The saucer stopped falling, and although it maintained a steady
wobble, it moved forward. Mercedes and Watson went back through the
door to the bridge. Algernon was piloting the saucer, while Alice
pouted in the corner. (There was no corner on the circular bridge, but
Alice was pretending there was, so it was all the same.)
"Algernon?"
"I wasn't quite ready to die now."
"Well, thanks. Neither was I."
"I was," said Holmes. "I'd like to write a monograph on the
experience."
"Will this thing still be able to make it to Baron Frankelin's castle
in Georgia?"
"Without fail."
A red light came on on the control panel. Algernon sat on it. A siren
blared throughout the saucer.
"Nice choice of words, Algernon."
The saucer rocked with the force of an explosion. The monitor showed
two fighter jets firing missiles at the saucer. Dr. Silver reached
into her pocket and drew out a Glock .40 caliber handgun. She slammed
her fist against the hatchway access button and it slid open.
"Dr. Silver, you aren't going to take on an F-14 with a handgun?"
"Watch me."
She fired six shots out the hatch.
The F-14s veered away.
"Hah."
The last missile hit the saucer and shook it nearly upside down. They
all tumbled, except Algernon, who maintained a death grip on the
saucer controls. Mercedes was tossed into Algernon.
"Please Mercedes, not now. I'm attempting to bring us in safely."
"I've got a gun in your crotch. Don't make bad jokes to me."
"Get it out. We're in for an exciting landing."
"Brace yourselves, everyone!" Mercedes cried.
Unfortunately there is no place to brace in a circular bridge. The
saucer slammed into the west wing of Baron Frankelin's Georgia Castle.
_________________________________________________________________
It had been a long battle, but the Flemish horde was now trapped in
the San Diego Convention Center. Paragon and Dr. Malevo faced each
other, alone, except for a few hundred innocent bystanders.
"This is it, Malevo. You're going to jail."
"You're such a complete idiot, Paragon.", hissed Dr. Malevo. "How do
you manage to keep coming out on top?"
"I'm just an American guy with American ingenuity, Malevo. That's
something you never understood, even when you first came to this
country as an intern fifteen years ago."
"American ingenuity my ass."
"Well, the Ultimate Sandwich helped."
"The Sandwich! Then... when did you eat it?"
"Eh? I don't know. Half an hour ago? An hour ago?"
"Hah! Then all I have to do is hold you off until it wears off."
Dirk was shaken. "Wears off? Oh, it doesn't matter. How are you going
to hold me off?"
Malevo grabbed the nearest bystander, an old man, who flipped him to
the ground.
"If at first you don't succeed..."
He grabbed a young woman and wrapped his arm around her neck.
"One move, Paragon, and I crush her throat!"
"Oh my god," she cried. "Don't hurt me!"
"Quiet, woman. This is between me and the Ultimate Gonad over there."
What's she doing, Paragon thought. She's fishing for something in her
purse!
"I've got money," she cried. "Please, let me go!"
"I don't want money, I want power. And you haven't got it. Now shut up
and let me negotiate the Ultimate Imbecile's surrender."
She stomped on his foot. He cried out in pain and involuntarily let
go.
She pulled a small pistol out of her purse and pointed it, shaking, at
Dr. Malevo.
"You just stay away from me!"
Dr. Malevo laughed.
"I've faced horrors that you've never seen! I've gone toe to toe with
Mr. Perfect over there! Who the hell do you think you are?"
He stepped forward and reached for the gun.
"Give it to me."
She gripped the gun so hard her knuckles turned white, and she pulled
the trigger. Blood trickled from Dr. Malevo's shirt. He started. He
looked down, and then looked back at the scared woman. He shook his
head, almost absent-mindedly, as if he didn't believe what was going
on and whipped out one of his many weapons, as he'd done dozens of
times fighting Paragon.
This one looked like a huge neon dildo with space-age accouterments
extending out from all sides. It had "kill" written in large letters
all over it, and "cheese" at least twice.
The woman fired again.
And again.
Malevo crumpled to his knees and fell, face first, onto the sidewalk.
She continued firing, pulling the trigger well after the gun was
empty.
Paragon put his hand on her shoulder, and she stopped, sobbing.
"It's all right," he said. "It's over."
I've got to get me one of those, he thought. Why didn't I ever think
of it before? That's almost as cool as teleporting.
When the police came to arrest the woman for carrying a firearm
without a license, he left the situation in their capable hands. He
took to the skies and flew straight for Georgia.
