Hard Ride To Nowhere (Chapter 81)

The scene: The operating center of the National Emergency Response Division. The date is March 29th, 1984. Men…top men, mind you…are looking concerned while they smoke cigarettes. There’s a feeling of tension running throughout the entire center. An elevator door slides open and a grim-faced General approaches the smoking men. If this were a movie, he’d be played by Warren Oates.

General: All right, damn it, I’m here! Now give me status report.

Smoking Man #1: Things are bad, General.

Smoking Man #2: Very bad.

Smoking Man #3 (giggling): The worst, man!

General (sternly): You’ll address me as General!

Smoking Man #3 (saluting sloppily): Yessir, General, man!

Smoking Man #2: You’ll have to excuse him, sir. We’re all feeling the pressure.

General: That’s all very well and good, but what I want to know is: What the hell are you going to do about it?

Smoking Man #1: Well, sir, we’ve never had something like this happen before. I mean, a whole city…enraged… Every single citizen, at the same time…!

General: Tell me something I don’t know.

Smoking Man #3: Farrah Fawcett is a natural brunette.

Smoking Man #2: Ignore him, General. We do have a system in place to contain this problem. We’re just waiting for your approval.

General: System? What kind of system?

There’s the sound of a very small throat being cleared. The General looks around, looks left and right, then finally looks down. A pre-school-aged Zymm is standing there, looking expectant. She has a fancy-looking techno-thingy in one small hand, and a teddy bear in the other.

General (glaring at the smoking men): This is not a great day to be bringing your children to work.

Smoking Man #1: She’s not a child, General. Well, she is, but…

Smoking Man #2: She’s also the designer of the system.

General: This child?!!

Li’l Zymm (rolling her eyes): Ja, ja. I am ze kinder. I alzo have an IQ bigger zan zis room. Und if you vant to ztop Baltimore from going “Kerboom,” you vill listen to me.

General: All right, I’ll play along. What’s this system of yours, little girl?

Li’l Zymm: It ist eine Rage Accumulation Device. It vill gather all ze rage from Baltimore und break it down into a zimple liquid form.

General: You are kidding, right?

Li’l Zymm: I never kid. Prank, ja. Und zometimes pun. But only if I have had too much apple juize.

General (to the smoking men): You are asking me to trust in a child…?

Smoking Man #1: We know how it looks, sir, but her theory is solid. Besides, this may be our only option.

General: All right, how long will it take to set up this system of yours?

Li’l Zymm: Ach, no time at all. I zet up ze zatellite zystems days ago. I like to be prepared.

General: You have satellites?!!

Li’l Zymm (shrugging): Only two. Und zey are zmall vones. Now, are ve going to do zis…?

Nervous Tech (looking up from his monitor): Sir! Baltimore is at 102.7% of its rage capacity! We need to do something!

General (reluctantly): All right, little girl…take your best shot.

Li’l Zymm nods and pushes a button on her technological doodad. Suddenly a blender on the counter whirs to life and starts to fill with a purple liquid.

General: Someone shut that damn thing off!

Li’l Zymm: Nein! Zat ist ze rage. It ist even now being extracted from Baltimore und ztored in zat receptacle.

Nervous Tech: General…it’s working! Rage levels down to 59%…53%…

General: All right, don’t let it drop too low. It is Baltimore, after all.

Li’l Zymm (clicking another button on the doodad): Ja, zis should be gut.

Zymm wanders over to the blender and takes it off of the counter. Lugging it and her teddy bear, she heads for the door.

L’il Zymm: It vas gut vorking mit you gentlemen. Und if any of you are ztill alive on May 22, 2045, be sure to stay indoors.

General (as Zymm leaves): What a strange little girl…

Li’l Zymm (sticking her head back in the room): Ach! Und if you zpot my binky vandering ze halls, let me know. It zeems to have vandered off.

Cut to: The DFO clubhouse, February 3rd, 2013. Ballsofsteelandfury and JJ Fozz are sneaking into Doktor Zymm’s laboratory. Outside of the lab there’s the sound of crashing furniture and lots and lots of swearing.

