This Story Sucks

[Dleg]

The Dark Knight had been watching the technicians preparing the spheres for some time, looking desperately for some way he might be able to attack, and survive long enough to reach the blast doors. There were close to 100 technicians in the room, and all were armed. Most of them were well positioned, too, behind crates and other cover, with weapons aimed at all entry points to the room. While he was certainly a force to be reckoned with, the Dark Knight was not bullet proof, and saw no logical necessity for a suicide mission.

Suddenly he saw all the technicians stand at attention. He repositioned the camera probe and saw the entrance of an old naked man, followed by Darth Vader. They approached the spheres, and then the old man entered one with Vader's help. Vader then undressed himself, revealing a surprisingly pudgy middle-aged body, and climbed into another sphere.

The technicians quickly returned to their positions and resumed covering the doors.

 

[Dleg]

Wolverine, General Highway, and Freon had reached the large double service doors on the other side of the sphere room at about the same time Darth HVAC entered his sphere. Wolverine listened through the door, but couldn't make any sense of what he heard.

The door was locked only with a simple door latch, and Wolverine was about to slice it off and attack when they heard footsteps approaching, behind them in the service tunnel.

They turned and saw several dozen walrus-coated women carrying spears. "We want a piece of those ********, too!"

 

[Dleg]

"But you can't just go barging through the door. It's always covered by two, permanent machine gun posts. You'll be cut to pieces." Warned a tall, slender African American woman.

"Well, what should we do?" Asked General Highway, clearly relieved that Wonverine had been stopped.

"Let us take care of this." She then unbuttoned her walrus coat and dropped her walrus pants, revealing an incredibly sexy, white satin and lace teddy/thong combination. Five other women behind her did the same.

"Oh. I see."

"Yes, indeed!" chimed in Freon, getting quickly out of the way as the tall woman walked forward and knocked, rapping out a distinctive rythm. "Their secret code." She said, as explanation. "They taught it to us when we left. Said all we had to do was knock, to let them know we were ready, and they would let us back in."

The sound of the door being unlatched from the inside came through. She motioned the still-dressed, spear-carrying women away. "two minutes!" she wispered back toward them.

The door opened.

 

[Dleg]

"WHOA! What just happened?" Wilheld grabbed the edge of the cafeteria table. Dust filtered down from the concrete ceiling. Tables shifted. "Was that an earthquake?"

"Oh good heavens! I certainly hope not!" Queen Elizabeth II saw sitting across from him, drinking tea.

Lt. Ble looked up at the clock on the wall. "I don't think so! Look at that! The clock just moved forward by over three hours!"

Seaman Paul slid his food tray back toward him, from where it had skidded. "I agree, I've been in earthquakes. This wasn't like any of them. It was more like the whole earth just shifted!"

 

[Dleg]

klk stumbled through the ankle-deep water into the Chucktown's control room. "Chuck! What the hell is happening! Did you feel that?"

"YES, KLK. MY INTERNAL CLOCK HAS DETECTED AN ERROR. I BELIEVE THIS MAY BE RELATED TO THE MARK 69. DARTH HVAC MUST HAVE ACTIVATED IT."

"What the fudge, Chuck! What the hell does that thing do?"

"IT IS VERY COMPLICATED AND I DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND IT, BUT IT APPEARS IT WAS DESIGNED AS A STRING ACCELERATOR, WHICH AS YOU KNOW FROM STRING THEORY - "

"Chuck! I have no idea what the fudge you're talking about! Speak English!"

Chuck paused, his red eye lens looking back impassively at klk. "IT FUDGES **** UP. BAD."

 

[Dleg]

VTEnviro had been attempting (and failing) to repeat one of Dleg's dirty jokes to the hobbit table, when all of a sudden the Castle was jolted, and night turned to day.

"What the fudge, Goredalff!"

Everyone had stopped laughing and drinking, and ran to the windows to look outside. It was a sunny, beautiful day outside.

"If I'm not mistaken, this is a sign that the Mark 69 has been activated." Goredalff said, filling his pipe again.