_________________________________________________________________
"There was an army surrounding this castle!" said Alice. "Why don't
they just come in?"
"I don't know," said Mercedes.
She ducked another hail of bullets and then popped out and fired her
own handgun past the broken wall. The flying saucer tilted out of the
earth where it had crashed through the ceiling. Dr. Watson jumped up
and fired a round from his revolver.
A brilliant white beam flashed through the wall and grazed Sherlock
Holmes. He screamed momentarily.
"Holmes," cried Mercedes. "It actually hurt you?"
The wall shook with another barrage of bullets.
"If felt like... like a hundred years worth of elite literary
critics."
"My god," she said. "A direct hit could kill any of you."
Algernon looked uneasily towards the shaking wall, and tossed his head
as if to say something particularly witty, but Watson was faster.
"My revolver remains at your service, Silver."
"Thank you, Watson. But I cannot ask you to do this. Indeed," she
said, as the wall buckled inward, "I require that you do not. Leave."
She waved her hand at them and all four of the All-Ghost Literary
Revue disappeared into nothing.
"Goodbye."
The wall exploded inward. One fragment rebounded from the wall behind
the makeshift barrier and grazed Dr. Silver on the temple, tearing a
bloody gash. She tasted the blood and smiled. This, then, was the
Ultimate Adventure. She dropped the half-empty magazine from her
Glock, pulled it and replaced it with a full magazine in a fluid
motion.
She blinked the blood from her left eye and crawled to the wall. When
the tank came in she jumped quickly to the top and crawled onto the
next floor and further into the castle.
_________________________________________________________________
He flew straight for Georgia: or as straight as a man who's had four
beers in the last half an hour can fly. So it took him a few minutes
to actually reach Baron Frankelin's castle. When he arrived, he saw
that the army already had the castle surrounded. There was a barrage
of weapons fire going on at the west wing.
"Paragon!" cried the troops.
"Yes, I'm here," said the Ultimate Man. "But it looks as though you've
got things under control," he continued, towards the commander.
"We ain't doing a damned thing but sit on our asses."
"But you've just penetrated the castle!" he said, as the west wing
collapsed under the tank's attack.
"That isn't us. They're doing that themselves. A flying saucer just
crashed into the west wing and they're taking it out. I have no idea
what's going on. In the old days, you knew what the hell was going on,
you know?"
"A flying saucer? That's Dr. Mercedes Silver and her All-Ghost
Literary Revue! We have to save them!"
"Not we, Paragon. Baron von Frankelin has threatened to explode a five
hundred megaton nuclear bomb beneath this castle if we attack. I don't
think I can run that fast."
"I can," said Paragon. "Besides, I have to rescue the Ultimate Co-Ed.
What's five hundred megatons between friends?"
"How are you going to go in?"
"Like I always do. Through the front door."
He put his hands into the air and jumped.
And nothing happened.
"Drat. No more powers. I'll have to sneak in. Where's my fish
disguise?"
The commander looked away.
"I know nothing. Nothing!"
_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Silver came up behind the guards silently. She reached out with
her hand, made a quick motion, and the first guard choked on his own
broken voicebox.
The second grabbed for his commbox and she kicked it out of his hand
as he lifted it towards his mouth. Surprised, he managed to grab her
foot and twist it, and she fell to her ass. As she fell, she twisted
her other leg around and knocked his legs out from underneath him. He
fell next to her. They swung at each other as they tried to get up. He
connected first, and punched her straight in the jaw. She fell back,
and lunged forward, slamming his head against the wall.
He was unconscious. She slammed his head against the ground for good
measure. No, she slammed his head on the ground because she felt like
it. There was something about this guard that made her want to beat
the shit out of him even when he was dead.
But she hadn't the time for that. She climbed up into the ventilation
shaft above them.
_________________________________________________________________
"All these old castles have great caverns," said Paragon to himself,
and it echoed about. "I just hope I can find my way up to the castle
before Mercedes gets into too much trouble."
The cavern broke off into four directions.
"Eeny, meenie, miny, moe..."
_________________________________________________________________
Dr. Silver dropped from the ventilation shaft into the Victorian bath.
She moved to the door, stopped, and looked at the mirror. Her hair on
her left side was caked in blood. One of her teeth was hanging--she
hadn't noticed any pain. A steady rush of adrenaline continued to keep
any pain away.
She spit the tooth into the toilet, then turned back to the mirror.
Carefully and silently she cleaned the blood from her hair, then hid
the wound beneath her clean locks. She turned around and walked into
Baron Frankelin's suite.
