Time, folks... Msg left by: TWENTY FOUR POINT FIVE [5] ...to get on with the business at hand, or foot if that's what turns your crank. (I mean...this is the "LIBRARY"...) Springtime in Hexland is a wunnerfool thing... The One & Only Grand Duke S. "X." Johnson sat by the edge of the moat. He was watching the Pinheads feeding themselves to the Piranahs in the moat while testing the new diving board. "We need to talk to the Doc about getting some intellegence into the pinheads, because they ain't got the brains God gave an ice cube." he thought. He got up, dusted himself off, and went back inside the Hex. "Time to get a large mug of Root Beer." He said to himself as he headed to the Galley. As he sat at a corner table downing a frosty one, a voice hailed him. "Yo! Your Grand Dukness! We're heading out for some Fried Chicken at Ahab the Arab's Finger-Stompin' Chicken Joint & Massage Parlor. Care to join us?" said Archduke Artslaw, the Affluent Alligator Agitator. "Who's `we'?" said Sam. "Lesse....Me, Dagny, and The Executioner." "Who's driving." "Dagny, of course. 24 can't drive a golf ball." "What're we going in?" "That stolen Winnebago we got from the last story." "How long will it take?" "Why are you so analytical" "Hey..this is a story..we gotta establish a plot." "Don't start that `plot' crap again. Let's go!" Sam knew he was going to regret going, but the author of this segment wasn't going to let him get out of this one without a bruised ego. Seeing the West Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [5] As our four indomitably prolix users climbed into the Winnebago in order to set sail for Ahab's, a tall, dark-haired slender figure came dashing out the door of the castle, shouting "Wait for meeeeeeeeeeeee!" "Well, guys, whaddaya say? Should we let him come with us or not?" says Dagny from behind the wheel. "Aw, we might as well...after all, in a sense this Winnebago belongs to him, at least he has more claim to it than anyone else. Besides, how can we do a travel story without him?" replied Sam "Capt. X", looking around him to check the rest of the crew. "Yeah, let him come. I can always use him for practice" agreed The Execu- tioner, while polishing his bright shiny new medallion, a 6" cast brass "2". Walstra just nodded, this being the best he could come up with. "Open the door and we'll pick him up on the fly" said Dagny, gunning the reluctant highway hog into motion. As the Winnebargo circled around, #2 stuck his arm out the door and gathered in Mr. Rodgers. "Bring me back an order of livers and some fried okra" shouted the Old Man as they left the gates of the Hex behind in search of the treasures at the Ayrab's Emporium. -*- -*- Unbeknownst to our friends, their departure did not go unnoticed for, lost in the dust cloud behind the Minibarge, a beat-up looking El Camino is following. -*- -*- Some miles down the road, Dagny hauls to port and brings the landtank to anchor in the parking lot of Ahab's. Four somewhat disheveled passengers a- light. "I thought you said Dany could drive!" chittered Walstra, shaking like jello. "No, I only said that 24 couldn't drive a golf-ball" snickered Sam. "Dagny tends to forget that all vehicles aren't quite as nimble as that Italian hot- rod she normally drives. Does make life exciting, though." "Let's tie on the feed-bag, since we made it this far." declared #2 done More stuff. Msg left by: NUMBER TWO [2] Our intrepid gaggle proceeds to make shambles of the interior decor of Ahab's, not to mention what #2 and Cap'n X did to the waitresses in the joint. When all was said and done, the check was paid, and the dead counted, the group headed out the door to light out for parts unknown. The door of the Winnie had been pried off and the interior subject of intense search. And not a very subtle search, either. Cushions ripped, carpet torn, cabinets dumped...you know..just like in the movies. As the damage was inspected, from behind the beanery the shabby El Camino shot through the unpaved parking lot, gravel flying and rubber squealing until he hit the blacktop, hellbent for leather. All that was readable was sticker saying "Elvis was Gay". Ten seconds later... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [32] The El Cimino roared down the street, splattering burnt tire rubber and rim shavings all over Dagny, #2, Sam and crew. For an encore, the El Cimino tied itself into a large clover-hitch on a nearby oak tree (sorry 'bout the way this got so chopped up, but I saved the other message by mistake and the system wouldn't let me remove the thing. Didn't believe I posted it. I read through that junk and I couldn't believe I posted it either, but like I said, there's not much I can do about it). "Awlright!" #2 roared. "Who's the wiseguy in the rolling paperweight there?" "Grmph," the driver replied, calmly ****ing on his transmission. "That your first or last name?" Steve asked disinterestedly, and #2 promptly shoved the El Cimino's rear axle in an appropriate area. "Now I'm gonna ask you again, who's in there?" #2 boomed. "Flrmf," replied the driver. "Grflbx," he added. "Git the GR$#@ transmission outa your face and gimme a straight answer!" Questionable noises drifted out of the car. "Look, if you can't tug it out I'm just gonna have to shove it the rest of the way through," #2 explained. A loud spurt was heard. "Now, what's yer #X@$@!# name?" "It's me!" shrieked a voice. "Major Ostridge! I wasn't gonna do it but the Colonel said he'd do nasty things to me if I didn't so I hadda and I did it and I'm reeeaaal sorry and I'll never do it again if you just lemme go PUH-LEEEZE?" "You said all that in one breath?" Dagny grumbled. "Now Ostridge," #2 said, taking on an unnaturally kindly tone of voice, "I'm gonna have ta kill you, but it's the least I'd do for anybody so don't take it personally, willya?" "Er..." "I thought you'd understand," #2 grinned, and tossed a lighter into the gas tank. There was a typically loud NBCish type explosion. "GR@$#%!" #2 yelled. "Forgot the $#@% marshmellows!" "So what'll we do now?" Dagny sighed. "You just blew up our plot." "You kidding? We've still gotta find Colonel Phoenix, find out what he wants, what's going on, and kick his everlovin' *** in!" "What's an ***?" Steve asked. "You'll find out in another ten years. Everybody gets 'em sooner or later." "I dunno," Dagny muttered. "I liked it better when we didn't know what we were doing." "So did he," #2 pointed out, wiping bits of Ostridge off his sleeves. The story, of course... Msg left by: THE WOLF [69] Meanwhile, in Pensacola, Colonel Phoenix was looking over a large map. A faithful member of the Phoenix Force, Johnny Smith, walked up to his boss. "Golly, boss...whatcha doing?" the bumbling idiot asked. "What, have you not heard? I intend to conquer the world, of course, but first I must hunt down Sam Johnson, and get my revenge!" "Well, gee boss...How are you gonna do that?" "Quite simply, I shall, after locating him, deny him membership in the Phoenix Force! Of course, he will be so upset that he will commit suicide, and so I shall never have to put up with him again!" "Well, okay boss...If YOU say so, well then it's gotta be right!" "Of course, Johnny..." [69] Onward, Through the Fog. Msg left by: NUMBER TWO [2] Our heros quickly cleaned up the Winne (No help from Artslaw, who kept shoving junk under the furniture) and got back on the road. The discussion took an ugly turn when the topic of destination reared its ugly head. "Personally, I wanna go kick some collective butt. Who's wit' me?" proclaimed Number 2. He was greeted by some sighs and yawns of disintrest, and one request to pass the catsup. "Awright, all yew pencil-necked GEEKS!" #2 bellowed. (This is something he is very proficient at...) "Yew MAGGOTS better get with the program." A quick slap to Captain Grand Duke got his attention. "You! With the vacant look on yer ugly mug....start handing out the Weapons." #2 told Sam. Captain G.D. Sam X. Crunch stepped to the weapons locker, to start dis- tributing the arms within. When he opened the door, all he found was a considerable amount of styrofoam peanuts, and 3 nerf footballs. "Ah...I hate to be the one to break this to you, #2, but all out shooters have been replaced by packing materials and toy footballs." Sam said. "Wonderful. Whose week was it to keep track of supplies?" "It was mine....and they were here when we left today." Sam said. Suddenly, a loud voice spoke from offstage: "I removed them." spake the Voice. "Who're you?" said Dagny, recieving her first speaking part in this segment. "Don't you know?!" the Voice yelled. There was a crash of thunder and a huge gust of wind rushed through the Winnibago. Far off in the distance, a pack of wolves was heard howling. "Joe? Is that you?" Rob said. An even louder crash of thunder rocked the Dreadnaught. The wolves sounded much closer. "Joe...this isn't funny. Cut it out." It was becoming harder to tell the wind's howling from the wolves...and the thunder rolled explosively around the Winnie. Dagny had a hard time trying to keep the vehicle on the road. "Hey Joe!" Sam called. "Where'd you get the neat sound effects?" The SysOp's voice countered "RCA Records & Tapes." The sound & light show subsided and left the Winnie traveling at a good clip down an unfamiliar road. "Hey Joe! Where're our guns and stuff?" "Well, its like this. I was told by the Coalition to Ban Violence On Bulletin Board Systems And Other Electronic Mediums That Are Frequented By Little Kids, that the stuff that y'all post is entirely too violent. The CTBVOBBSAOEMTAFBLK threatened to pull up all my shrubs and kick my dogs if I didn't do something." "Oh. OK. We'll use the stuff you gave us...but it won't be any less violent." "Really?" "Yeah. To kill someone using a Circular Saw, say, takes 2 minutes. Tops. But I have to kill 'em by beating 'em with a Nerf football, it takes about 9 hours. And it's really messy." "Oh." Said the disembodied voice. The Fog Thickens Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [5] "Hmmm.........." mused Dagny, looking at the large pile of styrofoam peanuts. "Sam, where's that big cooler jug we had for carrying the piranhas around?" Sam rummaged around in the underseat storage area for a minute, then sat and stared at the air. His gaze happened to wander across Walstra, and noticed that Steve was sitting on the cooler. The gaze, more connected than most, im- mediately turned around and started beating on the locked doors to Sam's mind. Sam exited his reverie abruptly. "Hey, what's going on?" he queried of him- self. The gaze, having gotten Sam's attention, passed back over the cooler jug and Sam said "Oh!" to himself. "It's right here, Dagny", he said as he unceremoniously dumped Walstra to the floor, and presented the cooler to Dagny. "Now, then, where's the siphon hose?" Dagny asked Sam. "It's in the back storage compartment along with the jumper cables and the lock jimmies and the extra pizza cutters," replied Sam. As the other passengers looked on in bewilderment, Dagny muttered to herself. "Dang nab CTBVOBBSAOEMTAFBLK thinks it can outsmart ME, does it? Joe's gonna get wimpy and give into them, is he? HA! That's what THEY think. Mmmmbhbdg- rgghsmmkph......." As she was muttering, she was filling the cooler jug as full and tight as she could with the styrofoam peanuts. Her muttering faded into the distance as she got out of the Windybarge and walked around to the back. Shortly thereafter, she re-entered the mobile monster, with the jug sealed up tightly. "The first guy to touch this is gonna be sorry!" she threatened as she put the jug carefully away in the compartment that once held the peanuts, and still contained the Nerf footballs and the fluff. "DAGNY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TRYING TO PULL?" roared the disembodied voice. "Hah! I know all about how the SysOp is supposed to be omniscient, remember? If you can figure out what I'm up to, THEN you can try to stop it. But I'm not about to TELL you. You're gonna have to work for it!" "DAAAGNYYYYY.......?!" The voice was thunderingly loud this time. "Yeah, Joe?" said Dagny. "You're gonna be sorry about this." "I doubt it, I'm hardly ever sorry about anything." With that, she picked up a box that was sitting on the console, and opened the door again. "By the way, it looks like we won't be getting back to the Hex for a while, so give this to the Old Man, will ya?" She threw the box into midair. Amazingly, a large round trout net materialized in thin air, neatly catching the box. "Nice catch, Joe! Howja do that?" asked Walstra, who needed to say something in this chapter. "Fastest programmer in the South", replied the smug SysOp. "What's in the box, Dag? Poisoned snails for the ****roaches? Sure smells like it." "It's the fried okra and chicken livers the Old Man asked us to bring back for him." "Oh, same difference", responded Joe, departing, taking his thunderstorm and wolves with him. "Dagny, is this really a good idea?" enquired Number Two. "You'll LOVE it!" enthused Dagny. "But I just thought of some shopping I need to do." With that, she turned the BaggieO around and headed north. "Why are we going north?" asked Sam, somewhat cowed by all the wolves. "BOTTLE ROCKETS!!!!!!!" The thick foggens... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [32] #2 gunned the engine and the Winnebagle shot off down the road at a rapid clip of 20 mph. Something by the side of the road caught his attention and he slowed the massive rolling blotch down, as if it was possible to go any slower than he was already. "Whazzat over there on the corner?" #2 yelled back to the others. "It looks like a four-way pizza van collision on legs." "Aw no," Dagny grumbled. "It's that Watson guy again." "Want me to run 'im over?" "Nah, forget it." "Well tough, cause I'm doing it anyway." #2 slammed his foot down on the gas and brought the roving street tank up to a raging 35 mph. "I think he's spotted us!" Dagny whispered, seeing Watson cast a glance in their direction and start slowly walking off. "Well it's too late now. I'm gonna retread the tires with that guy or my name ain't Number Twenny-four!" "It ain't Number Twenny-four no more," Steve pointed out. "It's #2." "Shaddup, willya? Ya just blew a perfectly good dramatic line there, so you can just git out and push!" "Push?" "Yeah, push! We're never gonna hit the guy at this speed, so somebody's gotta go out and help the 'Bago along." "But why me?" "Cause you're closest to the window, that's why!" #2 yelled, and kicked the agitated archduke out the side. "Now push the ****er!" Steve put his hand on the back of the Winnie and made a convincing show of shoving the thing along. "He's not moving us any faster," Dagny griped. "He will when we sic the dog on 'im," #2 replied. "Sam, let 'ol Steeltrap loose." Sam gulped quietly and walked over to a closet in the back of the Winnie. Loud howling and scratching sounds were coming from inside, and foam and saliva oozed out from underneath the door. Sam nervously pulled it open and jumped aside. "Go eat the Slawdog!" #2 ordered, and a large black and brown four-legged fleasack fully equipped with what looked like an industrial paper shredder under its nose leapt out of the Winnie towards Walstra. Loud snapping noises were heard, as well as a few off-key shrieks. "Now we're movin," #2 quipped, eyeing the speedometer. And now, a word from our sponsor. Msg left by: NUMBER TWO [2] Hi Friends and fellow Americans. I'm Ex-Naval Officer, Ex-Governor, Ex-Peanut Farmer, Ex-President Jimmy Carter. Do yew get the longing to speak over long distances? Why don't you try the New "Roadhawg" 50,000 watt Clear Channel CB Unit. Talk to all your buddies on the Alaskan Pipeline. (Ask for the Ethel Merman Autograph model) Avaliable now at Overcoat Ollies, next to the Mobile Abortion Clinic, in the alley behind the Dixie Motel. ????? (...) Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [32] "Huh?" Steve huhed inbetween various yelps and shrieks. "What was that?" "Commercial break," #2 replied. "Don't sweat it. Just keep shuffling those lumpy little legs of yours. I almost got that Watson guy cornered now." "Aw, c'mon," Steve complained. "I'm getting tired. When do I get to take a break?" "Soon as the dog wipes out." A loud snap was heard, followed by a piercing scream. "Gonna be a long afternoon," Dagny muttered. The Thog Fickens Msg left by: NUMBER TWO [2] Dagny lifted the shade and pulled back the armor-plating on the back window to check on Steve's condition. He and the Dog were locked in mortal combat, and it seemed to Dagny that winners in that match were going to be the fleas that set up housekeeping on Steve. She drew the shade. "Well" she said to Sam "Whoever wins will catch up with us in a bit...don't worry." "Who's worrying?" Sam replied. A sickening squelch from the front end of the Landyacht conveyed the news that Number 2 had finally caught up with Watson. Number 2 continued a goodly distance down the highway to avoid witnesses, then trundled the bulk of the WinniBeastie off to the shoulder. "Hey! What're we stopping for?" called Rob, who had done nothing in the last three episodes, and was in danger of being forgotten. "Time to add another `Kill' marker to this baby." explained #2, holding up a small yellow unhappy-face sticker. He walked around the front of the Cruiser and stuck the face at the end of a line of 12 of them. "Lesse...so far that's 13 pedestrians, 23 domestic animals, 2 motorcycles, 8 bicycles, 3 garbage cans, 2 fishermen on a bridge,..." "...And a partridge in a pear tree!" the rest of the Crew finished in chorus. "...Always stealing my lines, raining on my parade.." grumped Number 2 as he made his way back to the drivers seat. The Whinny-Buggo reached it's top speed of 42 mph, thanks to a stiff tailwind and a gentle downhill grade. The mentally-ill crew sat inside doing terrible things to a Tres Randolph Voodoo Doll as they traveled to their destination. Unbeknownst to all, in a botched Indiana Jones-type move, Watson clung to the undercarriage of the Winnie, being abraded to a shadow of his former self. Serves him right. A Boy and His Fog Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [32] Date posted: Wed Apr 02 4:34:44 PM "Hey guys," Dagny spoke up. "You hear something?" "Sounds like some kinda scratching noise underneath the barge here," #2 muttered. "Stevo, go check it out." "Why me?" Steve whined. "Cause I ain't gonna do it, the Sysops sure ain't gonna do it, and so long as Sam's writing this segment, he ain't gonna do it either, so that leaves you." "And what if I refuse to go?" Steve said angrily. "Then you'll be patchin' potholes with that fat head of yours." "I'll go check it out," Steve grumbled, salvaging as much pride as he could and dragging it to the back of the Bago. "How'd he get in here anyway?" Dagny asked. "Last I knew he was sitting on the back bumper playing Purina dog chow." "Don't ask dumb questions," #2 snapped. "So you don't know either, huh?" "That's why ya don't ask, fishbreath." "You'd call a Sysop fishbreath?" "I'm just sayin' this stuff. I ain't writin' it." "Hey guys," Walstra yelled from the back. "I found out what that noise was." "Good for you, Slawdog. Wanna tell us what it is?" "It's Watson. He's unscrewing the rear axle with a bottlecap." "That's great news, Wallflower. You wanna go stop him before he starts rocking this rolling eyesore?" "Too late," Walstra shrugged, and the Bago shuddered to a halt and rolled over on its side. "Wish I could teach my car to do tricks like that," Hashey said enviously, speeding by the wreck in a recently stolen Ford Coupe. "You better hope we don't get picked up fer littering the highway," #2 growled, "or ol' Steeltrap's gonna be eatin' Artslaw burgers fer dinner tonight." Walstra wisely crawled into the glove compartment and quietly cowered. The Fog on the River Kwai Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [5] Date posted: Thu Apr 03 3:59:57 PM "Nice going there," said Dagny as she finished off the last of her tin of pickled herring, "but now what? I mean, we're laying here on the side of a road off in the middle of nowhere with no transport and a mission to accomplish." She starts muttering to herself again, and wanders off to the back of the luckless 'Wago. "Well, we're not gonna get anywhere sitting around talking about it...let's get to work!" Mr. Rodgers became very busy, digging around in all the storage closets and bins and secret compartments, assembling an unbelievable pile of junk on the side of the road. He pulled ___ Walstra >>> out of the glove com- partment and set him to work, not without a certain degree of effort, mind you, but accomplished. "Need a hand?" asked #2, ambling over to the apparently aimless activity. "Sure! This is going to be SO NEAT!" caroled Mr. Rodgers, as he, #2, and _> became unbelievably busy. When the dust settled, the MaxiTank was upright, repaired, and sitting next to a construction that mostly resembled a rickety fire tower with a pair of fishing reels on top. "Good thing #2 doesn't believe in giving the tarpon a fighting chance. Those reels could beach a whale!" chortled Sam. "They just did!" said Dagny, reappearing again from around the back of the rolling disaster. She was closely followed by 'Ol Steeltrap, who was licking his chops after each chunk of bloody red meat and bones that Dagny was feeding him. "Watson, I presume." said #2. "But of course! Poor Steeltrap needed a reward and we really can't feed __>> to him. Give him indigestion. Shall we be off?" she queried as she took her seat at shotgun. -=*=- -=*=- By the time the rosy fingers of dawn had painted the sky with the tints of a Carribean conch, the HexTank had made its way into the back country wilds of Minnesota. #2 was working on his third bottle of Visine, but the red was winning. The rest of the crew was draped ungracefully across whatever surfaces they found comfortable. "Good morning, everyone!" Mr. Rodgers cheerfully greeted the day after his usual 2 hours and 10 minutes of sleep. Rise and shine! It's a beaauuuutiful day today!" "Mrphg" said ___ Walstra >>>. "Glmpr" said Sam. "**** off" said #2. Dagny just threw a shoe at him. "There are those **** asterisks again!" shrieked Sam "Where are we?" enquired Dagny. "Somewhere in Minnesota. You should know, you were navigating. Every time I asked you which way we should go, you said 'west'." replied #2. "No I didn't...I kept asking you to REST!" replied Dgny, somewhat indignantly. "What does **** MEAN?" enquired <<< artslaW ___. Message 17: On the Road again. Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR (#24) Date posted: 04/09/86 10:00:25 AM The Executioner pulled the battered Landtank off the side of the road. "That's Enough of this stuff. First those Censors, now a new editor that `fixes' your messages....I'm tired of it." He said. "And on top of it all, my monniker has changed 4 times since we started this road trip, and I don't know who I am any more." He got out of the Winniebus and bit through the barbed-wire fence beside the road, and walked into the midst of the herd of cattle that were grazing there. After picking out the most tender-looking one, he pulled a Swiss Army Knife from his jacket and began to fillet the beast. Sam watched from one window, and the rest of the crew oggled out the door and wondered if that herd would be enough to satisfy him. "Hey 24!" Sam said "Mind carvin' out a Porterhouse for me?" 24 gave him a look that would curdle milk, but quickly sliced him a steak. He took a Bic lighter from one pocket and seared the two chunks of beef, threw one to Sam, then ate his in 4 quick bites as he continued walking across the pasture toward the farmhouse on the other side. "Hey Sam," Rob said, "What do you think he's doing?" "Well, I see a chicken coop over there....Probably going to have steak & eggs." Dagny said. "I sure hope the farmer doesn't do something stupid like shoot at him." "Dagny, What would you do if a 6'5", bloodsmeared,insane-looking guy wearing a levi Denim jacket and white Reebok Hightops wandered into your backyard?" "Sam, you just described half of the guys in my neighborhood. Be Specific." "You get the idea, though. If it was me, I'd hide." "Last of the great Fighter-Cowards. Cute Sam." "Think we oughta wait for him?" Rob said. "You want him to use you to repack the front bearings when he catches up?" Message 18: Old McDonald Had a Fog Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART (#25) "In fact," continued Dagny, "it might be a good idea if a couple of us tagged along with him. He might need pack-mules, or, heaven forfend, help with the enraged farmer, should he appear." Dagny grabbed Sam unceremoniously by the arm and dragged him from his comfortable stupor within the Maxibarge and out across the pasture. #24 approached the chicken coop with a degree of caution consonent with his appearance and normal attitude, which means that he doodly-bopped up to it like HE was the King (hubris, hubris!). He came to an abrupt halt, however, when he confronted a pair of size 14 mud-hunkers, on top of which was a pair of denim overalls, filled with a human being even wider than he was, black of skin, with a black scowl of anger on his face. Eye to eye they faced off. "Whachu think you doing there, jumpin' on my chicken house?" the figure enquired with a voice reminiscent of a gravel hopper unloading. He flexed a few more bulging muscles, admirably displayed in a muscle shirt advertising No-change. "Well, HEY THERE, Carl!" said #24. "I didn't know you hung out in these parts. Thought you were permanently attached to the body-building parlors on the beach!" "If it isn't #24!" replied Carl, for it was indeed him. "Didn't recognize you without a satchel of explosives and your cammies. Come on in, have a drink, whatever!" Dagny and Sam had with fearful hearts watched the beginnings of this exchange, and Sam was ready to run back to the HexTank for one of the water- machine-guns, when recognition took place. They walked up to join the pair. "Howdy, Carl. How you been?" said Dagny, attempting to recover her dignity, a hopeless task. "Why you buried out here in the sticks in Minnesota?" "Hey, Dag! Good to see you! But who is this little shrimp?" he asked as he picked Sam up by the collar of his shirt and examined him much as one would examine a strange worm in the corn. "That's Grand Duke Sam "Capt. 'Crunch' X" Johnson", scourge of the Hex," #24 informed Carl. "The artful Archduke Steve ___ Walstra >>> and Mr. Rodgers are back in the tank, but we can ignore them." The quartet entered the farmhouse in search of liquid refreshment and conversation. (Now, the NEXT guy can post a reprise of the entire lack of plot up to this point, plus come up with an explanation of why Carl Pringle would be out in the wilds of Minnesota. A challenge!) Message 19: Ain't nuthin but a hound fog. Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "So what are you doing out here?" #24 asked, taking his cue from the message before last. "Aw c'mon, don't tell me you forgot. I came out here to honor the family name, remember?" "No." "Look, what's my name?" "If you can't figure it out yourself, give it up." "It's Pringle, right?" "That's what you tell us." "And what does the name Pringle suggest to you?" "The sound of a guy with a heavily-sprayed hairdo hitting headfirst in a trashcan." "Potato chips," Walstra cut in, appearing in the door. "Right, and where do potato chips come from?" "I musta missed that chapter in my Bio class." "They come from potatoes, okay? I'm out growing potatoes for the light and crunchy harvest coming up this spring." "That still doesn't give us a plot, and it's one of the lamest excuses I've ever heard of for a character popping up in one of these stupid things yet." "It's like we keep tellin' ya, Jay. We just say this junk. We ain't writin' it." "Oh yeah? So who is?" Carl pointed an uncomfortably large accusing finger at Sam, who quickly pushed the blame off on Walstra, who didn't really have a place in all this ridiculousness anyway. "So what'll we do to him?" Jay growled. "Let's tie him to the front bumper and run a few toll gates," Carl suggested. "Are we talking about Steve or Sam here?" Dagny yawned. "We weren't too clear on that and you don't wanna confuse the audience." "Why not?" "Yer right. Screw it." "Anyway, so long as Sam's writing this stuff you can't expect him to do himself in, so it's gotta be Walstra." "Yeah, but you can't rough up Artslaw for something Sam did." "Why not?" "Yer still right. Screw it again." "Put a lid on it, Dags. There's impressionable kids in the audience." Message 20: Put another Fog on the Fire. Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] "Just a flea-pickin' minute! Walstra, what are you doing here?" asked 24. "Just scratching an unmentionable part of my anatomy. Why?" Walstra said. "Who's watching Dr. Taggart's Traveling Road Show & Ambulance?" he asked. "Rob is." "Who's babysitting Rob?" "Ummmm." Artslaw articulated. It is said that the dustcloud that was raised by the mad rush for the door did not settle for many days. 24 - by the grace of long legs- was the first outside. He was just able to spot the winniebongo as it traveled into the haze of the eastern horizon. Sam was second, and 24 directed his gaze to the reeceding motor-hospital-tank-boardinghouse-fishmarket. Dagny never even came out the door. She was too busy re-arranging Walstra's ** and his **** with a heavy ****-*** by ***ing it with a *** ***** ** *****. Carl watched and took notes. 24 & Sam came back in and sat down. Sam silently cried into his potato juice and 24 started to polish one of his rubber stage knives. Dagny had finished covering Walstra with duct tape and was preparing to peel it off very quickly. "Say goodbye to puberty, Steve." Carl said. "Ah, Carl," 24 said "You wouldn't just happen to have a large capacity troop carrier or a Metrobus, would you?" "No, but I do have a Honda ATC and 2 pairs of rollerskates and some rope." "Great! Let's get on the road!" 24 said. "Ah, 24, what're we gonna do with Walstra?" Sam asked. "Come on Sam. Get serious. Archdukes like him are a-dime-a-dozen. Leave hime here. I'm sure Carl'll find a use for him." 24 said. Dagny handed Carl the 1/2 quart mason jar that she had packed Steve into headed out the door. "Ah Dagny...How'd you get ol' Dime-a-Dozen into this jar." Carl asked. "Easy. I just kicked all the **** outta him and that's all that was left. De-feceated Walstra. Just add ****." she explained. "I'll keep it away from the outhouse." 24 & Sam had donned the skates and Dagny was doing donuts in the South 40. 24 said to Carl:"Where do you think The Emaciated One went?" "Well...the only thing that that road does is go east. 12 hours of serious travel will put you into the center of the Loop. Downtown Chicago." "Hmmmm..." 24 said. He fished into the top pocket of his jacket and removed 2 pairs of Wayfarers. He handed one pair to Sam. "We're on a mission from God." 24 told him. "Right, Elwood." Sam said. Message 21: One wonders Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] ....how much crap Walstra will put up with before he retaliates. 24 Message 22: On top of old Foggy. Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] It's been a long, hot & hazy afternoon. Officers Butcher & Maaim waited in their Wisconsin State Patrol car, cleverly hidden behind a billboard. "Been a long, hot & hazy afternoon here in this patrol car, eh Bud?" "Yup. 'specially hiding behind this billboard, Mick." said Bud Bucher. "Think we'll catch anything?" said Mick "I dunno." said Bud. He squinted into the distance. "What in the --" Faster than a possum's eye could follow, an ATC with a boombox on the back blasting out the Stones "Satisfaction" was towing two asphalt-skiiers. The shorter of the two skiiers was hugging the shoulder, seeing how many wheels he could hold over the edge. The taller was hogging the center of the hiway, using the dotted line as a solom course. Both had bad cases of road rash attesting to the number of times they'd screwed up. "We got us a regular Ben Hur! Let's get 'em!" exclaimed Bud. Message 24: INDIANA JONES: ADVENTURE #1 Msg left by: INDIANA JONES [131] THE ADVENTURE BEGINS IN THE WELL OF THE SOULS!INDY AND THE DIGGERS HAVE UNCOVERED THE ENTRANCE TO THE WELL OF SOULS.THE ARK IS INSIDE THAT STONE CASE ON THE ALTAR.BUT THE FLOOR IS COVERED WITH SNAKES.THEY GET TORCHES AND BURN THE SNAKES WHILE THEY GET THE ARK.THEY PUT THE ARK IN A BOX AND PULL IT TO THE TOP.THEN SALLAH,INDY'S FRIEND,CLIMBS UP THE ROPE.SUDDENLY...THE ROPE FALLS TO THE FLOOR.INDY IS THE LAST ONE DOWN IN THE WELL OF SOULS.BELLOQ WAS THE ONE THAT DID THIS TO INDY.BELLOQ NOW HAD THE ARK OF THE COVENANT! TO BE CONTINUED....... INDY Message 25: Fog & Punishment Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] As the officers pulled onto the highway, a huge grammatically incorrect, misspelled, 40 column wide, plagarized mesasage smashed onto the top of their car, crushing it and them into a rolling paperweight. 