Original text by Steve Jordan
Other comments by members of MobileRead’s USLs (Unutterably Silly Loungers)
This is a story that I started in the Lounge section of MobileRead.com, really, just to “air out my brainpan” and have a little fun. I originally expected that others would pick up the story and contribute to it, making for a group of “writers” on the project, and an unutterably silly thread for all. Instead, everyone just sat back and let me do the entire story! This was written “on-the-fly,” with no pre-prepared material or other sources. The comments that followed are included to indicate how they impacted the spontaneous creation of the story. Comments are included as they were recorded on the MR thread, with the exception of those comments that have been shifted about to reflect other comments that they specifically reply to.
Think of it as a sort of "MST3K" of writing experiments...
~
Dear Diary:
Today, I quit my job, for reasons very personal which I will not discuss. I laid it out to the boss, too... pounded on his desk and everything. Stormed out before he could say a word.
So I drove home. I was so frustrated, I knew I needed to get away. The other day I was just looking at a trip to Wales, just some peace and quiet. That's what I needed now, to forget that awful job. This awful city. That awful hearse I just passed, so symbolic of the crazy world I'm in. So when I got home, I pulled out a suitcase, and started to pack.
But...
I don't know if I stood up too fast, or had too light a breakfast, not enough sleep, or what... because all of a sudden, I got dizzy. I tried to get to the window, to get some air, but before I could open the sash, I just passed out.
When I awoke, I noticed the lighting in my room was... off. I thought maybe a storm was coming, the way clouds will sometimes give off strange light. So I went to the window to see what was up.
Here's where it gets weird: It was not my street outside. Nothing outside looked familiar! It was like someone had moved my house, lock, stock and barrel, to some odd-looking... English village. Actually, it looked a bit like the pictures of Wales in my travel brochure. Was I already on my vacation, and then fallen asleep and somehow forgotten the trip itself?
No... I looked around inside the window. This was my room! This was my house! WTF?!?
I decided to look around outside. The front door didn't wait for me to reach it, it actually opened for me. Even more weirded-out than before, I went out. No, this couldn't be Wales... it was a strange place, looking like a Disneyland set. Where was I? How did I get here?
What was going on?
Hey, no fair. I was supposed to be the next retiree. –Slayda
There was a funny odor in the air. Somehting like that last time I went to the zoo... memories flooded my cortex, bypassing the hypothalamus and straight to cognition. It smelled like... PANDAS! -pshrynk
Whoa... whut the..?
Tell me that wasn't a panda that just brushed behind me! He's heading for that stand of bamboo (and exactly what is a stand of bamboo doing in Wales? That stuff will grow anywhere...)
Strange: The panda glanced back at me, and the patches around its eyes are unusual. The right patch looks like the number four, and the left patch looks like a number eight.
Say, there are pandas all over the place. Sitting in the grass... walking around in groups. That one's riding a penny-farthing (how in the world did he get up there?). Each one has different black markings around its eyes, and they all look like numbers! There's a twenty-one... there, a sixty-three... there, a nineteen... and there's one with a patch between the eyes as well, making him... two-thirty-two...
Two-thirty-two... I wonder how many pandas there are around here?...
Numbers. It always comes down to numbers. Four hundred twenty pandas, so far. That means something... But what? -pshrynk
So true ... so true. It's 102 degrees outside, I have 480 pounds of kitty litter to unpack from the car, in addition there are 72 cases of cat food to unpack and stock, and 60 pounds of dry food. I am hoping that when I pass out (and it isn't a matter of "if" ... only "when") I will awake to find I'm standing in the land of pandas with a cool breeze blowing at my back watching a few ride by on their pennyfarthings. –RickyMaveety
419... 420... There. My evil plan is in motion... -pshrynk
I decided to worry about that some other time. Right then, I just wanted to get out of here.
I hailed a taxi... well, really, it was a golf cart, and (Great Googally-moogally) it was being driven by a panda. I told it to drive me to the nearest town. It regarded me with big, impassive eyes, and pointed at a sign on the dash that said "local only."
I said, "Take me as far as you can."
It drove me about a mile, stopped, and held out a paw... like it wanted to be paid or something! When I just stared back, the panda grunted, and stared straight ahead like I wasn't there anymore.
I got out, and panda-taxi drove off. I walked along the road, but it ended in a grove of trees just a few yards down... dead end. I turned around, picked a fork, and started walking. But the roads twisted and turned, and before I knew it, I was back at the door to my own "home."
At this point, I couldn't see any point to wandering around, so I went back inside (the door opened for me, again. Did it do that for everybody?). I poked around the house, only now able to see the things in it that were different from my real home... how did I not see those differences before?
A phone rang, an electronic bee-beep that was startling in the silence of the house. I just stared at it for a minute, but it did not stop ringing, so I picked it up... partially out of curiosity, and partially to stop that electronic racket. Once I had the phone in my hand, I did what came naturally. "Hello?"
"Please see me at house number 2. The green dome."
"The what?" I asked, perplexed. "Who is this?"
But they had hung up.
It is hard to describe my feelings at that point. Part of me just wanted to stay there, and wait for this whole dream to end. Part of me wanted to just run for the hills. But part of me wanted to know what the heck was going on, where was I, and why did all the pandas have numbers on their faces.
And part of me wondered if it had anything to do with that disputed bill from Comcast last month.
Nevertheless, I finally decided to get some answers. I had just received an invitation to house number 2. Time to find out who's there, and what they want.
Whatever you do .... don't go in the water!! There's a big bubble thingie out there ...
And, please say "hi" to March of 12 if you see him/her/it/them. –RickyMaveety
7 of 4 here. Please step this way. Mind the blood stains. Have a seat in this chair. Thank you. –pshrynk
Hopefully the cats won't eat you while you're passed out & helpless! -slayda
That's why I leave a lot of dry food out for them ... so I at least have some leeway for periods spent passed out on the floor.
I just finished ... and it really is all in the numbers. My back is now more or less permanentsly shaped as the number 2 and in pain of a level 9 out of 10 with 10 being "please pass the morphine." I have Excedrine headache number 5 (that started just about the time that Duncan ran out the front door and into the yard). I'm baking brownies with walnuts for tonight's party in an 8 x 8 pan, but the walnut chunks are HUGE because I can't remember where the lid to my 1 and only nut chopper is. And, I need to unbury my miter saw so I can finish up the work framing out the chalkboard in the kitchen, but it is buried under 21 tons of crap in the garage.