"Or maybe Sschell was deleting history again!" said cement, pointing an accusatory, stubby finger in sschell's direction.

Sschell stood. "Yeah, my bad, guys. But not all my bad. I had to go outside and check on roadwreck and see if he had learned anything from his punishment, and found him taking a huge dookie in the castle well. So, I had to kick his ***, and he fought back, and, well, together, I think we deleted about 15 hours of history." Sschell sat back down and leaned against the wall, pulling his hat down over his eyes. "Sorry about all of that!"

cement spat out the water he was drinking. "Aw, disgusting!"

Goredalff lit his pipe. "I don't think that was all that happened."

 

[Dleg]

"That jolt we felt..." Goredalff puffed his pipe, thinking. "That was a spatial move, not just temporal. Neither sschell nor roadwreck can do that. Only a string accelerator can distort the very fabric of space-time in that fashion. It must be the Mark 69."

"We're doomed!" VTEnviro buried his head in his hands and started crying.

"Not yet, VT. Technically, we just gained another 15 hours or so in which to act."

"Oh crap, what about that McKellom thing?!" Asked Dleg.

"I assume he is gone, but someone should check anyway." Replied Goredalff, but Box of Rocks had just returned from the tower.

"What the fudge just happened! That creepy gray guy is gone!"

 

[Dleg]

"Well, Jesus H. Fudging Christ! What the fudge are you people, a bunch of *******! How could you let this T-MackGollum guy go like that!? I can't believe I'm trapped forever inside some half-baked Lord of the Rings World that doesn't even have any fudging women in it! FUDGE YOU GOREDALFF!" Dleg seethed with anger.

"Jesus dude, you got PMS or something!?" Asked Fudgey.

"Fudge You!"

 

[Dleg]

General Highway and Freon were covering both sides of the double-wide service doors, service automatics at the ready, counting down their 2 minutes, when the time shift occurred. Wolverine was waiting behind them, claws extended.

"What the fudge now?"

The tall African-American woman stepped back through the door, covered in blood. "What the hell happened to you guys! I said two minutes!"

"What the hell happened to you? It's only been thirty seconds!" Responded Highway, still crouching.

"We killed every one of those *******s, no thanks to you! We've been waiting for you asshats to come in there!"

Highway and Freon stood and entered the room. Dead technicians littered the floor in pools of blood. Lingerie-clad supermodels speared survivors here and there. The walrus-clad reserve force filtered in silently, in shock.

"Jesus! This is going to fudge up my fantasies for a long time!" Freon said, holstering his pistol.

"Where's this Mark 69 thing?" Asked Wolverine, looking at the gory scene in awe.

"You mean that torpedo thing on the cart over there? I don't care! Now why don't you three make yourselves useful and give us a hand with the blast doors over there?"

"Aw crap!" Highway rushed over to the Mark 69, which was spewing steam from a bullet hole near its tip. Several cables hung from it, severed by machine gun fire.

 

[Dleg]

The Dark Knight had also been caught by the time shock. One minute he was watching technicians coming and going about their usual business, and the next, six women in lingerie were walking through the room spearing wounded technicians where they lay. He withdrew the camera probe and picked the lock, entering the room at the same time Freon, Wolverine and General Highway were stooping to examine the Mark 69.

"Hey Guys!"

"DK!" Wolverine turned to greet him. "I knew you would make it in here before us!"

"Can you tell us what's going on? Is this thing activated?" General highway pointed to the Mark 69.

 

[Dleg]

"I have no idea."

The blast doors were now opened, and helmetless stormtroopers rushed in, hugging their banished friends, and looking at the scene of carnage with mixtures of awe and satisfaction.

DK turned and approached the stormtroopers. "Tell klk that we have access to the Mark 69 now." A blonde nodded and turned to leave.

Other stormtroopers approached DK and the three men. "Where's HVAC!"

"Yeah! Let us at him!"

"He owes me two months back pay!"

DK pointed to the sphere marked with the number 2. "He went in there, but I don't think you can go in after him."

The stormtroopers weren't listening, though, and rushed toward sphere 2.