24 looked back then said to Sam, "Who said new users weren't good for anything?" They rolled on toward the Windy City. Message 27: Spiked eggfog Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] Watson walked towards the group muttering under his breath. "Okay, I guess it's up to me again to come up with a plot to tie all this junk together," he grumbled angrily. Dagny mowed him down and kept on rolling towards the Chicago city limits. "You get the feeling there's no point to any of this?" Sam asked. "The only point around here was on Watson's little head, and we just smashed that sucker flatter than Grace Jones' chest." "Roadblock!" Dagny yelled. "What is it?" Jay demanded. "Police cars, barricades, what?" "Well, nothing really. Just a block." Jay's "Huh?" was interrupted by a loud crash. "Hey guys," Dagny grumbled. "Looks like we just broadsided Justin Garvey's head." "He still alive?" Jay asked disinterestedly. "Yeah." "So what're you waiting for? Hit 'im again!" "Can it wait? He's sticking a sawed-off shotgun in my ear." "@#!$%!!!" Jay @#!$%ed. "If ya wanna do anything right ya gotta do it yerself." He grabbed a conveniently nearby pipe wrench and was about to restructure Garvey's plumbing systems when a dozen pinheads wearing leather jackets with "BBS KGB" sewed on the back rushed in waving automatic pea shooters. "Derp d wich er'll bp y!" one of the pinheads shrieked. "Say what?" Jay growled. "He says if you don't drop the wrench he'll blast you!" Garvey yelled. Jay shrugged and smashed the pinhead across the forehead. There was a crunching sound and a sudden release of air as its skull split and it slumped to the ground. Jay was about to do the same to the rest when one of them raised his shooter and fired. There was a small explosion and the wrench flew from Jay's hand in various misshapen pieces. "So what's the deal here?" Jay asked, turning to Garvey. "Simple. I'm gonna ransom you off for a couple million in gold and buy the Hex off of Joe. Then I can hack the thing legally and nobody can stop me." "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard on this board," Jay replied. "Hey, he's the guy that writes this junk," Garvey whined, pointing an accusing finger at Sam. "Nobody's twisting yer arm to make you say it, are they?" Sam asked sullenly. "Look, stupid or not, I'm gonna pull this thing off anyway. It might not be the brightest thing anybody's ever heard of, but this's probably my only chance to make a cameo shot on this board." "Hey Joe!" Jay yelled. "What's your beef on all this?" An enormous shining hand burst through the clouds and swatted Garvey and the pinheads into hash. "Yeah, that's what I thought too," Dagny mumbled. "Sam, you gotta work a little harder at this plot stuff. This junk you've been dumping on us lately just don't cut it." Sam shrugged and brushed Garvey's remains off his sneakers. "So what'll we do now?" Dagny sighed. Jay handed Sam a pair of Ray-Bans and Dagny crawled back into the passenger cab. "We're on a mission from Walstra," Jay said. "Whatever you say, big guy." Message 28: The charge of the Foggy Brigade. (We have Visa, we have Mastercard) Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] Untold miles and farm animals later, our semi-intrepid trio stood at the corner of State & Division streets. They had followed a trail of Tootsie Roll wrappers and Granola Bar wrappers this far. At the curb was an much dishevelled LandTank, in a sorry state of repair. It was parked outside a sleazy bar called "Stan's Bar". "Imaginative name." Sam quipped. "D'you thing Rob's still inside?" Dagny asked. "Could be. Let's find out." Number 24 said. They entered the dingy dive. At a back table, a slumped figure sat face-down at a table covered with drained Asti bottles. Dagny grabbed the figure's scalp and lifted it's head. It was decidedly NOT Rob. "OK, dirtball. Where's our friend." "Ahdurnaow." he burbled. Dagny turned to 24. "What'd he say?" "Ahdurnaow." 24 replied. "He said `I don't know.'." Sam piped in. Dagny dropped the dirtball's face back into the ashtray he'd been licking. She said "24, go ask the barkeep where the guy who ordered all the Asti went." Number 24 questioned the beerkeeper as to Rob's whereabouts. Sam walked up behind him and said "Dag said we should wait outside." As the waited by the curb, 24 noticed that many of the accessories that were on the Winnie-beast were missing. Even some of the stuff that was there before they went in. Sam walked around the side and saw four guys carrying off a large peice of the armour plating that once graced the back of the 'Cruiser. "I'd estimate that by sundown it will be completely gone." Sam said to 24. Dagny presently joined them at the streetside. "What were you doing in there, Dag?" "I was administering a Recto-Crainial Infarction to our friend in there." "Oh." 24 ohed. "Could you give it to me in layman's terms." said Sam, who didn't know too many six-cylinder words. "She shoved his head up his ass." 24 said. "Oh." Sam ohed. "You better quit hanging around 24. You are coming up with the same articulate responses he's famous for." Dagny said. "Hey 24. What'd the Barkeep say? Dagny asked. "He said thet the guy that ordered the Asti said something about going to the Sears Tower to ask for a raise." 24 replied. "He musta been smashed. How long ago did he leave?" Dag replied. "About 20 minutes ago." "We can still catch him. Let's go." Dagny hailed a passing hack. "Take us to the Sears Tower, and step on it." she told the driver. Message 29: It foggles the mind... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] The cab squealed to a halt in front of the Sears Tower and the cabbie leapt out and ran towards the building. He immediately started kicking and stamping on the side of it. "What're you doing?" Dagny yelled. "Yuh sed take yuh to th' tow'r an' step on it, so I'm steppin' on it." 24, Sam and Dagny exchanged disgusted looks for a moment. After they had sorted them out and each got their own disgusted looks back, they grabbed the cabbie and shoved him into the ashtray of his taxi. "We gotta go get Rob," Dagny said. "What for?" 24 muttered. "Got me, but hey, it's a plot, ain't it?" "Close enough for jazz," 24 replied. "I thought that was the Old Man's line," Dagny said. "I wrote it, so I can darn well use it," 24 grumbled. "Yeah, but if Sam's doing this segment, then he wrote it, didn't he?" "Whu-" This unusually dull bit of dialogue was interrupted by a drunken yell. "I wanna raise!" the drunken yell yelled. "I've already taken you up to the twentieth floor," an elevator operator was heard to reply irritably. "Well raise it higher!" Rob screamed, too drunk to comprehend what an awful pun he was subjecting the reading audience to. "Uh oh," 24 uh-ohed. "There you go again with those brilliant statements of yours," Dagny griped. "We gotta get him down from there before he does something stupid." "He is doing something stupid," Sam pointed out. "Then let's get him down before he does something stupider." "Too late. He's just started to sing old Conway Twitty songs." "Well, he could do something even stupider. We gotta get him down." "He's doing a strip tease on the roof," Dagny said disgustedly. "Oh boy," 24 sighed. "Well we sure as heck better get up there now before he gets grabbed by the cops." "Nope, too late again," Sam yawned. "He just got arrested by security for visual pollution." "Aw heck, leave 'im." Message 30: The Battle Fog of the Republic Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] 24 was suddenly hit by a Satori. "Dagny, keep an eye on Rob for a sec." He grabbed Sam by the collar. "You. Come with me. We gotta talk." He dragged Sam down the sidewalk a a little way then stood him against a light- post. "Y'know Sam, Dagny hasn't posted anything for a while now." "I noticed." Sam said. "She's been making us do all the work." "Yeah." "Y'know, we could probably get in 3 or 4 good messages before she could retaliate." "Yeah! We could really mess up her character!" "Don't just sit there. Let's go!" 24 said. They walked back to where Dagny stood. "Well guys, what's the plan." she said. 24 winked at Sam. "Well, first, we gotta raise a little dough." He dug into a jacket pocket and pulled out three tennis balls and handed them to Dagny. "A little streetcorner art." he said. "Juggle them." Dagny started to juggle the balls. The passing crowd wasn't impressed. "Hmmm..." 24 said. He grabbed a passing policeman's hat and tossed it on the ground in front of Dagny. "I'll give it back to you in a minute." he told the Cop. He looked a Dagny for a minute. "They're not buying it." he said. Sam said "I know, If you tapdance and sing `You're the tops' while you juggle we might get some reaction." "I thought I was writing this episode?" 24 said. "You are!" "Well...If you want to take over this endeavor, Sam, heve at it." 24 said Message 31: Fog Down a Cab, Willya? Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] Sam walked off for a moment, and came back with a Salvation Army Santa Claus suit complete with money pot and bell. "Where'd you get that from?" Dagny asked suspiciously. "Never mind that. Just throw this on and start ringing the bell." Seconds later, Dagny was madly ding-a-linging away while Sam and Jay hummed a sarcastic version of "Silver Bells". "They're not buying it," Dagny noticed. "Maybe that's cause it's June." "Hey yeah, I hadn't thought of that." Right about then, Ian ran in. "Hey, is this for real, guys? Anything we wanna do, right?" Ian grinned. "You got it." "Great. Mom, I just morgaged the house and bought a 914 Porche with a CD player and lettered tires. The bank'll probably foreclose at the end of the month, but those're the breaks, right?" "Uh huh," Dagny agreed. "And I emptied your bank account so I could pick up a few kegs for the wild party I'm having at the house tonight. You're gonna have to sleep in the garage so you don't bug the guests, okay?" "Sure." Dagny said dully. "And I blew up the neighbor's lawn, and I backed up the plumbing clear to Miami, and I wrecked your car, set fire to your room, and accidentally shot all your relatives 'cept myself. You don't mind, right?" "Right," Dagny droned. "Geez, this is too good to be true," Ian muttered. "You bet it is, pal!" Dagny roared. "Now what was that about a morgage?" "Er, guess I'll be seein' you guys. Hang loose!" Ian took off down the street with Dagny close behind. "Wanna go get Rob now?" 24 asked. "Yeah. What the heck." Message 32: Outside the barracks, underneath the fog... Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] Dagny returned from beating her child to death, carrying a boom box under her arm, and said, "You guys need some money, right? You're trying, typical male chauvinist pigs that you are, to get me to raise it for you, so you don't have to sweat, right? Well, I'll raise the money, all right, but you guys are still gonna sweat!" With that, she put the boom box down on the sidewalk, flipped it on, and as the music started playing, she started to dance along with it, using the policeman's hat as a focus. "I borrowed some stuff from my friend, Princess Soraya. She's kinda nice!" With that, she threw off the cape she was wearing, revealing a costume consisting mostly of gold plated brass coins, with some strategically placed pieces of not-quite-transparent cloth. As the pace of the music picked up, so did the energy with which she danced. Coins started to rain into the hat, and the policeman started looking at #24 and Sam with an odd expression on his face. As Dagny started removing strands of coins, she hung them around Sam's neck. As the number of coins on Dagny's person diminished, the coins ringing into the policeman's hat became bills, landing with a lovely shushing sound. The policeman started edging in #24's direction, but his eyes were still on Dagny, as were those of everyone else around. An elderly lady carrying an umbrella entered the crowd, took one look, said "Well!" and left again, making room for another spectator's wallet. As the music reached a climax, so did Dagny's dance, and she performed an exceedingly adroit move, in one wild circling move, she picked 5 healthy looking pockets, scooped up the policman's hat, swung around Sam with the last of her brass coins, and ended up in the driver's seat of the land-wagon. Sam, panting as he came, jumped into the passenger seat, and the tank took off down the street, leaving a crowd of excited spectators, one irate cop coming to his senses, the old lady with the umbrella, and #24........... Message 33: April, May, June, July, Fogust. Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] Sam stared oddly at Dagny. She had stripped down to a pair of boxer shorts and a Yellow Dog Tavern Bowling Team T-shirt during her dance, and she looked suspiciously like his 9th grade gym coach. This was a rotten thing to say about any fellow sentient being however, and with his usual tact mentioned it anyway. After trading off a few similarly talentless insults, Sam turned to Dagny. "We gonna turn around and pick up 24?" he asked. An odd glint came into Dagny's eye as she swerved the tank around on the rim of one wheel. "Er, Dagny...?" There was a dull thud and Jay was gracelessly scooped up on the hood. "Thanks for comin' back to get me," Jay gasped, "I think." Sam glanced down at Dagny's feet. She was stomping down on the gas pedal like she was trying to ram her foot clear down to the pavement. "We're coming up on that rig kinda fast, aren't we?" Sam asked nervously. "We're gonna be goin' a lot faster before we get there," Dagny replied. "I got a real bad feeling about this," Sam muttered. "I'm not exactly getting my jollies off this myself," Jay agreed, trying to yank his feet out of the radiator grill. "Hey Sam, got a whip?" "What for?" "I'm thinkin' this might be a good time to practice my Indiana Jones imitations." Sam rummaged through the glove compartment a moment. "Nope, no whips. Got any use for a couple gum wrappers and a ripped map of Cherynobl?" "How 'bout just rolling down your window and letting me crawl on in?" "Sorry Jay," Dagny growled, slamming down on the power locks. "It's crowded enough in here as it is, but I got a plan that's bound to take off a whole load of weight." "If you're talking about hijacking that truck in front of us carrying the Bombs Away Appetite Suppressant pills, I don't want any part of it." "The truck's got something to do with it, but you're definately gonna be part of it." "Part of the plan or part of the truck?" "Little of both. Enjoy your current state of being while it lasts." "Hey, you know I was just kidding about those messages. You're not really gonna hold a grudge, are ya?" "Not for long, 'cos in about ten seconds, there's not gonna be anybody to hold a grudge against." "This really ain't my day, y'know?" Jay grumbled. Message 34: Damn the torpedos, fog speed ahead. Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] An arm reached past Dagny and removed the ignition key. The vehicle, bereft of its power, slowly lost momentum. Dagny turned in her seat, ready to commit a serious act of homocide. A man dressed in a 3-piece business suit sat behind her, filling out a form attached to a clipboard. Sam, seeing the look in her eye and hearing the growl emanating from between her clenched teeth, decided that maybe it would be better if he waited outside while they conducted their business. He slid through the crack under the ill-fitting door. The guy in back didn't look up. "Name, please." he calmly asked. "Yours or mine?" Dagny countered. The man looked at her with the pained expression one would give a belligerent child. "I don't have all day. YOUR name, please." he repeated. She hesitated for a split second, then said, "Lady Vivian." "Your user number?" he asked. "Ah...One-Sixty-Six." she guessed. "And your......." he started to say. He was cut off by a hand closing off his windpipe. "OK, bub. My turn to ask questions. Who are you?" Dagny demanded. "Angus McSmith. I'm with the Coalition To Ban Violence On BBS's And Other Electronic Mediums Frequented By Little Kids. This plotline is getting entirely out of hand, much too violent. Ghastly." he replied. "Oh yeah? What're YOU gonna do about it, Mr. McStupid?" she sneered. "Well, Ms. Vivian, I intend to issue this citation and report you to the System Operator, who will take action against you." He sneered back. "Oh, yeah? I got some news for you, Bucko. Me and the Big Guy are like this," she said, holding up crossed fingers, "And he's not intimidated by lard-brained, pencil-pushing, empty-headed, cookie-crumblers like you!" "Well, we'll see about that." he said, stepping out of the vehicle. Dagny came out the other door. Anus McChithead hed disappeared into thin air. Sam and 24 were sitting on the curb, and 24 was counting wrinkled 1 dollar bills into Sam's outstretched hand. "...48...49...50. There. I thought she would have ripped his head off and defecated down his neck before he got two words in edgewise." 