"Hello, Jerry. Nice weather we're having."
The Baron was waiting, but his eyes were on the front door to the
room. He spun around, opened his mouth to call the guards, saw the
barrel of her handgun, the finger on her mouth signaling silence, and
thought better of it.
He relaxed.
"There's a nuclear bomb set to go off as soon as I command it, or as
soon as I die. You'll take yourself and the entire building with if
you kill me."
She pulled a small, beeping electronic device out of her pocket as she
spoke:
"One of the guards told me. Nice trick, Jerry. Did you expect it to
make a difference?"
"Not to you, Mercedes. It was meant for the weekend warriors outside.
The power of the locus below the castle is important to their masters.
So it ends here, does it?"
"It, you, and I."
Thank goodness, she thought, looking at the meter reading on the
device she held in her free hand. This is no clone. Of course, he's
never cloned himself anyway.
"You didn't bring your friends, I see. Algernon would have had
something plus charmant to say, don't you think?"
"You never could speak French, Jerry. But of course Algernon would
have been more witty than I. Would you like a drink before we go? If
you are true to form you have some wine in that closet that shouldn't
be wasted."
"Of course. An aprÈs-vie."
He straightened his suit and turned his back on her to open the
closet. She looked around the room. It was, as would be expected, well
furnished, and in a royal thirties style. There was a grand piano
beyond the Baron.
He turned around carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.
"An Eighteen Sixty-Four MourvËdre, perhaps? Would you do the honors?"
She laughed.
"No, you are the host, after all."
"Of course," he nodded approvingly. "Then perhaps a simple '59
Grenache would be more appropriate."
He placed the MourvËdre back into the closet and retrieved another
bottle. He turned around, decorked it, and poured. He took one glass
and walked to a high-backed chair and sat, leaving the other glass for
her.
She took the glass and walked over to the piano, and sat at the bench.
He took a drink from his glass.
"I didn't know you played," he said.
She set her fingers to the keys and began a swinging rendition of
Bloomdido, all the while keeping one eye on the Baron.
"Very impressive. I can't quite say I approve of your choice of music,
however."
"I've never approved of your choice of partners, either. Why Malevo?"
She took a sip from her glass.
"Because he's a smart idiot. An idiot-savant. A sophomore, perhaps. He
was also supposed to keep that twit Paragon occupied, although I've
since heard that Paragon hasn't got any powers anyway."
"No," she said, looking at her watch, "definitely not anymore."
"Besides, Malevo is the perfect sidekick. You know he actually enjoys
being junior partner? And do you know how hard it is to find someone
like that who doesn't run around saying yeth, mathter with their
brains running out their ears?"
"You mean, like Paragon?"
"Ha! Of course. Anyway, that's why I used him as the master clone this
time around."
"You what?"
"My army. My guards. They're all clones of Dr. Malevo."
"Oh, good grief. It's a good thing Paragon's retired, he'd have a
fit."
"I would've liked to see him come flying to attack the army, to be
honest."
"Why didn't you ever clone yourself?"
"Are you crazy? I'd have to fight for control every step of the way.
I'd never be able to turn my back. Would you trust me?"
"Of course not."
"I'm not that stupid either. So no chances. I figure, all the clones
of Malevo in the world still aren't worth a hell of a lot. Besides, he
enjoys it. I think some of them have started having sex with each
other."
"That's disgusting."
"Yeah. I set the next batch to female. In thirty minutes, in fact,
four hundred female Malevo's will step out of a cavern in Norway and
meet up with four hundred and one male Malevo's. Of course, without me
to guide them, they'll have no initiative. I don't suppose you'd
change your mind? I could offer you your own personal Malevo slave."
"Thanks, but no thanks. Four hundred and one, hm? You haven't lost
your mean streak."
"Ever since I was a child, Mercedes, I knew I was going to be a great
villain. My father was a great villain. My mother was a great villain.
We traveled a lot. I went to villain kindergarten. I majored in
villainous things in college--psychology, archaeology. And I wanted to
go out in a blaze of glory like all great villains."
"I think I can arrange that, Jerry."
"No more talk, then."
She took the Glock from the piano and pointed it at Baron Frankelin.
He stood and looked straight at her.
She hesitated.
"Second thoughts?"
She took her second sidearm out from beneath her suit. She checked the
magazine, and then the safety.
She tossed it to the Baron.
"A blaze of bullets goes two ways."