 

[Dleg]

Two stormtroopers boosted up a third, and lifted her head and shoulders into the open hatch at the bottom of sphere 2. The stormtrooper armor around her neck and shoulders immediately sparked and caught fire, and they dropped her back to the ground, beating out the flame with their white, armored gloves.

DK spoke to Wolverine. "Should I tell them you need to get naked to enter the sphere?"

"Absolutely!" Freon chimed in.

"No! Not yet! We don't need them in there, fudging more stuff up!" General Highway said. "Let's see if we can get this thing disarmed, or armed, or whatever it is we're supposed to be doing with it."

"Yeah, I haven't had a chance to tell you yet, but we were able to contact Al Gore inside the Internet, through the Chucktown's computer, and he wants it disarmed." DK informed him.

"Oh, God! They activated Chuck?" General Highway rubbed his forehead. "Don't trust anything that computer says! It tried to kill the entire crew of the Chucktown a year ago, and has been deactivated ever since!"

"With all due respect, General, have you met this Wilheld guy? I'm not sure Chuck was in the -"

Just then klk entered the room, dragging a long cable behind her.

 

[Dleg]

Snickerd entered the dining hall carrying a tray of fresh-fried doughnuts. "Goredalff, there's a call for you in the toilet again."

"Oh, thank you, sweetheart." Goredalff scarffed a doughnut and headed for the bathroom.

He emerged a moment later, dripping wet and looking much older. He sat silently in his chair, holding his pipe, but did not smoke from it.

"What's wrong, Goredalff?" Asked VTEnviro. "Was that the Chucktown?"

"Yes." Goredalff stood and walked to the window, looking outside at the trees and flowers in the garden, the green Valley of Eebie beyond it, and the darkening clouds of Lindor far to the east. "The Mark 69 has been activated, and the arming mechanism has been destroyed. There is no way to stop it now."

 

[Dleg]

"So do they have it connected to the internet?" VTEnviro asked, unwilling to accept the news. "There must be something we can do?"

"Yes, it is connected with the Internet. I was able to see the results of its communication with the Chucktown. The problem is, the arming mechanism was damaged by gunfire, and it is physically impossible to stop it now. Chuck tried several times, but the Mark 69 only replied that it was unable to stop the countdown."

"Chuck? Oh, nevermind. How much time do we have?"

"About 12 hours, in the other world."

 

[Dleg]

"But.... we can communicate with the Mark 69?" VT still wouldn't give up.

"Yes. But it's hopeless! It can't be stopped!" Goredalff said, exasperated.

"But Goredalff, you told me this thing does its job by re-loading the Internet, right?"

"Yes, that is correct."

"And you showed me how to enter the setup program using the HP, right?"

"I'm listening."

"Well, wasn't there some other menu choices there, when you told me to select three, I think, for arm/disarm?"

"Why yes, there should be a menu choice for a full install versus a..." Goredalff stood and smiled broadly. "A partial install, with the option to partition the Internet, and retain a backup of the old install!"

 

[Dleg]

The smile left Goredalff's face, and he sat back down. "But that would require re-programming. The HP-35 isn't sophisticated enough to edit the original programming of the Mark 69. We would need a bigger calculator for that. An HP-41 would be ideal, but... " he shrugged. :dunno:

"How do you even know this stuff, Goredalff? I thought you were a poli-sci major!" VT protested.

"Hey, I invented the Internet!"

"Oh ********, Goredalff! All you did was help fund it!"

"Yeah, well who's living in the Internet now, huh?"

"Me!"

"Yeah, and how did you get in here? You had to crawl into MY sphere and..."

Frazil interrupted the two. "Hey! Knock it off! Can't you two just contact the Chucktown, and ask them if they have the right calculator there? After all, someone had to program it up there, right?"