24 said. "Ah...but you don't know about politicians. They don't recognize danger, and thus are not intimidated by it." Sam explained while pocketing his winnings. "Where'd that guy go?" Dagny demanded of the pair. "Who?" they asked, setting up for an old gag. "What?" she asked. "No, What's on second. Who's on first." "What's on first?" she asked, confused. "WHAT's on second, WHO's on first!" 24 and Sam said together. "I don't know who's on first." Dagny said, exasperatedly. "No...I don't know's on third base. Who's on first." Sam said. "And What's on second." 24 added. "I don't know!!!!" Dagny screamed. "Third Base!" Sam and 24 said, grinning. Dagny pulled her Nerf Baseball bat. It would take a while, but she was going to beat both of them senseless. 24 Message 35: As easy as lalling off a fog Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] Date posted: 06/11/86 01:54:32 PM Bap bap bap BAP bap bap. Sam checked his watch. Bap BAP BAP bap bap BAP bap. #24 yawned and started cleaning the dirt out from under his fingernails with a butterfly knife. Bap BAP bappity bap. The hours ticked by slowly. "Had enough yet?" Dagny gasped, waving the limp Nerf bat menacingly. "Nah," #24 nahed. "Tell ya the truth, I'm kinda starting to like it. Think you could bap a little to the left this time?" "Forget it," Dagny said, breathing heavily. "I'm pooped. Let's just find that McAlobe guy and bust some cartiledge." "If you mean Angus McSmith, I've got him right here," a voice spoke up. Dagny whirled around and glared disgustedly. "I thought you were dead!" "Maybe I was," Watson replied mildly. "Doesn't make a whole lot of difference around here. Heck, look at Dan Erlandson. He hasn't even called in about six months and he still shows up from time to time." "Hey guys," Dan greeted, strolling by. "Anyone know if Late Night came on yet?" "See what I mean?" "Whatever," Dagny growled. "So what're you doing back here?" "Well, I'm supposed to be the regulator of the plots and stories on this board..." "Sez you, gourdhead." "Look, these CTBVOBBSAOEMTAFBLK guys are muscling in on my territory. Let 'em go bug the guys on Amy's if they wanna run this stuff. But I'm supposed to handle the Hex." Joe walked over, disinterested as usual. "More power struggle stuff?" Joe asked. The others nodded. "Look, anyone who knows anything about this system knows that the only rank with any real power is mine. You wanna start getting above your station you're gonna be playing food chain with the piranhas. Now, what's the deal here?" "These people here," McSmith said, pointing an accusing finger at #24, Dagny and Sam, "are acting in total disregard of the rules and regulations of the CTBVOBBSAOEMTAFBLK, and I demand restitution." "And this bozo here," Watson yelled, poking an accusing elbow in McSmith's ribs, "is being a total jerk and messing with my duties as board referee. I'd like to make a formal request that you **** his ******ers and ***** his ***** *****!" "Well for starters," Joe said, glaring at Watson, "nobody asked you to do zip around here besides be an easy target for abuse. Where do you get off with this board referee stuff?" "Well gee, it always seemed to impress the guys on the Neighborhood," Watson stammered. "Anybody who can tie their shoes without having to consult a reference manual would impress the guys on the Neighborhood," Joe snapped. "That stuff doesn't wash around here." Joe turned to the nearest parapet. "Floyd! Fetch!" Floyd swooped down from the top of the gate and snatched Watson up in his claws. With typical clumsiness, he fumbled with him a moment before letting him slip through his paws. Watson fell into the moat with a sickening splat, and disappeared in a cloud of fish. "And as for you," Joe said, gritting his teeth and turning to McSmith, "I'm afraid I have to agree with you." "WHAT?" the others exploded. "It's true. You're simply behaving too violently, what with these car crashes and blowing people up and tossing them to the, er, fish. There's a great many impressionable kids who play around in the castle who might take your actions the wrong way and grow up into something like Terry Hashey. It's just got to stop." "You might be King," #24 growled, "but there's no way I'm gonna quit doing things the way I do just cause you're giving in to a bunch of pencil necks." Joe summoned the moat monster over, who promptly scooped up #24 and the others in a single scaley paw. "I was afraid you'd react like that, but I can't have this kind of thing going on. You're all going to be banished from the castle." "Oh yeah?" #24 yelled. "I'd like to see you try..." Message 36: Just a fog in a larger machine. Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "...it." #24 finished. "Huh?" Joe huhed. "I said I'd like to see you try it." "Try what?" "Banishing us from the castle, remember?" "Oh yeah. Well, you asked for it." Joe motioned towards the moat monster, who promptly flung #24, Sam and Dagny over the castle walls. "And hey," Joe yelled, "you can take this too. I don't have much use for it with you guys gone." Angus McSmith followed them over the wall, making a graceless three-point landing on his ***. "Great," Sam grumbled, getting up and brushing himself off. "So what'll we do now?" "Well for starters, we kill Wangus here," Dagny replied. "Then we bust our way back into the castle." #24 looked Angus over thoughtfully. "I think we can hack both at the same time. Grab the pencil-neck." They yanked him off the ground forcefully and tied his hands behind his back by knotting his fingers. "Now what?" Dagny asked. "We use 'im as a battering ram. We oughta break through that wall there in about a week if we keep at it." "What about the moat?" Sam asked. "We don't gotta break through that," #24 replied. "We're going forward, not down." "Yeah, but we gotta cross it somehow." #24 slammed Angus down across the moat. "There ya go. Instant bridge. It's a little shaky, but so's just about everything we come up with around here." "But now what'll we slam the wall with?" #24 and Sam quietly glanced towards Dagny and grinned at each other. "You just better hope #24 gets back on this board before I do," Dagny growled. Message 37: SEARCHING FOR A FOG IN A HAYSTACK... Msg left by: 'THE LORAX' (TM) [7] WHILE SAM, #24 AND DAGNY FACEOFF, DECIDING ON A WAY TO BATTER DOWN THE CASTLE DOOR, DISTANT SCREAMS OF A PANICKING USER COME FROM INSIDE THE CASTLE WALLS. "HEY, NO, COME ON... THAT'S NOT FAIR!! CUT IT OUT!" SCREAMS SOME UNKNOWN USERS. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" HIS VOICE CUTS OFF SUDDENDLY AS ANOTHER BODY IS FLUNG OVER THE WALL. MISSING THE MOAT AND IT'S FISH BY MERE INCHES. "ARRGGG...." THE MOUND OF USER MOANS. "WHOZZAT?" SAM ASKES. "DON'T ASK ME, ASK IT.. HEY YOUS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE?" ASKS #24. THE USER PULLS HIMSELF BACK TOGETHER. "UH, WELL, I SORTA MADE THE KING MAD.." HE REPLIES SHYLY, TRYING TO PUT A DISLOCATED SHOULDER BACK ON RIGHT. "YA GOT 10 SECONDS TO EXPLAIN BEFORE THE FISHeS FEEDING TIME... WHAT YA DO. HACKING, HATE MAIL, GENERAL PAIN IN THE BUTT? WHICH ONE?" SAYS DAGNY. "I WAS JUST TELLING HIM THE OLD CASTLE WAS BETTER BUILT THAN THIS ONE." "SMOOTH MOVE, WHADDA YA EXPECT HIM TO DO, GIVE YA A PAT ON THE BACK AND SAY THANKS FOR THE CONIFIDENCE YOU HAVE IN HIS CHOICE TO GET A NEW PLACe? JEEZZ..." SAM SAYS. "WELL, I WAS JUST JOKING WITH HIM ABOUT IT. I DIDN'T MEAN ANYTHING.. I GUESS HE GOT UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED THIS MORNING -- PRETTY BAD WHEN YOU SLEEP NEXT TO A WINDOW, YA KNOW." DAGNY LOOKS AT HER TIMEX. "GOODY, TIME FOR THE FISHES LUNCH.. COME ON, TELL WATSON WE SAID HI.." SHE SAID WHILE DRAGGING LORAX TO THE BRINK OF THE MOAT. "WAIT, YOU CAN DO THIS" HE PROTESTS. "WHY?" DAGNY GROWLS BACK. "YOU MEAN, YOU WOULD THROW ME IN THE MOAT AFTER I TYPED THIS ALL TO TRY AND JOIN THE STORY LIKE A NICE 'ITTLE USER?" "OF COURSE, CAN'T STARVE THE FISH NOW CAN WE." SAYS DAGS, PUSHING HIM TOWARD THE MOAT AND THE BUNCH OF LIVING TEETH CALLED PIRANHA. "OKAY, BUT JUST REMEMBER THIS... THE SOONER I MEET THE PIRANHA FACE TO TEETH, THE SOONER #24 CAN GET ON TO MAKE YOU A LIVING BATTERING RAM INSTEAD OF ME. SAVVy?" "UH-- (GRUMBLE)" DAGNY GRUMBLES, LOOKING OVER AT THE CASTLE'S WOODEN GATES... Message 38: Trying to fogget the pain... Msg left by: ROGER BAHADUR [26] As Angus was being carefully prepared for door-smashing by 24, (i.e. arms moved near legs for braiding for lower body reinforcement) Dagny and Schwingin' Schammy noticed a lone figure approaching them. "Uh oh," says Sam. "Here comes somebody..." All eyes turned toward the silhouette drawing nearer...After the silhouette finished drawing the word "nearer," it came closer to the three wary (former) users and the pretzel trying to un-pretzelize himself whilst #24 was intrigued by the unartistic quality of the drawn word "nearer" drawn by the approaching outline... "I find it difficult to believe that anyone could draw like this! It's, it's, it's an insult to the artists' guild! No pattern! No form!" exclaimed 24... Finally the shape identified itself as Roger Bahadur... "Hey folks! What's going on? What are yall doing OUTSIDE?" Sammy interjected, "We were just on our way in...how about you? What are you here for?" "Just by to get some modem specs for my Apple cat..." Roger said... "Why does your fruity feline need glasses?" Dagny finally asked... "Don't be silly, Dagny! Apple cat is a modem brand. My cat doesn't need glasses, my MODEM does...be serious..." An angry and questioning 24 boomed out, "ENOUGH of this drivel! How do you propose to gain entrance to the castle, funny guy?" Not being one to eagerly anger the 24 or hang around to continue to do so...Roger nervously says, "L-l-l-like this..." and runs toward the entrance...which unfortunately is only accessible via the moat... "Roger, WAAAAAAIIT! Dagny screams! But before Roger and anyone else can respond...The drawbridge is lowered before Roger hit the moat and lifted just after he touched inside... All three (former) users look in, awe, amazement, anger, and something else that begins with the letter "A"... Angus almost successfully untied his arms from his legs when an angry 24 continued the braiding procedure.... Message 39: You got a fog there, Bub... Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] "^&%#%$#@%^$#&^*%(*&^*&^%*&^%," said Dagny, watching the drawbridge closing again. "How does he DO these things?" "HE MUST BE A PWERFUL AND MAGICAL USER." said The Lorax. "Actually", confided #24, "the reason he gets away with it is because Saint His Majesty and I ran some recombinant DNA experiments a few years ago, and Rojet was the result. Since about half of the genes we used for the experiment were SHM King Joe's, he has a sort of sentimental attachment for the geek, brain-damaged though he is. Besides, who ELSE can entertain the roaches?" "OH," replied The Lorax. "DOESN'T HE POST THE 'NONSENSE' STUFF?" "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" shushed Sam. "He doesn't know that it doesn't make any sense, and nobody has had the heart to tell him." ("At any rate, #24 seems to have forgotten the idea of using me for a battering ram. Thanks, Lorax"), Dagny whispered. * * * * * * Meanwhile, in a plush executive suite atop the Sears Tower in Beautiful Downtown Chicago...... "I want a RAISE!", Mr. Rogers insisted for the 218+219*256th time, this time to a room full of three piece business suits, most of whom had cigars. A grey worsted suit walked up to him and bopped him over the head with a broom. "Now SHUT UP!" he said. A blue pin-stripe flannel, who looked more important than the others, made motions indicating that he wished to address the group. All other conversation suddenly ceased. "Our agent, Mr. Angus McSmith, seems to have run into difficulties with that unruly bunch down there past Southforty. The Communications Hex, I believe it's called. We cannot have this deliberate flouting of all standards of decency and morality in the BBS world. I had hoped that the Bold City SysOps could have done something about this, but those people actually seem to be serious about making BBSing even more accessible for users. This is rank heresy! I believe it is time that we paid more attention to this situation. We must send in our first team." He opened a drawer in his desk, revealing an outsized panel, liberally covered with switches and blinking lights and buttons, with and without integral lights. He picked up the handset, pushed a red button with a fuscia light on it, and waited. * * * * * * On a beach in Far Midi, a lithe, muscular figure wearing very little, if anything, suddenly jumped to his feet, rubbing his ***. His companion, a female figure attired in even less, looked up at him and said, "What's the problem, big boy?" "Uh, I forgot...I'm supposed to do something, and I was just suddenly reminded of it. Take off, and I'll see you at the hotel later, ok?" After the young person had departed, Our Man Steel, for so it was, made for the closest telephone. After materializing his Calling Card out of thin air, and dialing 15 numbers, listening to the phone click for 3 minutes, then ring, he said "You rang?" "Yes, Steel, we need you badly back here. We have a serious problem with the users down at the Communications Hex." "Understood, boss. I'm on my way. How much prejudice is involved in this termination?" "Use your own judgement, Steel, but handle it!" * * * * * * (Back in the Sears Tower) Mr. Rogers, overhearing the preceding conversation from the other end, realized that he had better get back to the Hex somehow and warn his friends. Edging his way toward the door, he prepared a sickly smile and an unlikely excuse in the event his departure was questioned. Luckily, no-one noticed that he was leaving, and he made it out the door in one piece. Getting to the ground floor and out of the building, he discovered that the LandTank was still parked where he had left it. (Ed. note: The other members of this party were magically whisked away and rematerialized at the Hex by Deus Ex Machina, Inc.) Message 40: JUST FOGGING RIGHT ALONG... Msg left by: THE LORAX [7] WHILE DAGNY, LORAX, SAM AND #24 STAND AT THE GATE, MUMBLING AND CURSING ABOUT HOW TO GET BACK IN, A LOW PITCHED MOAN COMES FROM THE MOAT....FOLLOWED BY A SOFT GLOW THAT CAN BE SEEN COMING FROM UNDER THE WATER. "UH.. I THINK WE GOT TROUBLE FOLKS." SAMS SAYS, SQUINTING HIS EYES, TRYING TO FOCUS ON WHATEVER'S SHINNING THROUGH THE WATER. A GASTLY FIGURE RISES UP FROM THE MOAT. IT'S LOOKS ALOT LIKE WATSON, EXCEPT FOR BEING TRANSPARENT AND ENTIRELY WHITE. A LOUD VOICE BOOMS OUT FROM THE APPARITION. "OH MORTALS, YE LIFE IS HANGING BY A THREAD.. AND THE FATES ARE NEAR TO CUTTING IT. FOR A GREAT EVIL IS UPON YE, A FORCE THAT THREATENS ALL OF BBSDOM... PERPARE FOR THEE FATE, MORTALS..." HE/SHE/IT SAYS. "CUT THE CRAP WATSON, WE KNOW IT'S YOU..." #24 REPLIES. "AW COME ON, DON'T YOU HAVE ANY RESPECT FOR THE DEAD, MAN? I WENT THROUGH ALL THAT MELODRAMATIC GOSTLY SPEECH TO LIVEN THINGS UP AND YOU DON'T EVEN APPRECIATE IT... YOU EXECUTIONERS ARE ALL THE SAME -- CRUDE, RUDE AND SADISTIC." THE GHOST OF WATSON SAYS. "HEY, HE'S NOT CRUDE, JUST RUDE AND SADISTIC." ANSWERS SAM. "NEVERMIND THAT -- WHAT ABOUT ALL THAT STUFF ABOUT A FORCE THAT THREATENS BBSDOM? WAS THAT TRUE OR MORE NONSENSE?" "YOU KNOW ME, I WOULDN'T LIE, WOULD I?" SAYS G.O.W. (GHOST OF WATSON), GRINNING FIENDISHLY. "ANYWAYS, NONSENSE IS ROGERS AREA, MINES REFREEING." "YOU MEAN, WE'VE GOT SOME MAJOR TROUBLE HEADED THIS WAY?" SAYS LORAX. "UNDER STATEMENT OF THE YEAR, PAL. YOU'LL IN DEEP ****. BELIEVE IT." G.O.W. SAYS, SHAKING THE PIRANHAS OUT OF HIS POCKETS. "BUT WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? IT'S GOING TO BE A LITTLE HARD STOPPING SOMETHING YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT." DAGNY SAYS, STAMPING HER FOOT ON THE WET GROUND. "OH, NOW YOU GUYS ASK ME FOR HELP. YOU THROW ME IN THE MOAT, YOU TYPE ABOUT ME WHEN I'M NOT HERE.. AND YOU EXPECT ME TO TELL YOU. HA!" SAYS G.O.W. "i'M LEAVIN' YOU GUYS TO FIGURE IT OUT... I'M HEADED TO AMY'S, THEY LOVE ME OVER THERE." "AW, JUST A HINT. FOR OLD TIMES SAKE? OKAY?" LORAX ASKES, WIPING THE WATER OFF HIS FACE THAT'S DRIPPING FROM G.O.W. "WEEALLLL, OK. 