He caught it and spun the firearm around. They fired their first shots
simultaneously. Dr. Silver's bullet caught him in the chest; his went
past her shoulder into the portrait of the Queen. Her second shot tore
at his left shoulder. They emptied their magazines at each other.
Baron Frankelin missed every time, but the blood covered his face, and
he could not see. Dr. Silver moved towards him as he gasped his last
breaths.
"Are you injured?" he whispered hoarsely.
She pulled back her hair and showed him the bloody gash. He cackled
blood and went silent.
"I hope you go to hell, Jerry. I think I'd miss you otherwise."
The nuclear warhead exploded beneath the ancient house, and Dr.
Mercedes Silver went with Baron Jerold von Frankelin to their next
great adventure.
_________________________________________________________________
Paragon turned around the bend and found himself looking at a great
silver penis symbol.
The penis symbol began to hum. There was a sign above it. It read
If used incorrectly, Then the world will be conquered.
--Baron Jerold von Frankelin
The penis symbol began to glow. He looked up at the sign and read it
again. He looked down at the penis symbol. He scratched his head.
One of these days, I've got to finish that mail-order teleportation
course, he thought, as the penis symbol exploded in a blaze of white
glory.
_________________________________________________________________
London was dressed all in white, and Matt in the finest silk tuxedo.
When the wedding ceremony completed, the crowd applauded, and the
newlyweds left for their honeymoon in Spain.
But the orange cat sat still just as they had left it, leaning its
head on its paws, watching the sun set over the Bridge, and thinking
of Matt and Poet and all their wonderful adventures, till it too began
writing after a fashion, and this was its story:
First, it wrote of Matt and of Poet, and once again they were writing
stories of Omega, their brilliant storylines converging and widening,
and falling apart; and that queer style they had of including
themselves and their Omega stories in other stories that they wrote
for the same audience. And as it wrote, or seemed to write, the whole
place became alive with the strange peoples of Matt and Poet and
rec.arts.comics.creative's story.
The superpowers flowed from its pen as Paragon the Ultimate Man
hurried by--the frightened Pen-Ultimate Man splashed his way across
the Atlantic running from the Ultimate Twins; it could hear the rattle
of the engines of the crashing Ultimate Mobile, and the shrill sound
of the Ultimate Marble dying to oblivion. Once more the god-baby was
ignoring double-entendres and Dirk was hiding behind Mary Lu's knee.
So it wrote on with closed eyes, and half believed itself in the
Ultimate Land, though it knew it had but to open them again, and all
would change to dull reality--the Ultimate Marble would change to the
cracked glass at his feet, the double-entendres to newsmen hawking the
daily papers, the shrill sound of the Ultimate Marble lorries ignoring
pedestrians except to run them over. And the ducks in the distance
would take the place of the Pen-Ultimate Man's frantic splashing.
Lastly, it pictured to itself how these same writers would, in the
after-time, be themselves orange cats; and how they would keep,
through all their furrier years, the simple and loving hearts of their
writing apprenticeship; and how they would gather about them other
young writers and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange
tale, perhaps even with the dream of the Internet of long ago: and how
the old cats would feel all the young writers' simple sorrows, and
find pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering their own
writing-life, and the happy Internet days.
_________________________________________________________________
EPILOGUE
"That... that's beautiful. Who'd you steal that from?" Tito asked, as
he and Dr. Silver watched Saturday Night World Wrestling from bed.
"Some jackass pedophile from the nineteenth century. Think anyone'll
notice?"
"If they didn't, you just told 'em.
"Oh."
She slapped him across the head, and he drooled on her. Later, she
dreamed about an endless winter. In her dream she met the next author,
and they talked for long hours about pre-holocaust comic shops. "If
only I hadn't forgotten about that nuclear explosion," she said, in
her dream. "Ah, well. That just leaves something for you to write
about, in:"
* Next Issue: Ghost, Ghost, Gander
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Look, I didn't write the above, and anyone who says otherwise will
hear from my lawyer. Slander is not something we take lightly here in
San Diego. Also, I will not be at the San Diego Comic Convention, I'm
not the author of FlameWar, and my name certainly isn't Jerry
Stratton, nor am I the publisher of FireBlade Publications and
Cerebus the Gopher.
_________________________________________________________________
Mittens, the Ultimate Kitten, coughed up a hairball and typed "The
End".
=========================================================================
--
Jerry L. Franke franke at cs.indiana.edu
Computer Science Dept. Indiana University
formerly from Florida State University http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~franke
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