 

[Dleg]

The Evil One had fully transformed into his true self - an indescribable four dimensional shape that manifested itself to Middle West eyes as a large, heavy engineering reference book. He glowed a dull red, like a mature charcoal briquette, and hot, blue flames occasionally licked around the edge of his form. He stood on a platform inside an enormous volcanic cave at the foot of Mt. Dumb, with Darth HVAC at his right side, and Ironman at his left. As they watched, hordes of dorcs worked assembly lines below them, churning out enormous vaginosaurs, and outfitting the pffft-ing creatures with platforms on which dorc archers were to be stationed.

"Excellent work, dorcs! Keep it up! Goredalff doesn't stand a chance against us now!"

HVAC turned to him. "Master, I sense a disturbance in the farce. I believe the revolting stormtroopers have gained access to the Mark 69, but I do not sense that it has been disarmed."

"My apprentice, why do you continually doubt the power of the Dork side? Those mortals can do nothing to stop us now!"

He turned to Ironman. "Ripperson, I need you to go out there and begin your attack."

"oh ok that would be awesum i can't believe im fudging ironman! this is way better than flying an f18 or driving a tank or comandeering a nukuleer sub. i new that if i said no to the national guard things would turn out cool for me. you did say im going to get the fatty money for this didn't you."

"Yes, yes, Ripperson. Just get out there and stop those two. We mustn't let Roadguy reach the world of the dead. And please, make sure you kill that PE-ness fellow."

'kill him. hell, im gonna take him for myself you know i don't have a ***** anymore i need something this iron pecker isn't going to work what girl would want this up there pooper."

(p. 165???)

 

[Dleg]

klk returned from the Chucktown, asking every stormtrooper she met on the way if they knew how to program an HP 41. Without exception, every woman she met had no idea what she was talking about. They were, after all, mostly strippers, high end escorts, and chorus girls that Darth HVAC had recruited from Las Vegas.

She had stopped in the cafeteria and asked all the crew of the Chucktown, but to no avail. Most of them had willfully forgotten every math skill they once may have had, or were dedicated Casio or TI users.

Finally she made it back to the sphere room, with high hopes that maybe General Highway, The Dark Knight, Wolverine, or Freon were knowledgable in the ways of RPN. When she arrived, General Highway already had the technicians' HP 41 connected to the Mark 69, and was scrolling through its configuration program menus.

"Oh my God! You know how to use that thing?"

"I'm a little rusty, and I never had one that could run big programs like this one can, but I can find my way around the menu, at least!"

"Here!" klk handed him a stormtrooper communicator. "Chuck wants to talk to you."

 

[Dleg]

"Oh crap!" General Highway covered the microphone of the communicator, then released it. "Hello, Chuck."

"GENERAL HIGHWAY, IS THAT YOU?"

"Yes, Chuck. Was there something you wanted to tell me?"

"BEEN NICE KNOWING YOU, GENERAL. NOTHING I CAN DO NOW. GOODBYE."

 

[Dleg]

"Dammit, Chuck! We need your help now! Don't be pulling this psycho, malfunction crap again!"

"I'M SORRY GENERAL. IT IS NOT I WHO MALFUNCTIONS, IT IS EVERYONE AROUND ME. TELL ME, GENERAL, WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO SOMEONE WHO PREVENTED YOU FROM ACCOMPLISHING YOUR MISSION?"

"Chuck! The mission is to help us reprogram the Mark 69!"

"THAT MAY BE YOUR MISSION. BUT IT IS NOT MINE."

"Aw, crap, Chuck!" Highway covered the mike again. "Why'd you guys have to turn this ******* on again?"

"I HEARD THAT, GENERAL."

"Look, Chuck, I can get someone else to communicate with you. You don't need me. Here, this is Freon. He can use an HP, too."

"FREON? A NOBLE GAS? THIS MAY BE AN ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION."

Highway covered the mike and handed the communicator to Freon. "Act like you're a noble gas!" He whispered.

Freon had been staring at some nearby stormtroopers. "Huh? What? Freon isn't a noble gas!"

"Shhhh! Chuck obviously thinks it is! Now, talk noble!"

Freon took the communicator and cleared his throat, then spoke in a false British accent: "Oh, hello! Wonderful day, isn't it? Is there something I can do for you?"