'STEEL.' THERE, THAT'S ALL, FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELF. I GOTTA FLOAT, AMY'S AWAIT YA KNOW." G.O.W. SAYS. FLOATING OFF INTO THE SUNSET LIKE A COWBOY IN A BAD WESTERN FLICK. "JEEZ, WHATTA GUY, REALLY COMES THROUGH IN A CLINCH, EH? HOPE HE RUNS INTO AN EXORCEST." SAMS SAYS. "NEVERMIND THAT, WE STILL HAVE THE FIRST PROBLEM OF GETTING BACK INTO THE CASTLE." DAGNY SAYS. "MAYBE WE CAN DIG UNDER THE GATE. GAWD, WERE ARE ALL THE SCALDS AND PHEONIXES IN THE STORY WHEN YOU NEED 'EM (FOR LABOR, THAT IS.)." Message 42: Razorback fogs (have nothing to do with this) Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] #24 eyed the castle bemusedly. "Hmm," he hmmed. "How long did it take ya to come up with that observation?" Dagny cracked. "I just remembered something. Didn't Joe build an escape tunnel that ran under the moat into the forest in case the castle was ever overthrown and he wanted to beat feet to the mainland?" "Yeah. So what? He walled that up years ago. You know how cocky he's gotten." "I know, but part of the tunnel's still under there. I figure if we knock a good-sized hole in it the rush of water from the moat'll open us up a big enough door to ride an aircraft carrier through. If we're lucky, it might even be large enough for the LandTank." "But how're we gonna make a hole in it? We can't go diving in that water. It's not just that there're piranhas down there, but Josh Montgomery uses it to bathe with as well." #24 grimaced. "No, we're not goin' down. He is." He turned his gaze over to Angus. "You don't actually think I'm going to make that hole for you, do you?" McSmith said angrily. "Not voluntarily, no, but if I give ya a little incentive..." Jay grabbed him and dragged him over to the moat. He positioned him over the assumed location of the hole and gave Angus a heavy rap on the skull. He shot towards the bottom and burst through the tunnel, followed by an immediate rush of water. The moat was emptied in seconds, leaving an enormous gap in the hill the Hex rested on. "C'mon," #24 yelled and jumped into the tunnel, followed by the others. The executives glared at Rob. He had grabbed the nearest secretary and pointed a can of Silly String next to her left temple, and was threatening to fire it off if he didn't get an immediate raise. "Is that can loaded?" one of the chief execs snapped. "You betcher ***!" Rob replied, heavily slurring the vowels. "Oh my god," a nearby janitor gasped. Steel marched relentlessly on through the jungle. He had no idea what he was doing there or how he got there, but he wasn't going to let the trivial details slow him up now. He had a mission to perform, and by God, he was going to find out what it was if it killed him. As he continued on his aimless pace, a large boa constrictor hanging from a tree above him slowly moved towards him. He might have been a pointless character, but he was bound to make at least a decent mouthful. The snake fell off the branch onto Steel's shoulders, and in the resulting struggle they swallowed one another. Scratch one more wannabe hero. #24 stomped through the tunnel at a fast clip. He had heard some sort of commotion from the far end, and he was convinced he was nearing the end. "Hurry up, guys!" he hollered back to the others. "I think I can see the end of this thing!" Moments later, they reached a dead end. A large trapdoor was above them, and with his typical selflessness, #24 volunteered to send Dagny through first. The door swung open and Dagny popped through, only to be greeted by an oddly-dressed person wearing mouse ears. A large sign reading "Cinderella's Castle" was posted nearby. "Hey guys," Dagny yelled down. "I think Joe dug this tunnel a little farther than we thought. Anybody want a balloon?" Message 43: Sam Johnson! Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] You are a RAT FINK! How DARE you kill off my character before I was anywheres CLOSE to finished with him? You're gonna PAY, Shorty! Remember what Joan called you when she introduced you to me? ........................ Message 44: Foggive me! Msg left by: ROGER BAHADUR [26] The four (still former) trekkers wearily tromped out of the tunnel and finally made it back out of the moat and onto the outside. (Carefully stepping AROUND the piranhas, of course...) "Of course!" exclaimed Dagny... Hey! You're not supposed to respond to the author! "Who says you're an author? You haven't even been authorized!" Sam also exclaimed... Yall want to live through this story...don't yall? "," exclaimed Dagny, Sam, #24, Lorax, and Rob who was not present at all, but said about the same thing in that same moment in that same time... I thought so....and the story continues... "Thank God," muttered 24... I heard that! "YOU TYPED IT, YOU MORON!" Oh yeah.... The earth shook for no reason other than to serve as a reminder to the (getting even more former) users as to who was the writer...Mercifully, though, they stepped through the piranhas safely... While planning another break-in, 24 noticed two things....One was a silouhette...the other thing he noticed was that it was broad daylight and that visibility was at 101%. He ran towards the shape which, of course, TRIED to escape the broad strided #24. "Of course," exclaimed Dagny... *sigh* After Numbah 24 tackled and wrestled the shape to the ground, he found his suspicion to be true: it was Roger Bahadur. "I KNEW something was fishy when you walked past that "DANGER: PIRANHAS" sign and you STILL looked like a silhoutte! You're our key for getting back into the castle! You're gonna help us!" "Five plastic nosehairs cannot see how powerful soda sounds." "And don't try to faze me with that nonsense! I'm prepared for ANYTHING you can dish out!" "Okay...I'll help you...But first tell me where did you get those stupid looking hats and balloons?" "Anything except that..." 24 said as he collapsed in disbelief... Roger shrugged his shoulders and walked away as Dagny, Sam, and Lorax attended to reviving the mildly shocked 24... Message 45: The refogination of Steel Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] Lorax sat next to #24, slapping him gently on the face to revive him. #24 promptly came to and started slapping Lorax ungently on the face to derevive him, and was getting extremely close to succeeding. Dagny and Sam had pulled out tubes of Hair Removal Cream and were playing Tic-Tac-Toe in Rob's mustache and beard stubble. Bahadur flew in a cracker crumb, aiming his yellow toes to the dog that blew banana peels. He was also cursing heavily about people who try to copy his style of nonsense before they realize there isn't any. Birds sang. Clouds passed. Grass grew. The earth revolved on its axis. The space-time continuum relentlessly continuumed. The whole idyllic scene was about ten seconds away from having the word "BOREDOM" flash across the sky. "Hey guys," yelled a heavily-muscled lump of human in Spiderman pajama bottoms as it leapt out of the hole in the moat. "Miss me?" Birds continued to sing. Clouds passed. Grass grew. Etc. and etc. and etc. Etc.'s rained off the author's fingers onto the keypad like hail. Finally, unable to stand the noise anymore, Dagny decided to break the ice. "Who're you?" she demanded, her voice only muffled slightly by the sound of shattering icecubes. "Don'tcha remember me? I'm that Steel guy you whipped up." "I thought Sam had you swallowed by a boa constrictor." "Sam's imitation of Bahadur's nonsense a couple lines up was enough to make anyone puke, and fortunately the snake was no exception." "So he's worming out of killing you, eh?" "You got it. Fooling around with married women is one thing, but annoying a Sysop is something nobody does. By the way, does anyone recognize this?" He held up a slightly dented pulpy mass that vaguely resembled Angus McSmith. "Yeah, that's a character I came up with," #24 said, "and therefore is my own personal target for abuse. Toss 'im here." "Which piece do you want first?" "Aw, nevermind. Just put him down and I'll deal with what's left of him later." "Great, so what'll we do now?" "Nothing. We gotta flash back to Rob now." "I thought Rob was over there getting his facial hair trashed by Sam and Dagny." "Well yeah, but we didn't explain how he got here." "I didn't think anybody cared." "Yeah, well, that's beside the point, if there is one." Rob waved the Silly String can menacingly. He had tied the secretary to a water cooler and was facing off the rest of the execs. "We could make a deal," one of them said desperately. "No ****ing deals!" Rob sneered. "I'm gonna ****ing run things around this ****ing dump from here on ****ing out!" The exec clawed his way to the top of the mound of asterisks and looked at Rob pleadingly. "Please," he begged, "this whole subplot has gotten entirely out of hand. You've got to stop before that Watson jerk shows up again with his stupid BBBSC regulations." Rob's speech had deteriorated completely into asterisks and wasn't worth the space it'd take to print it. "Hey guys," Watson greeted. "Somebody mention my name?" Watson was abruptly crushed by a sudden volley of punctuation marks from Rob. "Aw no," another exec whined. "Watson stains. The one thing the carpet cleaner won't remove." The exec promptly joined Watson on the floor buried under a jumbled mass of exclamation points and number signs. Rob turned on the others and began smothering them one by one in brackets and parenthesis. Soon all that remained was Rob and a few loose dollar signs, as well as a dash or two. It was just then that the Sears Tower, unable to handle the weight of all the %'s and @'s crumbled to the ground and disappeared into a large sinkhole. Then, having no place else to go, Rob's drunken form washed up on the outside banks of the Hex. "Okay, so that's how he got here," Steel mumbled. "Aha," #24 ahahed. "Guess nobody cared afterall. Well, it was worth a shot." Message 46: "That's fogging better!", Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] exclaimed Dagny, bowing to Sam in gratitude, preferring fog to asterisks. "Now all I have to do is crank up Deux Ex Machina, Inc. again, and we can get on with this, assuming there's someplace to take it." She fiddled with her key- board for a moment, and suddenly Steel disappeared from the borders of the Hex, and materialized 43,000 feet above the Atlantic, aboard a Pan-Am 747 enroute to Miami. "That should do it" she said with a murmer of satisfaction. "That'll keep him on ice till I'm ready for him again." "What's going ON here, and who was that guy that just disappeared, and how did I get HERE?" exclaimed Mr. Rogers, who had magically been sobered by his experiences. "Does anybody have a bottle of Asti?" "Forget it, Rob. We have bigger problems to solve. We gotta figure out how to get back into the Hex." Numbah Twenny-foah put his elbow on his knee and furrowed up his brow. "This worked for that French dude, maybe it'll help me." "But it's so EASY", burbled Mr. Rogers. "All we have to do is log on as new users and tell Joe in feedback that somehow our passwords have gotten screwed up." "Hey, Dingleberry. Haven't you been paying attention to the plot at all? It was Joe that screwed up our passwords and tossed us out of the Hex in the first place!" #24 was fast running out of patience. As the party of former Princes (and the Archduke and Executioner, of course) were attempting to come up with a solution, a large dark shape blotted out the sun above them....... ("Hmmmm.......", Dagny mused to herself. "Looks like I was right. There wasn't much place to take this turkey. Maybe #24 can do something with it." With that, she logged off.) Message 47: Fogging shoes and 501 Blues... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "That's Grand Duke," Sam griped. "Huh?" Dagny huhed, taking her cue from #24's usual brilliant comebacks. "You said archduke up there. That archduke stuff's for wannabes and bedwetters. We're talking Grand Duke here, complete with capital letters and raised type. Numero Dos. Heir to the throne. Next in line for kingship. Best of the least. Top of the heap. Near greatest of the great. And go heavy on the etc.'s." "Are you just stroking your ego or do you actually believe that?" "Well, I guess I don't really buy it either, but it looks good in print." "Hey, we're all nobodys now, remember?" #24 yelled. "Joe deranked and dumped us about four or five messages back, so all that rank stuff is kaput. But I think we can fix things." "How?" Rodgers asked, unable to think of a better line but not willing to be left out of this segment. "We're gonna take over the castle and start running things right. We'll ditch this feudalism crap and things'll be run by an elected group of officials, namely us. There'll be no more of this CTBVOBBSAOEMTAFBLK junk, no pinheads, no power struggles, no more uncomfortable suits of armor with no zipper, no caffiene and fewer calories to boot. Life's gonna be bitchin' around here when we're through." "How?" Rodgers asked again with his usual flair for the English language. "We'll get the peasants to start a rout, overthrow the throne, kill Joe, and then after they've totally taken control, we'll wipe 'em all out and do things our way. Soon as we've gotten the government stuff down we can rent some extra villagers and stuff from King George and get this place crankin'." "You're talking about mass murder!" Rodgers exclaimed, shocked. "Yeah!" #24 drooled, his eyes gleaming wildly. "But how can you even consider such a terrible thing?" Rodgers wimped. "Look guy, we can't have a couple million bloodthirsty peasants running around rioting all over the place. You got any idea what that kinda thing does to the local tourist trade? We gotta keep peace and tranquility rolling here. People don't drive 6000 miles over sand and scrub brush just to see a load of yoyos hanging each other with their own shoelaces. We're talking real-time property values here." "You're missing an important point," Dagny pointed out. "How can we get the peasants to turn on the King? Everyone regards Joe with such... um, casual indifference." "Simple," #24 leered. "We pass out a few flyers that sez Joe's going to redesign the castle all over again. The locals'll be using his skull for a punchbowl before they've even finished reading the first two lines." "Hold on," Sam protested. "Whoever passes those things out'll be an instant corpse. The moment Joe finds out what's going on he'll have the guy responsible hung before the sucker even gets the chance to deny it." "That's why we need some expendible patsy to pass 'em out," #24 replied. "A total bonzo." "Hey, what're you guys doing hanging around the moat?" Walstra sneered down at them from a nearby battlement. "Lose your water wings?" "Bingo." Message 48: "Hey, Walstra!", the call fogs...... Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] "C'mon down here! We got a problem only you can solve!" shouted Dagny. "Be right down!" shouted Walstra back. He ran across the battlement to the stairs leading to the sally port and appeared before the group, breathless with anticipation. "Always ready to help out the big-time users anytime I can!", he said. "Polish your sneakers, #24?" "No, the problem is a little bigger than that," said #24, deviously. See, the King told us to pass out these flyers to all the villagers, explaining how he's going to be re-designing the castle again. We hate to tell the King, but we've all got other, pressing, business to take care of. Things that need doing, you know how it is...but trying to tell Saint His Majesty that you have something better to do than what HE wants you to do is not exactly easy, you know? Anyway, we need to get these flyers passed out, but we don't have time to do it. Can you spare it?" An observant bystander, or even someone passing by that was blind, deaf and dumb, would have seen the wheels turning in Walstra's head. (Hmmm), he thought to himself, (it sure would be easy to do this, and then make sure that Joe sees me doing it, so he'd realize that his "Inner Sanctum" couldn't be bothered to carry out his orders, but he'd see ME doing it, willing and able and ready to serve him regardless. That should make me look pretty good, and that upstart Grand Duke look pretty dumb.) "Yeah, sure, I'll do it. Hope you get whatever it is that you need to do done." He took a huge stack of flyers, and went over to where the Old Man was playing catch with Floyd, ready to pass out the flyers to every villager that came to the gate. * * * * * * A shadowy figure lurking in the background overhears all of both this message and the previous one. The figure does some 'hmmmmmm'ing of its own, then slithers away. Message 49: No way, foggets Msg left by: STEVE WALSTRA [19] "So you thought I was that gullible, eh?" sneered Steve (whata sneerer). "Yes," they said in two-and-a-half-part harmony. "Well......I'm not," Steve strongly wimpered. (And that, my friends, it a tough thing to do) After taking one of the flyers and stuffing it in his pocket, he kicked the the rest of them into the moat, laughing as the piranhas made Swiss paper out of them. "I'm taking this to the King!" yelled Steve, "And I'll make sure that you sniveling lusers with delusions of Chris Westfall worship never get back into this Castle!" "And another thing. Sam, Archduke is HIGHER than Grand Duke, not that it matters anymore. Of course, you never really counted in the first place. Joe just gave you that so that you'd write stories and keep the pinheads amused," drooled Steve, regaining some lost ego from Sam's superfluous amount. He then ran off to show the King.... Message 50: Fogging party pooper... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "You're never gonna grasp it, are ya?" "Hhumpht?" Walstra hhumphted, too high-and-mighty to just go "Huh?" like anyone else would. "Screw Joe's rank system," Sam said. "We're talking history here. Comparing Grand Duke to archduke is like playing a full house against a pair of twos, and I got the winning hand." "Forget your hands," Steve spreered (a slightly surprised sneer, complete with occasional snorting at carefully timed intervals). "What're you still doing here? You're supposed to be playing fish food." "We emptied the moat, remember? No moat, no piranha, no gory death. If you wanna screw someone over on this board you gotta keep up with the plotline." While Walstra sphfeered (a somewhat frustrated and flustered spreer, as well as a total mockery of the English language) and spluttered, Dagny snuck up from behind and beat him to the ground with a hairpin. It took an unreasonably long time to pull off, but at least it worked. "What'll we do with him?" Dagny asked. "We can't just leave him here. Soon as someone finds him he'll go shooting his mouth off and spill everything." "We gotta hide him someplace safe," #24 mused. "Someplace he won't be found too easily and won't be able to get out of. I say we bury him." "That's a little cruel even for him, isn't it?" Dagny asked. "Nah. He'll be right at home, stuck down there with the dirt and the worms. C'mon, help me drag 'im over to the hole." #24, Dagny and Sam grabbed Walstra and somehow managed to pull him into the pit they'd made in the middle of the area where the moat had been and tossed him in. "Stand back," #24 warned, and shoved a square of plastic explosives into the mud above the entrance to the hole. He lit the fuse and jumped behind a tree. Seconds later, a loud thunderous noise and explosion of dirt marked the end of Artslaw. The others failed to follow this with great sorrow and regret. "So now we need another pigeon," #24 said, hawkishly eying Daniel Hutchinson walk by. "Yo, Hutchy! How'd you like to do a favor for me?" "What's in it for me?" Hutchinson snorted. #24 grabbed him by the shirt collar and spun him a few times. "Your front teeth and most've your ribs. Kapesh?" "So what do you want me to do?" Hutchinson spluttered. #24 yanked a handful of flyers out of his pocket and stuffed them in Hutchinson's mouth. "You pass these out to everyone you see in the castle and try not to let the King see you doing it. Got that?" "Hmr mrphf," Hutchinson agreed. "Okay, then get to it!" #24 growled, and flung him over the castle walls. "How long d'ya figure it'll take to get the anarchy rolling?" Sam asked. "In that place, about two minutes," #24 replied. "C'mon, grab a seat. This oughta be good." Sounds of rioting and confusion began to drift over the castle walls, followed by the eventual announcement of Hutchinson's impending execution. #24 snickered quietly. "You're not going to get away with this, you know." "Whossedzat?!?!!" #24 belched out in one breath. "I did," announced a man in sloppy, rusty armour, stepping out from behind a hill. "I am Cuthbert Sobblesteen, savior of the innocent, protector of the oppressed, punisher of the unjust, vanquisher of the unvanquished..." "And boring as ****," Dagny broke in. "Who beist thou that speakest so to a gentleman of my standing?" he demanded. "What's with this 'beist' and 'speakest' stuff?" #24 gagged. "You got a lisp?" "I am a knight of King Hubblergord's court, and I speak as befits one of my genteel nature and chivalrous attitude. And I shall see to it you pay dearly for your indiscretions against the lord of yon castle." #24 slammed his hand down on Cuthbert's head and screwed him into the ground. Message 51: Fog Newtons Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "This won't stop me," Cuthbert warned. "Like a true knight, I shall persevere over all." #24 stomped him into the dirt. "Fif won't stof me," Cuthbert said, choking back mud. "Noffing can stof a fember of King Hofflergorf's courphft!" #24 dumped a bucket of grog down the hole. "Thbbphfs wbn't stbp mbe eberble!" he gurgled. #24 shrugged and dumped a cup of calcium into the grog, and Cuthbert went up in a satisfying burst of flame. "#@%&#$ Shakespeare rejects," #24 cursed. The Old Man ran around the castle in a frenzy. The peasants had broken into the Royale One-and-a-half Bedroom Chamber and carried Joe off. Floyd was nowhere to be seen and the moat monster was out of town having its taxes audited. Most of the pinheads had joined the villagers' side or been killed. The King's army had already turned in their armor and set off for the unemployment office. There was a lot of talk of burning Joe at the stake, and all that lay between Joe's rescue and toasted Powell Puffs was the Old Man and the knight that a local King had promised to send over to help who hadn't shown yet. Things were really looking bad for the Hex, but the Old Man couldn't complain. At least it was a plot. Walstra crawled up off his *** or at least something that passed off as a reasonable excuse for one. Next to the dirt and mud, the first thing that reached his attention was the smell of charred flesh. "You got any iodine on ya, pal?" Cuthbert asked weakly. "Things've quieted down in there," Dagny yelled back to the others. "What's going on in there?" #24 asked. "Somebody's in there yelling for a box of matches. Probably planning on torching Joe." "Okay, 'sbout time we rushed the place. Ready?" The others nodded. "Okay, we make it fast and quick, and nobody comes out alive, right?" "Not even us?" Bahadur asked. "Since when's a guy like you count as one of the living?" #24 snapped. "Course we come out alive. That's the point, I think. Anyway, let's go dent some skulls!" #24 and crew all grabbed their assorted weapons and rushed the gate. Joe wriggled his hands desperately. He'd been tied to a pole and the villagers had covered the ground around him in highly flammable items, like dry wood, leaves, and Artslaw's temper. The peasant who'd been sent out for matches had come back, and as soon as they figured out which end of the box to strike the match on, he was gonna be in for one hot and heavy afternoon. The dark, shadowy figure continued to lurk around the Hex. Lurk lurk lurk. It was getting a little old by now, but Dagny was too desperate to have someone do something with the character to just let it slip past too easily. It continued to lurk for a while. It tried kruling just to see how it felt, but it didn't pan out. It decided to give an early French lurk a whirl for the time being and see where things went from there. Le lurke le lurke le lurke. The figure eventually collapsed from a 'le' overdose and lay still. Jay Young logged onto the Hex some time afterwards, and noticed the storyline was getting incredibly out of hand. He decided the only way to make Sam quit while he was ahead was to ring his number a few times and let call waiting take care of ^$&HU KB$%$RV*VU% D%#G#%DH@$D.... Message 52: Ashes, the Fog, and I Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] As the villagers staggered off to bed, exhausted by the efforts of trying to figure out how to light off Joe, a voice was heard in the distance, saying "Well, I say we can burn him tomorrow just as easy. I'm too tired to watch it tonight." The Courtyard and the Fitzgerald Long Memorial Joust Field & Polo Grounds were soon deserted and silent, silent as the tomb they were shortly to become, if the villagers had their way. The dark cloaked figure, who had recovered from his OD on French lurkeing, drifted carefully up to the post to which SHM King Joe was tied, and pulling a knife from the top of his boot, cut the ropes binding The SysOp. "It's about time you showed up", grumbled Joe as he briskly rubbed his arms and legs in an effort to restore circulation to them. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it." "Have I ever, in our long association, failed you? Do you think it likely I would start now? Grant you, there have been times when I've been less than totally attentive, but, when the chips go down, I show up." The two made their way to a small door set into the base of the SysOp's tower, and knocked three times, then twice, then five times, then once. "All right, all RIGHT!" muttered the Old Man, opening the door. "This is the stupidest recognition signal I ever heard of. By the time you get done knocking, the whole castle is going to know someone's sneaking around." "Exactly" said the mysterious dark figure. "This way they'll think it's Hashey and the Scabba Patrol playing war games again, and totally ignore the whole thing." "Not bad thinking, actually" acknowledged the Old Man, "but what are you planning on doing about my going deaf from all the clatter?" "We'll work it into your pension, don't sweat it." Joe reassured him. "Right now, we have more important fish to fry, and I don't mean piranhas, either. That reminds me. Send off another letter to Emilio telling him we need another shipment of the things. Those helpless half-wits have killed off the batch we just got. Restocking that moat is getting expensive!" With that, all three of the nocturnal plotters went down and down and down a secret staircase, to the dungeons. * * * * * * Meanwhile, the helpless half-wits, aka Dagny, #24, Sam, the Knight, Roger (Ed. note: How did HE get back on the outside of the moat? Talk about scrambling plot lines, Sam!) and Mr. Rogers, were getting ready to storm the walls. (Ed. note again: With all this tossing of people back and forth over them willy-nilly, I'm getting a picture of a small picket fence. Whatever happened to the "towering ramparts"?) Dagny unlooped her thugee cord from around her waist and strangled Ed. "Enough already! Get on with the PLOT!" screamed Sam. "What plot?" replied Dagny. Suddenly, a bush beside #24 grew to gigantic proportions, and a glint of metal could be seen for just an instant as #24 was enveloped in the shadow. Great struggle could be seen, dust was raised, trampled again, and raised again as the two figures wove back and forth in a pavane of death. As the rest of the group watched helplessly, the last traces of movement subsided, and two lumps of darkness laying on the road at the edge of the moat were all that remained. Sam rushed to the larger of the two figures, and saw two knives and a poisoned dart protruding from the corpse. "I don't recognize this creep at all. What about the rest of you?" Roger rifled the pockets of the late departed, and came up empty except for a small rectangular plastic card with a bunny-rabbit logo, a long number, and the name Phineas Steel embossed in it. Message 53: I, The Fog, and Ashes Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] "That's what I've been trying to tell you guys, but you won't listen to me! While I was at the Sears Tower, I overheard the guys from the CTBVOBBSAOEMTAFBLK assign this Steel guy to "terminate" the "problem" at the Hex!" "Well, he's certainly terminated" said Roger. "The Executioner was his usual efficient self. You gotta be good to dye *****." "Looks like he was just providing himself with an escort to Valhalla" said Sam. "Whaddaya mean, Sam?" said Roger, lucidly for a change. "I mean that #24 has departed this vale, gone permanently west, crossed to the other side, expired, in other words, he's bled out" replied Sam. "Do you mean he's dead?" asked Mr. Rogers. "That's what I said, isn't it?" "I wasn't sure." "D@mn!" exclaimed Dagny. "This is gonna piss Joe off!" (Author's note: Sorry to have to waste Steel like that, after yelling cause you killed him off early, but you rushed the plot line so fast that I couldn't get that piece developed right. Oh, well....such is life. But don't come to ME the next time you need to borrow a pair of socks.) Message 54: Sam, you fogging idiot! Msg left by: STEVE WALSTRA [19] Then Dagny thought of something...It took a while...But then she knew just what to do... "If Jay can throw a runt like Daniel Hutchison over the walls, then I should have no problem kicking a run......Sam...Look! There's a whole penny on the ground right in front of me!" said Dagny, smiling as she tossed a penny out in front of her. "Oh boy!" said Sam, not one with words when it came to free money. He bent over to pick it up and WHAM! [Sam's favorite group, no less] Dagny was just off a little and Sam's face became one with the TOWERING RAMPARTS. "He made it look so easy," smiled Dagny looking at #24. (She was smiling because of the way Sam's body just kinda stuck on the wall a "gooed" down like those stupid octopi you get from cereal boxes....) Message 55: Fog earred... Msg left by: ROGER BAHADUR [26] "It's easy if you know how to do it right," said #23 as he brushed himself off and tried to stand up straight. "JAY!" Everyone shouted in Unisom, and then fell asleep for 3 hours and woke up and continued..."You're alive!" Dagny ecstatically said. "How did you pull that one off? We thought you were dead?" "It's my famous 'Snake Plissken/Kurt Russell' maneuver. Plus light body armor left over from the quitting guardsmen helped a little..." "Oh..." everyone said in unison again...except Sam, who was trying to ooze out of the moat (like those stupid octopi that you get in those RS232-C serial boxes....) Dagny then said, "And how come you're now #23 instead of #24?" "Huh?!??! What in the aich-eee-double-toothpick (hell) are you talking about? Who said I was #23?" #23 yelled... Dagny looked about in confusion as did everyone else, wondering where that notion was derived from. If the reader will note: there was nothing in this story quoted about Jay being #23. The author has no idea how Dagny obtained this information without direct contact to an inside informant...But this would destroy all the fun in this and disrupt the story. So let us say that Jay obtained a "1" from the rather oozy Sam, thus restoring Jay to #24 and reducing Sam by 1 which will affect him in no way since hardly any of us know his number or actually particularly care. On we go... Dagny looked about in confusion and then said, "Well, never mind THAT. It's great to see you back again!" "Okay, okay!" #24 said, "now back to planning...Roooogggggeeerrrrr... You're still buddy-buddy with Joe, aren't you?" "Uhhhhhh.....YYYYyyyyyyeeeaaaaahhhhh....." AAUUTTHHOORR........HHoolldd oonn,, tthheerree''ss ssoommeetthhiinngg wwrroonngg wwiitthh mmyy dduupplleexx....... "Sorry, pal...you ARE NOT getting off easy again...c'mere...You are going to go into the castle the same way you got in last time. You are going to stay there for a while and extract neccessary information on how we can get rid of Joe before something happens between now and when the peasants come back and find that someone's helped Joe off the stake. You better report back to us or else..." "Or else what?" Roger stubbornly said... Jay sighed and grabbed Roger on the top of his head and started doing a "brain-sucker"...except this time something did come out of his head and was absorbed by #24's hand... "Okay...You have just been removed of one value of you're user number....if you want it back you'll HAVE to come back...Oh yeah.." Jay put his hand in front of Roget's face and removed his glasses... "These will do nicely too..." "NOT MY GLASSES!" an enraged Roger yelled and leaped towards #25. #25 then used the momentum from the leap and pivoted Roger around and over the embattlements of the Hex...A loud thump was heard... Message 56: Open fog lire... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "So what'll we do while Roger goes and does whatever it is he thinks he's doing?" #25 asked, thoroughly accenting the apostrophes. "How 'bout we kick Walstra's ***?" Sam suggested. "Walstra is an ***," Dagny grumbled. "Where is he?" #25 asked. "He's still buried in that hole over there," Rodgers said, pointing towards the Hex's rapidly collapsing foundation. "You mean he got on here and posted all that junk but didn't have the sense to extract himself out of the hole?" Dagny asked disgustedly. "Whaddya expect?" #25 replied. "I told ya he'd feel right at home in there." "Hey, wait!" Rodgers yelped. "What's that mean up there?" "What's what mean up where?" #25 asked. "That part about the Hex's rapidly collapsing foundation up in the fifth paragraph. What does it mean by rapidly collapsing?" "Means it's rapidly collapsing. Whaddya think?" "Yes, but why?" "Ask Sam. He's writing this segment." "Well?" "The water must've flooded all the underground chambers and eroded the foundation, so the weight of the castle is driving the soil down, causing a massive sinkhole," Sam explained. "You just made all that up," Rodgers said accusingly. "You're just dropping the castle so you can crush Walstra underneath it." A piercing Walstra-like scream was heard and was quickly snuffed out. "Okay, so ya figured it out. Big deal." "Well if you're so bright," #25 growled at Rodgers, "maybe you can figure out why Roger decided to start screwing around with my user number, and why he decided to go on with me jumping around like nothing'd happened after Dagny pronounced me dead." "I doubt it," Rodgers mused. "Now maybe if I had a couple cases of Asti to stimulate my brain..." "What brain?" #25 snapped. "All that grey matter's just a sponge for booze." "Hey guys?" Dagny spoke up nervously. "Howcum the castle's still sinking?" "How deep do those underground tunnels go?" Sam asked. "All the way to Hades far as I know," #25 replied. "Looks like Joe just might get torched after all." They stood and watched respectfully as the kingdom slowly sunk into the mud. The lower it sank, the faster it went, and with a final whimpering gurgle, it eventually disappeared from sight. "How'm I supposed to explain this to the morgage company?" #25 groaned. Message 57: Whattin the FOG????? Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] "do you people think you're doing with my user number?" screeched the enraged REAL #25. "This has gotta stop RIGHT NOW!!!!" Dagny pulled a knife from behind her neck and stabbed the counterfeit #25 in the heart. Nothing happened. "AHA!" she exclaimed as she started using the knife more as a cleaver, and started hacking away at the strange thing in front of her. Bits of what appeared to be foam rubber and styrofoam and insulated wiring and miscellaneous diodes and semi-conducters and stray chunks of circuit board and whathaveyou flew every which way with brisk abandon. Eventually, she carved away a quantity of miscellaneous relatively soft stuff to reveal a large steel cylinder, a compressor, and some odd plumbing. "MmmmmmmHHHHMMMMMMM!" she murmered, examining it. "I thought so!" she exclaimed, and flipped a switch on the thing. An almost invisible pale purple gas started sucking into the apparatus. "Noooo, STOP! Please don't!" pleaded Roger, as the dazed users standing outside the gate noticed that the collapsing wall and battlements weren't. There they stood, solid as the day they were built. "You're destroying my life's work. Stooooooooooooooooooooop......" "No way, Rojet (with the French pronunciation, so it rhymes, got that?)", said Dagny. "Life's work, schmife's work. You and the Doc are going to have a lot of explaining to do pretty soon here. All that "secret", you THOUGHT, ex- perimenting you were doing down there with the pinheads wasn't quite as secret as you thought. We really aren't quite as dumb as we look around here. The only thing we didn't know was how you planned on first using your "nonsense" gas to destroy the Hex so everyone would call Studio B." "Whaaaa?????????????" said Sam. "Huuuuuuuuhhhhhhh???" said Mr. Rodgers "But......." "Uuuuuuuuhhhhh" "Eeeerrrrrrrrr........." and similar null-content sounds were uttered by the rest of the mob. "Don't sweat it, guys. Things are under control here" said Dagny. "That's good," replied Sam. "But what happens next?" "That's up to whoever writes the next chapter," explained #25. "But at least everyone has their own user number back, and the Hex is in one piece again." Message 58: who or what is, Msg left by: ERIC NIEMI [297] JAY, it or he is meantioned on ever chamber but I don't know who or what he is! please reply. Message 59: Eric.... Msg left by: STEVE WALSTRA [19] It's "Yaj" spelled backwards. Get it? As for reviving myself, well, I didn't want to post on this board in the first place. I just came in to save myself. ___ Walstra <<< Message 60: ERIC... Msg left by: TRES RANDOLPH [76] JAY IS ALSO BIG, MEAN, AND PROBABLY GETS VERY ANGRY WHEN PEOPLE CALL HIM SUCH THINGS AS "IT", AND "WHAT"...IN FACT I DON'T SUGGEST YOU EVER GO TO A BBS PARTY... HE LIKES TO CARRY A .357 WITH HIM... TRES Message 61: In reality Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] By Executive Fiat of Saint His Majesty King Joe and His Eminence The Executioner, there IS no such person as "Jay", and the person who used his name had better remember it! Now can we get back to the story? Message 62: Fog pound blues... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] #24 glared over at Walstra, Niemi and Randolph, who were all standing over to the left yelling at each other despite the fact that none of them had any purpose in the story whatsoever and shouldn't really have been mentioned in this segment to begin with. He considered ripping their necks open and hanging them with their own vocal cords, but since they really weren't part of the plot and had only been mentioned in the opening sentence as a hint to get their conversation off the storyboard, there wasn't much point in bothering. Besides that, it had already been established that the best way to get rid of Walstra was to quit trying to get rid of him, so he left him alone. That didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it was a lot easier to figure out then the bizarre plot twists Dagny had thrown in last message. And besides all that, #24 hadn't even posted on the board for at least a week now and wasn't even sure what he was still doing as part of the story. What had started out as a pathetically simple excuse for a plot was quickly becoming a pathetically complicated excuse for a plot, and it was becoming harder and harder to understand where things stood without keeping a score card. "Okay, so lemme get this straight," #24 groaned. "We only thought we'd sunk the castle, when really Roget here was trying to destroy it with gas so his board would get all the Hex's attention, right?" "Uh huh," Dagny replied. "Pretty clever, huh?" "So howcum he didn't just let us wreck the castle on our own instead of going through all whatever it was he went through to rig up whatever he rigged?" "Wha..?" "Why'd he fool us into thinking we'd destroyed the castle when we would've done it anyway?" "Hey, the explanation wasn't supposed to make a whole lotta sense," Dagny shrugged. "I was just too lazy to go through all the bother of coming up with a real solution to the problem." "Boy, that's the last thing I would've expected you to admit." "You think I'da really said that if Sam wasn't doing this segment? Not a chance, pal." "Well it doesn't matter now anyhow," Roger gloated. "All that stuff about me fooling you into thinking you'd sunk the castle was a crock. I fooled you into thinking I'd fooled you so you wouldn't be able to do anything in time to save it." "Huh...?" the others huhed in unison. "The castle really did sink, it's really gone, and Studio B's really gonna be rolling in callers now." "Not if it ain't got a Sysop to run it, it ain't," Dagny growled, stalking towards Roger menacingly. "What're you so POed about?" Roger demanded. "I thought you wanted the Hex destroyed." "Maybe, but I don't appreciate your walking all over my half-baked explanation of why it wasn't supposed to've sunk. Eat salami and die, scumsucker!" Dagny yanked out an 85 lb. salami and shoved it down Roger's throat, who promptly passed out from grizzle inhalation. "Now what?" Sam asked unwisely. "We gotta go down there and pull the castle back up," #24 replied. "Not much point in taking over a kingdom if you wreck the kingdom doing it. Makes for bad PR." "Great," Dagny grumbled. "Anybody got any rope?" Joe stared out his window with a fixed stare and a dropped jaw. He looked slightly like a goldfish that was choking on its dentures, but personal appearance is usually one of the least of your worries when you're being buried alive, especially when you're doing something as ridiculous as being buried with an entire kingdom. At least he had the consolation of knowing he'd managed to take it all with him. "How long do you figure it'll take us to hit bottom?" he asked the Old Man. "I give it a couple more hours," the Old Man mused. "We hadda dig those tunnels pretty deep to bury..." "Don't say his name!" the King interrupted. "You know how I feel about that." "Aw no," the Old Man groaned. "We're not starting up that stuff again, are we?" Message 63: one foggy day... Msg left by: NOMAD LURANG [171] Sam said "Hey, it just occured to me..." "What did?" asked Dagny. "Didn't Nomad write a part of a previous story establishing that CommHex Castle was in another Universe or some such crap?" "Now that you mention it.... yeah... he did!" said The Duke, stepping into the story long enough to annoy the writers. Before he could leave Dagny kicked him in the.... uh... rear and sent him sailing off into the sunset. "How are we going to fix this major mistake?" asked Mr Lorax. "WHO SAID IT WAS A MISTAKE!!!" yelled Sam loud enough to deafen the dead. "Are we going to correct it?" asked Lorax. "Well..." began Sam, "why bother?" "It might appease Nomad." suggested #24. "I couln't care less, though." "True, but it DOES contradict previous stories!!" the one called Lorax said. "So?" said Dagny. "Since when has that mattered?" "It doesn't," said Lorax, "but I might point out that Nomad is WRITING this segment! He might just take action against us if we DON'T fix the plot error." "Who said it was a plot error?" said Sam, staring at the sky, looking bored. "Well---" began Lorax. "I'VE GOT IT!" exclaimed Dagny. "Why not claim the Castle exists on BOTH Earths simultaneously!!!!" "It might work... except... what happens should we meet our parallels of that other Universe? It might cause trouble!" stated Sam, trying to poke holes in the suggestion. "Yeah, and how do the others tell the difference between them?" asked #24. "We'll think of something..." said Lorax. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Old Man arrived at Joe's office, the King had called him up. "Whatiyah want?" the Man said. "This experiment of yours, putting us in two Universes at once, backfired!" said the King. "I hate to say I told you so but--" "Ok. So what went wrong!" "A group of FORMER Users from the other Earth dropped the WHOLE Hex domain down this hole!" "So? It was your fault! You discontinued them! You're just looking for an excuse to---" "I want this experiment ended! I prefer just being in ONE Universe!" * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * A few moments later the hole disappeared to be replced by a huge plot of empty land. "Well," said Lorax, "guess that solves that problem! Now the Hex is back where it belongs!" "Yeah, but they're probably still in the hole," said Dagny. "Oh, they'll fix that problem," said 24. "Yeah," said Dagny, " but what are we going to do for a story NOW!" Message 64: There's a fog in my soup Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] "Mpppfffggghhhh." The sound came from a largish pile of bedclothes, topped by a somewhat motheaten bear hide. "Mrrrgggghhhhhffffff....snnnnrt.....rfffft." A reply came from another equally disorderly bed. "Awwwwwwwwwuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Shnrt...mpppk. Wha'???????????" "Huhhhhhhhhhhh?" "This has got to STOP!" The Old Man had finally reached a sufficient state of consciousness to be intelligible. "You are so right!" The Doc rose from his pile of blankets, pulled the bear hide off the old man. "I'm going to go do something about it right now!" He left the anteroom of the Dungeon, where he had collapsed after the previous night's drinking contest. He made his way to the kitchens, where the pinheads were preparing breakfast. "Rdy fr sm ssgnggs?" The head pinhead had donned a white chef's hat in honor of the new day. "NO! I am NOT ready for some ssgnggs! And furthermore, you will IMMEDIATELY cease putting garlic AND cloves AND cayenne pepper AND tarragon into the white sauce! I will NOT spend another night dreaming about Nomad Lurang! Is that CLEAR???? Or do I have to call the Executioner to remind you? NO MORE!!!" "That should take care of that!" The Doc left and went down to the dungeons to his lab, where he was working on a followup to Roget's nonsense gas. Little did he know..... Message 65: Rally 'round the fog, guys... Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] Dagny and Nomad were standing behind the rest of the group beating a small animal to death with their word processors. "What're they doing?" 24 asked. "They're killing the plot," Watson grumbled. "Looks like we'd better go hatch up another one." "Here ya go," Bahadur yelled, dragging what looked like a large egg. "This one looks about ripe." "An egg?" 24 yelled. "Pantyhose comes in eggs. Plots don't come in eggs!" "Hey, you said we hadda hatch up another plot," Roger protested. "Besides, all the plots around here eventually end up laying an egg. This's one of their offspring." "So what'll we do with it?" Sam grumbled. "Wait for it to crack open?" "Ya sit on it," Roger replied. "That's what we oughta do with all our plots anyway." "Great," 24 growled. "You just got elected to warm your buns on it, Roger. Siddown!" "Why me?" Roger asked indignantly, dumping his lumpy body on top of the egg. "Fer one thing, yer the biggest one here and you'll cover the most ground on the thing. Besides, you started the whole stupid deal." "Hey, am I writin' this crapola? Uh uh. Lookit the top of this message. It sez Sam scrawled out this junk, so Sam oughta be squattin' down on this @#%&# egg!" "Not a chance. Like you said, I'm writing this junk, and if you think I'm gonna have myself sitting on an egg, you can forget it." "Well why don't we get one of the BBS pigeons to sit on this thing?" Roger griped. "Pigeons and eggs go together like Nomad and underwear jokes. Wanna drag Walstra back into this?" The others shook their heads like something you'd find in the back window of a Pinto. "Look, it's not important anymore," 24 said. "It's hatching." The egg split open and crumbled, dumping Roger gracelessly to the ground. "Sqwawk!" sqwawked a shapeless something that jumped out of the broken shell. "Hey, that's not a plot. It's another BBS pigeon." Dagny pointed out. "Hay gize!" Badger Boy grinned. "Ken Ey poast mey serjun stowiez hear?" Seconds later, the Badge was fertilizer. "Okay, that one didn't work out," Roger apologized, pulling out another egg. "Anyone wanna try this one out?" "Forget it," 24 grumbled. "I've got a better idea." "And what's that?" Message 66: Workin' at the Fog Wash Blues. Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] "First." 24 said, pulling a notepad from his back pocket and a pen from a jacket pocket. He looked at Watson. "Do you have anything to contribute to the story?" he asked. "Uhhhh...." Watson started to reply. "Good answer, but not good enough." 