(Pant, pant, groan, whine .... PANT!!) -RickyMaveety
Sounds like you need to call "Two Men and a Truck". –Slayda
Nah .... "Two Pandas and a Truck." Actually, it's a fairly normal day for me, except for the fact that it's so freaking HOT!! -RickyMaveety
I assume that Steve is on the jazz again testing out plot devices for his next book. –Rwood
I hope so .... either that or they are remaking "The Prisoner" with an all panda cast. –RickyMaveety
C'mon Steve, I'm waiting for Part III.
(I couldn't stay away from MR even for a single afternoon) -DixieGal
Finding "the green dome" was easy... you could see it from a mile away. I approached, pointedly ignoring the pandas that walked about all around the town, and who pointedly ignored me right back. (I could not help but notice two pandas, walking together, with the numbers "86" and "99" on their faces.) The ornate door opened, like my new home's door, before I had the chance to knock.
Inside the door... what else? Another panda. This one was smaller than the average panda... a youngling, maybe. He looked up at me, then turned, and trotted down a hall. At the end of the hall, a door opened automatically, and the panda trotted inside. Taking the hint, I followed the mini-panda into the room.
Unlike everything I'd seen in this goofy village, which looked like a Victorian's wet dream, the room I stepped into now was right out of the next century: It was overall round, with a high rounded ceiling. The walls had projected images of what looked like parts of the village. A strange multi-colored light show seemed to revolve around the room, mildly distracting, but soothing at the same time. And in the center of the room, was a large, black ball.
No, wait, it began revolving... it was a chair. And as it turned to face me, I confronted the first human being I'd seen since I walked out of my job that day. It was a man... a big bear of a man. He was dressed in a white suit, wearing black gloves and black shoes. I don't know what nationality he was, because his face was painted white... I mean Rinso white... and around his left eye was a number, painted in black: A number two.
This strange man smiled—I think—and said in a booming voice, "Welcome, welcome! So nice to meet you at last, old chap! How was your trip over?"
I started to answer him directly, but thought of a better response: "My trip to where?"
"Eh?"
"Where am I?"
"Where? Well, isn't it obvious?" The strange man stood up, and ambled over to me. Now I could see he was smiling.
"You're in the Zoo, my boy..."
I didn't see that one coming! [waiting anxiously, flipping back and forth between work and refreshing MR] -DixieGal
I'll bet you they're going to acutealate him!! -RickyMaveety
Wrong branch of the multiverse. Theyre going to speak at him in stilted dialogue with no apparent topic for hours on end until his brains try to climb out his ears to get away from the absurdity of it all. –pshrynk
Huh .... sounds a bit like Vogon poetry. –RickyMaveety
I think that it is Wales. It's Portmeirion, currently hosting a Panda convention because their accommodation is needed for the Olympics. And it's not bamboo. Those are leeks, Steve. Show some respect for our national vegetable otherwise we'll spit on your Bara Brith. –Patricia
Yeah, it's funny, I'd always thought that village was somewhere in the Mediterranean, but Wales it is....
C'mon, get to the part about listening to all the records in the store before not buying any. I love that part. –Nekokami
Remember, the way out takes a Korium key...44 by 40 .... –Ralph Sir Edward
"A zoo?"
"Not 'A' zoo," the panda-man replied. "Thee Zoo."
"Well... what am I doing in any zoo?"
"Why, the same thing everyone else is doing in the zoo, dear boy!" And he laughed, like I'd said something funny. So far, I failed to get the point. Besides...
"But there's no one here! Nothing here but pandas!"
Panda-man cocked his head, as if he failed to get my point. "Yes?"
Did he not understand me? "Pandas!"
"Yes! Aren't they wonderful? So soft, and cuddly, and docile, and quiet, eh?"
"Yeah yeah, soft and cuddly," I agreed, just to avoid an argument, but he wasn't finished.
"Yes, wonderful creatures, pandas. So long as they have everything they need, they make no trouble, they demand little more than food and a place to sleep. Every zoo should be filled to the brim with them!"
"That's great," I nodded. "But I am not a panda! I am a human being!"
"Yes, well, that's something to discuss," Panda-man replied. "Isn't it?"
"What's to discuss? I am not a panda... discussion over!"
"Ah. Well then," he nodded sagely, "let's table that particular point for now."
"Good. So: Tell me how to get out of here."
"Out of here?"
"Yes!" He was beginning to really cheese me off. "Out of here! I want to go home!"
"Home?"
"Home! You know... I feel so broke up, yada, yada..."
"But my dear chap! You are home!"
"...What?"
"This, my boy, is your home!" Panda-man waved an arm expansively, taking in the screens surrounding the round chair on every surface. "Why would you want to leave it?"
"Oh, I don't know... because I'm not a panda?"
"Ah... that again..."
"All right, knock that off! I am not a panda. You can't make me stay here."
At that, Panda-man cocked an eyebrow, which gleamed through his white makeup. "Oh?"
"This place might hold a panda," I said smugly, "but it won't hold me."
"Hold you? My boy," Panda-man chuckled. "We won't hold you."
Now it was my turn to cock an eyebrow. "No?"
"No, of course not!" he laughed. Then, as abruptly, he stopped, and leaned forward conspiratorially. "But you won't leave."
"We'll see about that," I said.
"Yes, won't we?" Panda-man smiled... and at that moment, the door through which I had entered opened on its own. I was startled by the obvious theatrics... but nonetheless, I headed for the door without another moment's hesitation.
As I walked out, I heard the Panda-man call after me: "Be seeing you..."
~
I headed away from the Green Dome as fast as I could speed-walk, but not entirely sure where to go from there. But an approaching panda-taxi gave me an idea. Pretending to bend down and examine a small placard by a stand of plants (actually not pretending... I noted that what I, in my ignorance, thought was bamboo, was actually leeks. I need to read up on my horticulture, I guess), I waited until the taxi came close.
Then I reached out, took the panda by the arm, and swung him out of the driver's seat.
The panda rolled onto the ground, righted himself, and sat there staring at me in that cute straight-legged teddy-bear pose, while I climbed into the driver's seat, and tromped on the accelerator. Not that it had much acceleration... a running man could have caught up with me, really. But as there were no men around, and the pandas didn't seem to care, I drove away unchallenged.
Before long, I found a long shoreline, and angled for that. I hoped I'd be able to follow it to the nearest town, or at least identify my location. The taxi turned out to be surprisingly agile on sand, and soon I was headed... west, I think.