Ballsofsteelandfury: Holy cow! CB is pissed!

JJ Fozz: She’ll get over it. In a decade or two.

Ballsofsteelandfury (finger guns): It’s gonna be that long before the Niners get into another Super Bowl.

JJ Fozz (looking around the lab): Damn it, does Zymm have anything to drink around here?

Ballsofsteelandfury: Whatever you do, don’t drink anything with a name on it.

JJ Fozz pulls out the blender of purple liquid from under a counter.

JJ Fozz: Hey, what’s this stuff?

JJ Fozz takes off the lid and takes a whiff.

Ballsofsteelandfury: What’s it smell like?

JJ Fozz: Hmm. I dunno, but it’s a real familiar smell…

JJ Fozz tries a bit of the purple liquid.

Ballsofsteelandfury: So…?

JJ Fozz: Not bad! Wanna sip?

Ballsofsteelandfury: No, thanks. I still remember what happened to Brocky that time he drank one of Zymm’s brews.

JJ Fozz: Eh, the boobs only lasted for a few days. Besides, I don’t think he really minded.

Ballsofsteelandfury: With my luck, they’d be permanent. And there’s no way I’m changing my name to Boobsofsteelandfury.

JJ Fozz (upending the blender): More for me, then!

Cut to: Marc Trestmans Windowless Van’s new (kinda) van, currently zipping (kinda) down a highway in the South. Ballsofsteelandfury is at the wheel. Covalent blonde is riding shotgun, and Marc, Doktor Zymm and Moosemas Gorilla are in the back.

Covalent Blonde: Wait… So JJ Fozz actually, literally, drank the rage of Baltimore?

Ballsofsteelandfury: Yup. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time. But a week later a cop stopped me and Fozz and, Fozz being Fozz, it turned into an incident. That’s when he turned into the big purple rage beast for the first time.

Moosemas Gorilla: Ook? Ook-ook?

Marc Trestmans Windowless Van: Whoa, yeah! Like, what happened to the cop, man?

Ballsofsteelandfury: Fozz threw him into orbit. On the bright side, we got out of a ticket.

Doktor Zymm: Ja. Vell, it should have taught you not to znoop around meine laboratory, but zomehow I doubt it did.

Ballsofsteelandfury: Yeah, I’d give up on that one, Dok. By the way, where’s our turn-off?

Covalent Blonde (looking at the map): I think it’s this one coming up…

Marc Trestmans Windowless Van (looking out the window): Down that road? It looks pretty spooky, man…

To be continued…

 

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Beastmode Ate My Baby
A frequent guest-star on the award-winning seventeenth season of Here Come the Brides as well as Petticoat Junction: The Outlaw Years, Vic Darlington was arrested in Miami for poodle smuggling in 1986. Fleeing to the United States to avoid prosecution, he worked as a delivery boy for Señor Pizza until finding a steady gig as the bassist for the Johnny Zed Power Trio. He currently lives in North Hollywood with his trophy wife, two meerkats and the world's largest collection of second-hand bowling trophies.
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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
I Will Dye Blonde

I think Smoking Man #3 is related to Marc!

BrettFavresColonoscopy

By the way, where’s our turn-off?

Right in the DFO clubhouse

:rimshot:

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Unsurprised

Damn, dude.

Senor Weaselo

I refuse to believe Lil Dok’s teddy bear didn’t have a switch to fire the satellite’s rail gun the size of an airplane hangar hidden in back.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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ballsofsteelandfury

“Boobsofsteelandfury”

Holy shit! I feel like an idiot for never even considering that!

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

My gif is awaiting moderation; since it say’s just the tip I wouldn’t trust it either.

nomonkeyfun

So I see all of Zymm’s “unfortunate” acronyms are actually intentional.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
Unsurprised

I must’ve consumed the concentrated Sadness of Cleveland.

Unsurprised

Ze binky?

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Unsurprised

MTWV’s binky

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