24 said. He wrote a couple more lines. From under the ground a rumble shook the group and a huge hand broke the surface and grabbed Watson's legs and dragged him back underground. "We're tyin' up some loose ends here......" 24 said "Y'all wanna give me a hand?" he said to Sam and Dagny. Message 68: Swinging on a Fogbow Msg left by: DAGNY TAGGART [25] The long night passed. As the first flat sunbeams streamed over the horizon, sounds of villagers awakening to the new day could be heard by the bedraggled crowd of one-time nobility standing outside the gates. No specific words could be made out, but the progress of the day could be generally followed. The groan made by 900-odd people individually discovering that they had the worst hangovers of their lives was unmistakeable. The gushing of waters was equally clear. Sounds of activities in the street began to surface, culminating with a clear shout. "Where's his ex-****ing Majesty?" The rising babble of anger within the gates brought consternation to the fore in the hearts and minds(?) of the confused ones outside the gates. "We've got to get in there!" Dagny was pacing back and forth in front of the closed drawbridge. "We know that!" Sam sounded more than slightly disgusted. He had spent at least 3 messages making that very point. "But come up with a way to do it!" Artslaw had been sitting staring at the walls for some time, so it's only fair that it was he who first noticed that a clump of bushes about halfway to the first corner of the walls was moving. Thinking this to be an event worthy of notice, he stood up and pointed. "Hey, lookit that!" He started running toward the bushes. The rest of the crew of the good (but long since sunk without trace) ship Hextank followed. Revealed to their wondering eyes was a small door leading into a passage inside the walls of the new Hex. Standing beside the door he had just opened was the Old Man. "'Bout time you showed up. What took you so long?" He muttered an aside to Dagny. "Thanks for remembering to send my chicken livers home with the boss. If I'd waited for you to get back, they wouldn't even have made good shrimp bait. Was the mission a success?" "Not really, I'm afraid. As usual, things got loused up but good in transit. You'll be listening in when I report to St. His Majesty, so I don't want to tell the whole story twice." The Old Man ushered the group through what seemed an endless maze of corridors and staircases, finally arriving at a large pair of steelbanded oaken doors in a corridor off level 20 that they had never suspected existed. "His Majesty and The Executioner must have been playing one of Todo's most fiendish campaigns when they were designing the new Hex. This place is a labyrinth!" Mr. Rodgers was overwhelmed by the complexity of the pathways available behind the user areas of the castle. He was interrupted by the opening of the doors, revealing a very large and dimly lit room. In the center of the echoing stone cavern stood a huge round table with a marble top. In two of the chairs surrounding the table, people were seated. Message 69: Fogger Knows Best Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] Sitting around the table were the other members of the Inner Circle, and select members of the Chartroom who had been brought along for entertainment and personal abuse. Joe sat on an embarrassingly ornate chair at the head of the table, and he looked at the HexTank brigade proudly as they walked through the door. "Glad you could make it," he greeted. "The awards ceremony is about to begin." "Huh?" the others huhed, faking casual surprise. "That's right!" Watson beamed, crawling out from underneath the table. "It's time for the first annual Storyboard Aluminum Ralph awards!" "Wha...?" #24 wha...ed, complete with the extra punctuation. Watson held up a cheaply-made aluminum statue of a short guy who looked suspiciously like one of the pinheads. "You're probably noticing how these statues look suspiciously like one of the pinheads," Watson said. "That's because we figured it'd be cheaper to just smother a couple of them in aluminum than actually make some real trophies. Gives 'em kind of a personal touch." "What're they for?" Walstra asked. "It's an award for outstanding effort on the Storyboard, and you've all won one for carrying off the best plotline of the last two weeks, namely the castle takeover. As well as being a good storyline, it was also one of the longest running to date. Congratulations!" "I hate these stupid award ceremony things," #24 growled to the others. "Let's trash the place." Shots rang out, screams were heard, furniture was smashed, walls collapsed, and Watson was re-killed for the umpteenth time this month. "Great party, Joe!" #24 grinned, tossing pieces of the ceiling aside. "Harumph," Joe harumphed in his best kingly manner. "At least that ridiculous takeover plotline is over and done with." "Oh yeah?" Roger yelped. "Somebody tell them that!" An angry mob of torch-waving peasants had gathered outside and were demanding the king. "Aw ****!" Jay asterisked angrily. Message 70: Oh foggin' 'ell! Msg left by: ROGER BAHADUR [26] Joe looked a little apprehensive as did the other members in the chamber. "Quick! There's a secret door over here behind me which we can use!" Joe quickly said....(1200 baud) "Ummmm....you mean this secret door?" Dagny pointed to some broken rocks that looked like it used to be a secret door... "Foggin' ****!!!" #24 asterisked again.... "Hey Jay! Maybe you could throw some of those asterisks at the villagers!" Sam interjected... "Hey! Good suggestion!" Jay said as he grabbed some asterisks from his last message and hurled them toward the angry throng.....No avail....They dissolved into thin air as soon as the villagers held up these STRANGE bells surrounded by a perfect circle that make a single clicking noise... "Great! They've taken my most effective defense from the barracks!" Joe cried, "calls waiting!" "What are we going to do now? They're one message closer!" Dagny shouted over the din... "Oh jeez...I going to HAVE to try this..." Roger quickly pulled out a strangely marked can and ran to the head of the crowd and sprayed them...a purple, hazy, smoke came out and hit the first few... Instead of blind rage and anger...the peasants and villagers started mumbling something about naked fingernails and massive structures composed of sand mixed with spit...The rest of the horde that didn't get the gas was too confused by their affected comrades....This gave Roger and the members enough time to shimmy through the blank faced crowd.. "This is GREAT! Where did you get the extra gas? I thought you lost it all when Dag killed the #25 robot!" Watson said even though he was dead... "I always seem to find a can in my pocket...but I only contained it in bottles...it doesn't make sense..." "Uhhh...friends...I think we'd better make our efforts to escape a little more quickly...listen..." Joe said... Near the chamber where the first people were affected by the nonsense gas, there was the returning sound of angry people growing over the mumbling nonsense near the users...And the recovering subjects were pushing through and getting nearer.... Message 71: Fogging a Dead Horse (probably just a passing fad. Don't sweat it) Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "Quick!" #24 yelled. "Down this hole!" "What hole?" Roger demanded. #24 grabbed a nearby pinhead and pounded him into the dirt. "That hole," #24 replied. The others jumped in, followed by #24. There was a loud, uncomfortable landing, and the others suddenly regretted not letting #24 go first. "Since when do they put spiked cleats on Reeboks?" Dagny winced painfully. "Quitcher gripin' and move yer asterisks!" #24 bellowed. "Seems we landed in the middle of one of Joe's underground tunnels, and unless I miss my guess, there oughta be a staircase to the lower levels just over to the left!" #24 turned on his heel and ran smack into a wall. "Hokay, so maybe it was over to the right," he shrugged, and passed out. "Sam," Dagny groaned, "I'll grab his legs. You grab his arms." "You're not gonna try dragging that big lump, are you?" Roger asked. "Nope, you are," Dagny replied, heaving #24 on Roger's back. "C'mon, let's beat feet!" "I don't go for that S&M stuff," the Old Man said disgustedly. "I mean run, you decrepit old fossil!" They took off down the hall, followed by an angry mob of peasants who had discovered their whereabouts. "Look!" Joe panted. "There's a light coming from down the hallway there. Think it's a way out?" "It looks like the mad scientist's lab," Roger gasped. "You'd be the guy to know, too. Maybe we'd better turn around." The others stopped, except for Roger. The added momentuum of having #24 on his back kept him skidding towards the door, pushing the others along as well. "Hello there," the doc grinned malevolently, watching them slam into the back wall of his lab. "Are you here to donate something or just visiting?" "Visiting," Joe snapped. "We've got a mob on our tail. You got any back doors in here?" "Afraid not, and if you reply with that old gag, "Where would you like one?" I'll sic the cockroaches on you." "Hey, there's an idea!" #24 yelled, conveniently coming to. "Hey Doc, how 'bout letting 'em loose in the hallway for a minute? That oughta clean up the loose ends in this plotline nicely." The Doc shrugged and yanked a lever. Seconds later, the hallway was flooded with roaches. And seconds laterer, after a few nauseating sound effects and needless bloodshed, the hallway was totally clear of villagers, peasants, pinheads, narcs, wannabes, bedwetters, Badger Boy and the like. "So what're you up to now, Doc?" Joe yawned. "The ultimate in tanning lotions. It's a genetically altering substance that permanently darkens the taker's skin tone to that beautiful roasted look that usually takes hours of frying on the beach to acquire. If I can ever get it to work right, I'll have a best-selling product here. Even better than those Zamfir pan flute albums I concocted last week." "What's wrong with it?" Roger asked. "Well, it has this tendency to turn the user completely black instead of the golden tan I was looking for. Seems I overdid it a little on the color scheme." "Is this a permanent change?" #24 asked. "Like I said, it's a genetically altering substance. It induces an added pigmentation in the skin than the body usually carries, and there is no way of stopping it. Unfortunately, it creates too much, and doesn't stop until the person is totally black. There doesn't seem to be much use for it." "I dunno," #24 mused. "Sounds like a better way of raising Cain than spraying lawns with defoilating chemicals. What kinda effect would I get mixing this stuff with water?" "The chemical would be somewhat diluted, but its effect would remain the same." "Great. C'mon guys, we're gonna go spike the South African water supply big time." "Isn't this plotline a little too controversial?" Dagny asked. "Aw, go on. If the comics can do it, we can do it. 'Sides, what else's there to do? Bowling alley's closed and the store's out of defoilating spray. C'mon." Message 72: It's a fog, fog way to Tipparary. Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] Scene 1. (Camera pans across a crowded airport lounge. Finally ends pan on group sitting in uncomfortable plastic waiting chairs in front of large sign. Sign reads: "Aparthid Airlines - Money talks, bull**** walks, and small change takes the bus to Soweto." All members of the group are wearing black Ray-Bans, and obviously fake beards & moustaches. Even Dagny. Roger and Joe are sitting next to a 55-gallon drum with large orange stickers proclaiming "Biologiocal Hazard - Keep Away". Number 24 walks up to the group and starts handing out boarding passes to the group.) 24: "Allright...get 'em while they're hot. First class seats to Sun City. One for Joe, one for Sam, one for Roger, one for Dagny, one for me." Dagny: "Smoking or Non-smoking?" 24: "You ought to know better than that. If you need a smoke, step back to the lounge." Joe: "What are we going to do with `Baby'? I mean...we don't want to sent it through with the rest of the luggage, do we?" (24 reaches into an inner pocket of his jacket and removes a handful of stickers.) 24: "This'll handle it." (Sticks stickers on drum. Stickers say "Int'l Donor Program" and "Donor organ for Transplant. Do not drop.") 24: "I think that'll do nicely." Sam: "This I gotta see." (24 reaches back into his jacket and removes a folded white bundle, which he hands to Sam.) 24: "Good. Put this on." (Sam unfolds the bundle and finds that it is a lab coat. It is a bit large for him but will do the trick. 24 calls a flight attendant over.) 24: "G'day, miss. We're runnin' a bit behind schedule 'ere... What time is our flight outta 'ere?" F.A.: "Flight 114 from Jax International to Sun City, South Africa boards in 10 minutes and departs 15 minutes thereafter. Is there anything else I can help you with?" 24: "Yes, I'm Dr. Emu from the University of Brisbane, and this (Indicating Sam) is Dr. Ikki-ikki-pataang from Melbourne. He's a Recto-cardial In- farction specialist called in to help with Prime Minister Botha's operation. Would it be possible to let us on board before the rest of the passengers. We need to get the Donor Organs settled in as soon as possible." F.A.: "Donor organs?" 24: "Yes...Full blood replacement and a new appendix and hernia. He's come down with a bad case of Sickle Cell Anemia." F.A.: "Yes...Follow me." (the Flight attendant leads the way on board.) Message 73: Fog Cabin Syrup Msg left by: SAM JOHNSON [27] "South Africa: Feud For Thought," rough draft manuscript, pages 3-9: 24, Dagny, Sam, Rodgers, and unnamed expendible extras arrive at Albino Airlines Airport in Sun City and successfully pollute the water supply. All hell breaks loose. Two days later, South Africans realize that although everyone is black, the one-time whites still have straight and/or curly hair. South Africa splits into two rival territories, Afronesia and the Fair Hair Nations, and the fighting continues as usual. Our intrepid heroes resolve the problem by dumping tons of Nair into the South African water supply. The few that survive lose all their hair, as well as any rival distinctions. Fighting breaks out among the waxed and unwaxed heads for no explainable reason. Shock troops armed with flashlights to measure head reflection run amok. The crew encourages a US wax embargo. Now deprived of anything to hate each other for, the remaining South Africans band together in a last ditch effort to destroy Rhode Island for the hell of it. Bombers are sent in, armies battle, and Rhode Island is finally totally devastated and sinks into the sea using special effects and pyrotechnics that are probably too expensive for this company to afford. The South Africans are destroyed, but our beloved heroes survive by using some flimsy escape like hiding under a trash dumpster and breathing through Dixie straws during the disaster. Jacques Cousteau is sent in to raise the island, which he finally manages by way of a professional diving and restoration team, a couple packages of Hefty bags, and a hell of a lot of helium. Rhode Island has been completely levelled except for the dumpster the crew is hiding under. Property values soar. Closing credits. Ending music. Audience boos film and demands money back. Box office payoff is staggeringly nauseating. END NOTES: Attach Spielburg's name to this anywhere and the film'll rake in a bundle. Since we can't expect him to loan us his approval without asking some unreasonable director's privilege like pay, we'll have to get some other Spielburg to endorse this turkey. Preferrably his three year old adopted son, who agreed to let us use his name for a couple Oreos. Negotiations are still in progress. Message 74: A tub of popcorn and 2 small fogs, please. Msg left by: NUMBER TWENTY FOUR [24] The SysOp, Dagny, 24, Sam, and Roger remained sitting in the back row of the theatre as the rest of the patrons streamed out. They all still had on the Ray-Bans and false-fuzz. When everyone had left, the ushers started down the asiles, picking up the trash, rolling passed-out drunks, eating leftover popcorn and picking the gum off the bottom of the seats and saving it "For later...". One especially obnoxious and pale usher gimped over to the group. "The movie is over. Go home." it croaked. "But we came in late! We're only going to stay to see the part we missed." Roger explained. "Welll...Ok...But don't let it happen again." snarffed the usher. "Yessir!" Roger said, saluting. Dagny elbowed him in the ribs. "Don't piss him off. Some of those guys have rabies and other stuff." The scabcrew ate their fill then left our little group in peace. Roger got up and went to the door. "All clear! Let's go!" he said. "Which one?" Dagny asked, walking to the door. "Ummm...Let's see "Aliens" again!" Sam suggested. "Only if you write the review for that dog we just sat through. Even the name was bad. `BBS commando and the Planet of Skinheads meet Linda Lovelace.' Geez! Gimme a break." the SysOp said. "Deal!" Sam said. The RatPack scurried down the blue-carpeted halls of the Movies-at-Bennigans, zipping into the dark theatre near the end of the hall. They walked forward into the darkness. A blue bug-eyed-monster waved it's tentacles at them. "Down if front!" it burbled. "Sorry!" whispered Number 24. They quickly found seats behind some Slubgums from Rolmque IV. "Hey! 24! This is really getting out of hand." Dagny said, removing a large pseudopod from her popcorn. It scurried back to it's host. "Hey, it's not my fault, Sam wanted Aliens." 24 answered.