I drove for about ten minutes, until I could no longer see the village/zoo behind me. But upon turning my head back to the beach ahead, I suddenly realized there was something ahead of me. As I approached, the image seemed to resolve itself into a huge boulder, perhaps twice the size of the taxi, and (at this point, I thought, of course) painted like a panda.
The boulder was big enough that I'd have to swerve a bit into the surf to avoid it, so I started to veer to the left. I slowed to avoid a wash of the incoming tide, then accelerated lightly, and cast an eye to the boulder to make sure I would clear it.
And that's when the boulder moved. A massive black and white arm swung out, catching the top frame of the taxi, and knocking it onto its two left wheels. I howled, in surprise and fright, as I struggled to keep the taxi from flipping over, and in frank shock at the realization that I'd just been hit by a panda bigger than a grizzly bear!
The taxi came back down on its four wheels, but I'd lost all forward momentum. And in the meantime, the giant panda had moved to block my taxi. Gods, he was big. And when he opened his mouth... well, if you've ever seen regular panda teeth, you think to yourself, "I hope he doesn't try to bite me with those." Now, picture those teeth in a mouth ten times that size. Eeesh.
I put the taxi in reverse, hoping to get some distance, and maybe to maneuver around him... but the giant panda shifted to block me, and closed the distance. We did this dance a few times, until I realized I wasn't going to just slide past him. So I backed up faster, leaving him in place as I opened the space between us. Then I stopped.
I stopped because I'd decided I wasn't going to just give up that easily. I wanted out. My obstacle was a panda. Okay, the ultimate sumo wrestler of pandas, but still a panda. I could do this.
Sizing up my opponent, I gunned the engine, sliding towards the surf to suggest an end-run through the water. I waited until giant panda moved into the surf to cut me off... then threw the wheel to the right, hoping he wouldn't be able to get out of the water fast enough to stop me. For a moment, the panda splashed about, and I was sure I had him!
Then, with a mighty leap, the giant panda cleared the surf, roared, and swung one massive arm at the taxi. He hit the side of the cab, and the taxi and I went flying. At some point, I realized I was no longer in the taxi at all, but barely had time to register that, before I landed on something hard. My entire body screamed at me, but I didn't want to stop... I tried to stand up, to figure out what had happened. I turned around...
And there was the giant panda, towering over me, making your average grizzly look like Winnie the Pooh in comparison. The same paw that had mangled my taxi swung around at me. It connected... the world somersaulted around me, and slowly wrapped a think, dark blanket around my consciousness...
Tolja there was going to be incomprehesible dialogue! -pshrynk
Quote: "Ah. Well then," he nodded sagely, "let's table that particular point for now."
That's the same reply I get whenever I say something intelligent to my inbred in-laws. They never let reason interfere with a long-held superstition.
And did anyone else expect the taxi ride along the beach to end up at a ruined Statue of Liberty? I'm glad Steve went in an unexpected direction there with he uber panda. This is GREAT! -DixieGal
(popcorn-eating icon) -pshrynk
Do pandas have halitosis? How about giant pandas? -nekokami
Q: What to pandas get from sitting on the ice too long?
A: Polaroids -DixieGal
I felt like I had to fight for consciousness... like wrestling to pull that consciousness-enveloping blanket off of me. It seemed to take hours, before I finally won the battle, and I came awake and jerked upright at the same moment.
Immediately two hands gripped my shoulders, and tried to push me back down onto the bed. "It's okay! Take it easy! Don't—"
But the warning had come too late, for my head started pounding, and I groaned pitifully. I let the hands ease me back down onto the bed, and I cradled my head with a hand as I waited for the headache to subside.
And that's when I realized that I'd just heard a human voice.
I worked my eyes open and looked about. I was back in my "home," in the bed that looked like mine. I looked to the side of the bed, and stared into the eyes of a girl I did not know. She was beautiful, Mediterranean-looking, with tanned-olive skin and long, dark hair. And she looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
Just as notable as her beauty: She was not dressed and painted as a panda.
"Who are you?" I asked... well, moaned, more accurately.
"I live two doors over," the girl explained. "I received a call to come here. The door opened..."
"Yes," I whispered, so as not to upset my head, "it does that..."
"...and I found you." She gazed at me in concern, brushing the stray hairs from my forehead. "You're the first person I've seen here since I arrived. Well, other than—"
"Other than the guy dressed as a panda?"
"Yes," she replied, and winced a bit, as if the mere mention of him was painful to her. "What happened to you?"
"I was hit by a panda the size of a semi," I replied. "Why are you here?"
"Well... I told you, I got a call..."
"No. Why are you in this zoo?"
"Oh. I don't really know." She glanced about warily, before continuing. "I just woke up here. I was riding in an elevator in my apartment building, and I got dizzy... that's the last thing I remember."
"And you ended up here," I finished, and she nodded. "Do you know where 'here' is?"
"No."
"Did you just resign from your job?"
"No," she replied. "I'd never do that... I have a great job. I just came back from a conference, and it was great! I made some great contacts... my boss got three new contracts... he even closed the Madison deal."
"Yeah..." So much for my deductive skills, I thought. "Listen, I need to get going..."
"Going?" She bit her lip in concern as I slowly levered myself upright, and swung my legs over the bed. "You don't look like you can stand, much less go anywhere."
"Do you know how I can get out of this place?"
"No way that I know of. All the roads seem to lead right back to the zoo."
"Well, I have to go..."
"No, please... you're in no shape to go anywhere," she insisted, pushing me back down on the bed. "Besides," she added guiltily, "if you go... I won't have anyone to talk to."
I was still too weak to put up much of a fight, so I gave in and settled back onto the bed. "How long have you been here?"
"Ever since the conference... a month ago. And it's been torture... I haven't been able to tell anyone about what happened!"
"Happened?"
"At the conference. How Frank—that's my boss—got the Madison deal," she explained conspiratorially. "He slept with Edie Lane, from Madison, at the conference! He tried to keep it quiet, too... but I happened to see them coming out of his room, and it was obvious what was going on."
"Was it?" I was beginning to understand...
"Oh, yes. If anyone else at Madison, or at my office, knew about it, the scandal would be incredible!"
"I see. And after the conference... you ended up here."
"Yes," she replied. She didn't seem to be making the connection. Instead, she was fixing me with a significant look.
"What?"
"Well," she replied, "it's just... you're the first person I've seen in weeks, and..." She ran her hand over my forehead again. "And I really could stand having someone to... to talk to..."
She was leaning forward, and the tips of her hair were brushing against my chest. "Talk?"
"Yes," she replied. "And maybe... to do other things, too..."
(4 popcorn-eating icons) -pshrynk
I think she needs another person in order to panda-paint that spot on her back that she just can't reach by herself. Right? (Anxiously chewing fingernails, knee jumping up & down in anticipation of next part) -DixieGal
Blerg. I'm not so much on romance. Let's get back to the pandas! -Nekokami
I'm not so sure that there's gonna be a lot of "romance" going on as much as "romance." If you get what I mean. –pshrynk
Well, more correctly, I'm quite bored with sex scenes with no romance.
But the rest of you seem to be having fun, so... carry on. I'll just go back to my book until we start seeing more of a different kind of action. –Nekokami
Well, here's a shameless plug: If you want romance with great story and an SF backdrop, get Steve's latest, "Chasing the Light." (I'm tryin' to get an advance copy of his next book.) -pshrynk
Me either, and there aren't any armadillos ... not even on leashes (being walked by their panda overlords).
Still .... it's a good story so far. –RickyMaveety
Still waiting.....
I'm such a big Steve fan, but really, he needs to type faster.... –RickyMaveety
I think the place he is lost in, is *HERE*. — MobileRead.com. — Pandas all over the place, and not very many sane humans. Yuppers. He's lost right here. -badgoodDeb
She leaned forward to kiss me... and honestly, at that point I had pretty much forgotten that I was in a hurry to go anywhere. She tilted her head, the better to align those sexy Greek lips to mine...
And suddenly, I caught sight of a white smudge of facepaint just behind her right ear.
"Gaah! I knew it!" I snapped, shoving her away from me. "A goddamned panda spy!" The girl snapped straight up on the side of the bed, eyes wide, but she did not seem inclined to leave. Her hand drifted up to her ear, and felt of the smudge behind it, and she knew she'd been found out. "Who sent you? That maniac in the green dome?"
"He forced me!" she replied desperately. "He told me... if I found out why you resigned... I could go home!"
"And you believed him, huh?" I pushed off of the other side of the bed... thankfully, my head was aching much less now. Or maybe it was just the anger.
"Please!" she pleaded. "I've got to go home! I'm sure no one's been feeding my pet armadillo... he must be dead by now!"
"Nice try," I said. "Get out!"
The girl hovered a moment longer. Then, barking out an exasperated growl, she bounced off the bed and flounced out the door (which conveniently opened just a bit more quickly, to afford her a clean exit).
Once the door closed, I cursed aloud (though part of me knew I was just as exasperated about the fact that I hadn't gotten lucky). But before I could do or say another thing, that bee-beeping phone rang.
"You didn't have to be so rough on the girl," came the voice of Panda-man. "She was just doing her job."
"Next time, clean her up a bit better," I snarled. "You get an 'A' for effort, though."
"No... I'd give myself a 'B'," Panda-man stated. "Now, if you had told her what she wanted to know..."
"Just why do you want to know why I resigned?"
"Oh, it's not me. It's... call them my handlers."
"Ah, you have handlers, too? Who are they?"
"Sorry, it doesn't work that way," Panda-man stated. "You tell me why you resigned, and maybe I can accommodate you."
"Sorry. I don't deal with lackeys," I snapped. "Gotta go... I have a trip planned."
"See here," Panda-man said, "you're only making it difficult for yourself."
"Well, that's my choice."
"Not when it affects the harmony of the Zoo."
"This place will be plenty harmonious when I'm gone."
"You're missing the point, my boy. We need you to make it harmonious."
"Then, my boy, you're in a heap o' trouble."
I hung up before he could say another word. Then I headed for the door. I needed to get a better lay of the land, and plan my escape. I almost hit my head on the door... certainly at the behest of the green dome, it had chosen this occasion to open ver-ry slowly, forcing me to wait interminable seconds for the gap to widen enough to let me out. I knew that was not a good sign.
I stepped outside, and immediately froze, when I saw a phalanx of pandas standing in a neat row before me, and staring at me as if daring me to cross them. They were aligned in such a way as to leave me only one direction away from the house. I took it.
Ah. That's more like it. A chase scene! -Nekokami
I proceeded through the village/zoo, my progress unimpeded by pandas... except occasionally, when I found a line of them blocking a particular road or fork. It did not take long, before I had the distinct impression that I was being herded somewhere. Yet, despite my best efforts to either pick a specific direction, or take turns at random, those panda lines appeared again and again. At one point, I considered jumping over a line, but the pandas seemed to sense this, and began to agitate in such a way that I did not trust my ability to evade them.
Then, I noticed a way out of this rat's (or panda's) maze: I quickly darted into a stand of trees, and found myself moving through a forest. The pandas did not see me enter, nor did I encounter any in the forest... maybe I could cover a significant distance through town, and lose them.
I trudged through the forest for ten minutes or so, wondering exactly how large the forest was, exactly. What I wouldn't have given for a TomTom! Every so often, I'd stop, and listen for pursuers, but I heard none.
Then, as I came through a small stand of bamboo (leeks... whatever), I looked up, and confronted the giant panda! The moment I entered the clearing, he spun about, saw me, and roared in anger. (What was he mad about? As I recall, he's the one who won the fight with the taxi...) I turned and bolted, and a frightening crashing from behind confirmed that he was after me.
I was far enough ahead that he couldn't see me, and he was making too much noise to hear me. Nonetheless, despite numerous twists and turns, I could not lose him. I was close to panicking... if I reached the end of the forest, and out into the open, he'd surely close the gap between us and take me out. What now?
I almost didn't notice my foot landing on something metallic. I looked back over my shoulder, and skidded to a halt to see what it was. It looked like a hatch, embedded in the ground, and mostly covered in leaves. I could see it was about man-sized, which meant giant panda wouldn't get to me in there... but was it open?
I tried it, and sure enough, it opened with a loud creak. A renewed roar alerted me to the panda's proximity... he'd heard the creak, too. That settled it. Without a moment's hesitation, I opened the hatch, dropped down inside, and closed it behind me. I heard loud thumps from above... the panda trying to get inside. But I had a respite, for the moment, from him.
Now, to figure out where I was...
Pandas roar?? I was pretty sure up till now that pandas did not roar. Now, I'm starting to wonder. No .... still pretty sure that pandas don't roar.
However, is there any chance there'll be at least one armadillo down that hatch?? -RickyMaveety
It was just its tummy. It was hungry. Really scary sound. Did you actually believe all that the press saying all they eat is bamboo?
Now hutch up and pass a bag of pop-corn. It's getting crowded in here... -LazyScot
OK .... fine .... it was its tummy. Sheesh ... here! -RickyMaveety
Have you not heard of the willing suspension of disbelief? What sort of education do they have outside of Scotland, anyway....
Oiy! I'd asked you to pass a full bag of popcorn. If you keep shovelling the stuff in like that you might be mistaken for a nice tuck-filled panda snack..
:Smiliewithbagofpopcornshovedontoitshead: -LazyScot
Have you not read the thread about how it's almost impossible for me to willingly suspend my disbelief?? The one about how one author put the constellation of Orion high in the night sky .... in JUNE?? Or, the one about the author who opined that factor 8 deficiency hemophilia was caused by a lack of PLATELETS??
And, if you don't go get your own freaking popcorn, you are going to look like an armadillo reached right down your throat and pulled your insides out. -RickyMaveety
There are times when I really wish my disbelief wasn't suspended. The image of other vital organs being suspended is not nice..
I know what a squirrel can do to me over a bunch of seeds, so I don't rate my chances against a duck-billed armadillopuss...
<tries to become invisible whilst eagerly awaiting next episode.> -LazyScot
Much like the green dome, the hallway I found at the bottom of the hatch was an anachronism... all modern lines, hidden fluorescent lighting, and plastic-looking walls. It ran in one direction, and as the only other place to go was back up to the giant panda, I started down the hallway. Along the way, I noticed signs lining the walls at intervals. They were old advertising slogans: The pause that refreshes; Finger lickin' good; Baseball, Apple Pie, Chevrolet; It's not how long you make it, it's how you make it long; It's the real thing; Just do it.
The hallway finally emptied out into a larger room, subdivided into spaces by large partitions. Most of the partitions had something attached to them: One of them I saw had a map of what looked like the Zoo. Another one sported a wiring diagram that was wholly incomprehensible to me. And a third had an autographed portrait of an old man. I could not read the signature, but the name printed at the bottom of the photo read: "Fritz Lang." The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it.
I moved past that partition, and into a sci-fi moviemaker's wet dream. There were the most incredible pieces of machinery everywhere, with lighted boards flickering with tiny lights, lights that seemed to run around the boards in choreographed patterns that repeated every few seconds. I saw flashing electrodes, bubbling beakers, spinning wheels, steaming pipes, and moving geometric shapes. Everything was kinetic in that room, nothing failed to do... something. Some equipment gleamed in shining metal and plastic. Other pieces looked grimy with oil and age.
I stepped past this section, and found a small desk with a glass top. The desk had a viewscreen protruding from the top, and a smooth plastic panel embedded in the desk's surface before it. I tapped the plastic surface, and the screen lit up with a screen saver... a tiny icon of a panda, bouncing from side to side on the screen. I smiled. The desk was like one big, fancy computer.
Looking past the computer, I saw a wall that seemed to have pictures of types of food embedded on it. I looked closer, and realized that it was some kind of food dispenser. I tried touching an image... a pear... and the wall started flashing telltales and whirring. A panel slid back, and a small shelf extended with a plate of... what looked like baby food. It did smell like a pear, though. I decided to pass for now.
Just then, the room exploded in noise... loud klaxons, like a Star Trek red alert warning, but incredibly loud, forcing me to slap my hands over my ears. Thinking I may have triggered an alarm, I started to head back for the hallway, hoping the noise would stop. My back-tracking brought me back to the sci-fi hardware room, and there I stopped.
On one piece of machinery, I saw a series of lights, flashing in a circular sequence that surrounded a single blue button, about the size of my fist. Above the button, a readout sign flashed: "Emergency! Emergency! Press this button to restore normalcy!" All the lights on the other pieces of machinery were flashing frenetically, enough to give someone an epileptic seizure, or at least a blinding headache. And between the lights and the klaxons, I felt a doozy coming on.
I didn't know if it would work... but in helpless desperation, I slapped at the button. To my surprise and relief, the klaxons stopped, and the lights went back to their previous harmlessly-kinetic patterns.
"Now... see how easy that was?"
I spun about. There was Panda-man, smiling at me as he removed two foam pads from his ears.
~
“Congratulations!” Panda-man said. “Your actions were quick and decisive… bravo!” He extended a hand, which held a bag of popcorn. “Have some?”
“What is all this?” I asked suspiciously.
“This?” Panda-man looked about the room. “This is our legacy, my boy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about fiction,” Panda-man replied. “Specifically: Science fiction.” He gestured around the room with the popcorn bag. “Welcome to the future!”
"This?" I glanced around. "All this cheap theatrics?"
"Exactly, my boy! The cheap theatrics of the future! Sound and light shows, designed to impress the masses into thinking something important is going on."
Panda-man gestured at a partition. "It's all his fault, you know." I looked: He was indicating the old man in the portrait. "Fritz Lang," he answered my unspoken question. "The man who gave us the movie Metropolis."
"Metropolis? Wasn't that an old silent movie?"
"Oh, yes, that it was," Panda-man stated. "It depicted a futuristic city, a utopia above, run by slaves at bone-crunching machinery below. Lang created the first imagery to depict futuristic hardware... flashing lights, kinetic elements, oil, steel, glass... as well as depicting a deep, dangerous mystery far underground. He showed machines that could destroy, if not for the people who needed to maintain them on a constant basis. He showed mysterious leaders and mindless drone workers, stages incomprehensible to newcomers. No one had done that before him. His imagery became synonymous with science fiction."
"And you," he stated, "have proven yourself worthy of carrying on the legacy."
"What are you talking about?"
"Why, the button, my boy!" He waved at it. "You hit it! Without hesitation! You didn't examine the wiring diagram, or go online to see if you could figure out what was going on, or call tech support... you hit the button! Just like a movie hero is supposed to! You have proven that the iconic cinematic programming is established within you. As long as you stay down here, you can maintain the harmony of the Zoo by pressing that button whenever the alarm goes off!"
"Oh, f**k that noise!" I snapped. I am not staying down here and pressing any stupid button for you! I had enough of—"
"Yes?"
My mouth positively fell open. I suddenly realized what was going on. How it was inevitable that I would find myself here. "Oh, no! I'm leaving! I'm going home!"
"Are you forgetting the panda?" Panda-man smiled amiably. "I don't think he's going to allow you to leave."
I cast about desperately, trying to figure out what to do. I was beginning to see things I hadn't noticed before... things that looked familiar to me. Things that I remembered from my office...
Where I had just resigned...
"No..." I snarled. "No!"
"Yes?"
"No!" I struck out, smashing Panda-man in the jaw, and he tumbled to the ground. I towered over him, my every limb screaming to hit him again.
"Do you know what it took me to get out of there?" I screamed. "What it took to stop writing the crap? The same kitch-y stories? The same cardboard characters, starships and aliens? I could have created masterpieces! High concepts that would have the literary gods weeping at my feet! Weeping!" I kicked Panda-man while he was down, not striking any vital parts, but eliciting a painful grunt from him nonetheless.
"But all they wanted was... the damned crap! They wouldn't let me write real stories... they wanted... rehashed versions of Wagon Train and Gunsmoke episodes, with ray guns! They wanted centerfolds in green makeup and torn miniskirts! They wanted explosions... with stupid expanding halo-things around them! They wanted... they wanted..."
I had run out of steam. I hadn't realized it had happened, but I was on my knees next to Panda-man, my eyes burning with tears. All I could make out were the movements of swimming lights and washed-out geometric shapes, all around me... surrounding me.
"Yes," Panda-man was saying. "We know. We know why you resigned. We just needed to hear you say it."
"Please," I pleaded with him. "Don't make me stay here... with all this! I don't want to be trapped by all this junk. I know there is... so much more! I need to be free of it! I need to be free..."
"Ah," Panda-man nodded. "So, he is not ready for this Zoo, after all."
"No, he is not."
I looked up, to see the Greek girl kneeling down next to me. She took me by the shoulders, and smiled kindly. "This is no panda. We cannot bind him by panda rules. We must release him."
"Yes," Panda-man agreed, standing. "Yes, we must." As I wiped my eyes pitiably, the girl helped me to my feet. I found I couldn't stand to look at the hardware in the room... it was becoming too strong a reminder of everything I'd sought to escape. The girl, sensing this, turned me away from the hardware, to face Panda-man. As I watched, he reached into his pocket, pulled his hand out, and extended it, palm-up, to me.
"I want you to take this blue pill..."
Bravo!
But I say skip the blue pill, and just walk out through the nearest wall. They're all in your own head, after all! -Nekokami
Unless it falls on the floor and lands next to a fish. You can always trust the blue one next to the fish. -RickyMaveety
Sheesh,
you lot in the background - shhhh,
some of us are trying to concentrate on this -
bet there's another 'twist' coming up....
bet's on all the pandas are really armadilloes that have lost their armour...
No - I know - they're pieces on a univerally - sized chess board.... –GeoffC
Okay, here's the situation: My parents went away for a week's vacation, and they left me the keys to the brand new Porche...
(Oh, wait. Different situation. Rebooting now...)
When I started this, I fully expected others to take up the storytelling and take this into unexpected directions. Little did I expect everyone to sit back, grab their popcorn and wait for me to keep going!
Anyway, you did, and pitched me a few things to add to the ride, so I kept writing on-the-fly (and trust me, that's hard to do... little buggers just try to buck you off!), mindful of the fact that I'm actually in the middle of other projects, and didn't have too much time, and finished the story that I started. (Roll—I say, roll credits, boah.)
Or... did I? (Pause—I say, pause credits! Pause, boah!)
Anyway, I'll keep free-associating until I get the knots out of my neurons. But I serve fair notice: This is not pre-scripted, and I don't know where or when it's all gonna end.
(Okay, boah, put—I say, put on reel two.) -the author
Yeah, I always hated that my parents would only give me the keys to the veranda when they went away. I mean, I really liked just leaning back into the rocking chair and watch the world pass by, but most of the time they kept me locked up in the saloon.
Cheers,
Marc (being intentionally obtue) -montsnmags
I looked at the pill suspiciously. "What's it supposed to do?"
Panda-man smiled. "Nothing. It represents a choice. When you take it, you will find yourself waking up, in a wonderful new life, in a wonderful new world!"
"I see," I said. Hesitating another second, I finally popped the pill in my mouth. "See you on the other side," I said to Panda-man.
Then I turned to the girl. "How 'bout a kiss, before I forget that I ever met you?"
"That's not—" she started to say, but I had already pulled her close and planted a good, wet one on her. Having caught her completely by surprise, and she being a woman, she struggled, of course, and when I finally let her go, she glared at me and started wiping her mouth violently.
"Tsk, tsk," Panda-man was saying in the meantime. "Taking advantage of a nice girl? That hardly seems like you—"
He paused when the girl coughed, then wrapped her hand around her throat. "Now, now," Panda-man said, "don't be so melodramatic, girl! He's not all that bad-looking, after all. Maybe a tad overweight..."
His voice faded when he saw how green in the face she was getting. A moment later, his eyes popped, and he looked from me to her. "Oh, c**p..."
He had finally figured out that I had forced the pill into her mouth when I'd kissed her. And neither of them looked too happy about it. In fact, I wasn't sure who looked more panicky, Panda-man, or the girl with the pill down her throat. The question was answered, however, when the girl unexpectedly spun about and grabbed me! She'd wrapped her arms around my neck, and her legs around my torso, pinning one arm before I knew what had happened. And before I could free the arm, or dislodge her with the other one... the world sort of blinked. Everything around me went flat, like it was all a paper sculpture that someone had collapsed back to a single page, and an instant of time suddenly seemed to stretch out to infinity.
It seemed, in the instant between seconds, that somehow I heard the voice... no, more of an echo of the voice... of Panda-man, saying: "Hmph. She never hugged me like that..."
Holy crap, Steve! Just how long is your tongue? -pshrynk
Keep goin' Steve - don't let us stop you....will you be offering a book version at the end or do we have to make our own copies (with your conivance and agreement - of course)... –GeoffC
Maybe they end up in the land of the armadillopuss? Who, instead of imprisoning them, think they are gods?
Isn't it nice to have an on-call author to entertain us? -DixieGal
It will probably all be a dream. –Patricia
The duckbilled armadillopuss come from a long tradition of Buddhism. We do not believe in "gods." We will probably think they are really large bugs and try to eat them. Except that ... well, it wouldn't be a very Buddhist thing to do to a guest. So, we'll probably wait around till they die of old age ... then we'll eat them. –RickyMaveety
I had no idea that the duckbilled armadillopuss had such a philosophy. Please, enlighten us more concerning their culture and traditions. –DixieGal
Better left to another time and another thread. We also prefer to remain a little more mysterious than the noble panda. -RickyMaveety
An eternity-long instant later, we were somewhere else. I was immediately aware of the sensation of falling, and I cried out in alarm... so did the girl, who was still wrapped like a python around me. But as it turned, out, our fall lasted only about a second, before we landed on a divan, bounced off of it, skidded across a coffee table, and finally came to rest on a pastel-pink rug.
Once we'd come to rest, the girl unwrapped herself from me. I started to say, "What the f—" when I noticed a black wingtip next to my shoulder. I looked up, following the leg attached to the wingtip, until I got to the top, whereupon I saw a man in a red uniform looking down at us.
"Please," he said, "we run a respectable place. If you must do that, for God's sake, get a room!"
We sat up, and I looked around. We were apparently in a hotel lobby. I looked at the man standing above us. "Ah, sorry," I said, standing up and helping the girl to her feet. "We just wanted to test the comfort of the furniture. I think we'll try another place." Gripping the girl by the bicep, I led her outside.
And was almost blinded, the moment I stepped out. It was apparently pretty close to noon, and the sun beat down on bright pastel colors everywhere, giving the eye no place to look that was retina-safe.
Now, I said, What the f**k happened? Where are we?"
"Looks like Miami," the girl stated. When I turned to look at her, she nodded at the sign above the hotel we'd just exited... it said Miami Arms.
"And exactly how did we get here?"
"By overloading the subspace shifter," she replied.
"The what?"
"The damned pill you made me swallow, you jerk!" She yanked her arm out of my hand, and gave me a cold look. "We're lucky we landed on dry land!"
"No frickin' way."
"Yes frickin' way! The subspace shifter is designed to shift you to another place upon ingestion. It was keyed to your body weight, and set to take you to a secure cell in Guantanemo if you wouldn't cooperate."
"Gee, thanks."
"Only you force-fed it to me, and since I'm lighter than you, it could have sent me to the Moon, for all I know!" She squinted around. "So I grabbed you, to add weight to the shift, knowing that we'd at least manage to stay on this planet."
"Assuming you're serious about that Moon stuff," I said, "for what it's worth, I wasn't trying to kill you. I just figured it would put you to sleep... like your maniac boss told me it would!"
"If I'd worked for him," the girl stated, "I would've jumped with him."
"Well, you don't work for me."
"No... I escaped with you. Now that I've abandoned my post, I'm in as much trouble as you are."
"All I wanted to do was quit my job!"
"And you should've known better!" I stared, having no idea what she was talking about. "You dummy... don't you realize the secrets you know? About the publishing industry? All the bogus procedures, back-room dealings, false-front boutique houses... all there to keep the 'unclean' at bay, all the outsiders who want to get into publishing and make it big as the next Tom Clancy!"
"You've gotta be..." And suddenly I remembered the conversation we'd had earlier, when I thought she wasn't making the connection. The shoe really was on the other foot.
"You're seeing it now, aren't you?" she said. "They can't let you tell the mainstream media how the publishing industry really works behind closed doors. They can't let you leak the word to every e-book writer and blogger out there. There's no way they'll let you live."
Cue the dramatic music... –DixieGal
Ooh! The Author's Protection Program! A secret identity! Backpack! Backpack! (Sorry— got carried away there. A few too many episodes of Dora the Explorer when my younger daughter was learning English.)
Do they have squirrels in Miami? -Nekokami
We had started to walk, while we were talking. Before I knew it, the girl was suddenly grabbing me by the arm, and dragging me into a small store.
"We need to lower our profile," she said as we stepped inside. She was already taking off her black gloves, making her white suit look much less incongruous in the process. "Apparently no one in the hotel saw us 'pop' in, so we lucked out there. But they'll be looking for us by now, and the cities have eyes.
"I'm going to get a change of clothes," she concluded. She looked me up and down. "You should buy a new shirt. And find a baseball cap or something." And before I could reply, she whirled and headed down the aisles, quickly grabbing a few articles of clothing from the racks and heading for the changing rooms.
I didn't know how good the city's eyes were, but I had to admit, she made sense. I browsed a men's shirt aisle until I found a touristy shirt that looked like it would blend in for Miami. A Jacksonville baseball cap topped off the new look nicely. I paid for them at the counter with most of the cash I had on me, and changed into the shirt while I was still inside.
A noise behind me alerted me to my fellow fugitive's arrival. She had slipped into a pastel-colored dress and high-heeled sandals that displayed her... charms, but no more than the average Miami girl. Still, she'd blend better with that than the white suit and black pumps, which she had already ditched somewhere. She paid for her dress and shoes with cash, and a moment later, we were back out on the street.
"So... what now?" I asked. "Are you serious about someone looking for us?"
"Oh, yes," she nodded, scanning the street carefully but unobtrusively as we crossed the street. "Especially you. If the wrong people get ahold of you, they could find out enough about the secrets of the publishing empires to penetrate their defenses and do significant damage. Some budding authors would kill for that chance."
"And how do you know so much about it? Were you part of the empire?"
"Yes, right until they brought me in to keep you quiet. Mind you, I didn't know that at the time. I thought I was being sent to wine and dine a congressman. In hindsight, I should have known I was being set up: No one wines and dines congresspeople any more. They just send them gift cards."
"Gift cards?"
"Ever seen an American Express Plutonium gift card?"
"No."
"And you never will, either."
"Okay..." Something else occurred to me. "So, what did you do? In the empire?"
Without meeting my eye, she said, "I was an editor."
"What's your name, anyway?"
Now she looked at me. "Ailuropoda Melanoleuca."
"Yow. What is that, Greek?"
"Latin. You can call me Amy."
"Thank God. So, Amy, where are we going?"
"I know Miami," she explained. "There's a safe house near here... a used bookstore."
"There are still such things?"
"Not many," she admitted. "That's why they'll help us."
~
The bookstore was, as I expected, one of those truly anachronistic-looking places, a decades-old storefront on a side-street, with their name hand-painted to the plate glass, and the sight of what had to be hundreds of thousands of books crammed into the space of a downtown Kyoto efficiency apartment. Amy pushed the door open, ringing the inevitable bell poised above the door.
Inside, a bearded, severely overweight man sat behind a counter covered with books and magazines. He was reading a magazine himself... looked like F&SF to me, from what I could see over his protective book-shield... and barely looked up when we came in. "CanIhelpyou?" he mumbled out, his eyes already back into his magazine before the last syllable came out.
"We're looking for a book," Amy said simply.
"Good call," the man responded. "We've got a few of those."
"This one is by John Drake," Amy stated. "Memoirs of Portmeirion. Sixth edition."
She paused, and waited while the proprietor slowly lifted his eyes from his magazine. He regarded us both cautiously, while trying not to look cautious. "I have that, but it's the one with the abridged ending."
"Does it have a red cover?" Amy asked.
"That's the one," the proprietor nodded at the clearly coded exchange, slowly climbing down from his stool and starting around the counter. As he moved from his seat, I could now see the small computer he had on the counter behind him. It was like a laptop, but much smaller, and made of white plastic. I'd bet it was a great PC for portable work... it looked ultra-mobile. He tapped a single key on it as he walked past, and I heard what sounded like a deadbolt being pulled at the front door.
He looked at me. "Author?"
"Yeah."
"Poli-sci? Espionage?"
"Science fiction."
He winced. "Idealist. Won't know what to watch out for. They'll catch you in less than a week."
"Or not," Amy told him, looking at me. "He'll have an editor's help."
The proprietor looked at Amy. "I see. Okay, then: Let's get going."
He led us through the bookstore... how his bulk managed not to knock over half the books he passed, in those narrow aisles, I will never know. We took a few turns, until I was honestly not sure which way the front door was. Then he stopped in what looked to be an old closet, surrounded by books.
"Get in, get in," he urged, and waited until we were all in that tiny space, chest-to-chest-to-chest. (Take your own mental picture... I'm not going there.) Then he reached up to a tiny chain, hanging from a bare light bulb set in the ceiling. He tugged the chain six times, then waited. Six seconds later, the floor started to drop, the books that had been residing on it somehow staying in place, hovering above us as we dropped past them.
We descended perhaps thirty feet down before we reached bottom. It was almost pitch dark when we stopped moving, but immediately a light snapped on, revealing an old city service tunnel. The proprietor alighted and started down the tunnel. Amy followed him. I shrugged and followed along.
"Haven't had anyone down here in awhile," the proprietor started talking as we continued along. "Thanks to better laptops and encryption software, more of our authors have been able to work on-the-run, instead of hanging down here."
"Don't tell me," I said. "You've got a secret subterranean cavern set up with PCs, and dozens of secret writers recording classic books before they are lost."
The proprietor looked back at me, glancing at Amy for confirmation. "Dude... where have you been? All the classics are already in multiple e-book formats! You never heard of Project Gutenberg? Or the Darknet?"
E-books... Amy had mentioned them earlier, and I knew what they were. Project Gutenberg I'd never heard of... much less the "Darknet." Feeling like I was out of my element, I shut up and kept walking.
The tunnel was long... we may have travelled three city blocks, though we made some turns along the way. Then we came to a closed door on one wall. The proprietor put his hand onto the bricks to the right of the door, and after a moment, a lock snapped open. He pushed the door open with a mighty creak, and entered, beckoning us to follow him.
I still expected to see a dank, damp room with a boatload of kids at ancient PCs, cranking out who knew what kind of propaganda. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I found myself walking into... a Starbucks.
OOOHHH! L-space! I love it! -pshrynk
hush - pipe down - sheesh - some of us are trying to concentrate on this... –GeoffC
Nooo! Not Starbucks! It's poison, deadly poison, I tell you! Uh oh, the secret coffee police are gonna get me!
(I haven't been able to get a good cup of joe since the lobby coffee shop was hostilishly take over by Starbucks on 7/1/08.) -DixieGal
"Wow. These guys really are everywhere," I couldn't help but say.
Amy glanced at me wryly, and walked inside, following the proprietor. "Try to keep up," she said.
"All right, I'll bite," I said. "Why a Starbucks?"
The proprietor looked at me. "Boy, this is the future for writers. Where else can you spend time in a public place, with free internet connections, sit at a private table, pound on your keyboard all day long, and still be considered cool?"
"Um... libraries?"
He made a rude noise through his lips. "Geeks hang at libraries. Luddites hang at libraries. Why? To see sexy librarians? They aren't there any anymore!" He made a face, and muttered more softly, "Trust me, I've looked." Then more forcefully, "They've all become sexy business associates that hang at Starbucks!"
"Hadn't thought of that..."
"You were in the castle too long."
"The what?"
"The castle... the publishing castle," Amy explained. "You were in there with the rest of the elite, the royalty that ran the publishing empires, while the peasants have been out here, shut out by the publishing elite, toiling away in the muck. It's been that elite attitude that has kept the publishers isolated from the rest of the world for so long. Resisting the winds of change."
"But someday," the proprietor added, "the peasants here will rise up and storm the castle, and those inside will find themselves the guests of honor at the re-enactment of the French Revolution!" He raised a pudgy hand, straightened his palm like a blade, and brought it down on the back of his neck.
"Back to Starbucks," I urged.
"Oh... right. Look around you. Here, people can be smart, and attractive, and private, and pretentious, and connected, and supportive of the economy, all at the same time. And through the windows, you can see the world going by... they are in the middle of what's happening! That means they can know the world, and they can write what they know!"
"If you want to write about pedestrians," I mused, though only now had I noticed that this Starbucks, approximately three stories underground, actually had picture windows that looked out onto a street!
Before I could ask about that, though, Amy had noticed my reaction. "Display screens. Cameras up on the street are capturing the street scenes in real time, and broadcasting them down here."
"What's above us?" I asked. "It's not a real Starbucks, is it? That would blow my irony meter right to hell."
"No," Amy said. "If people were coming in and out of a real Starbucks upstairs, it would eventually blow our cover. The street entrance is a place where no one ever goes anymore."
"Where's that?"
"A XXX video store."
"Ah. So, what happens now?"
"Well," the proprietor said, "from here you can create your new obscure literary reference screen name and avatar, set up your website, your MySpace page, your You-Tube page, your Yahoo page, and your Second Life page... establish your PayPal account... start programming your interactive videos... assemble your viral marketing campaign... get a latte... poll the marketplace to choose which of the approximately 200 conversion programs you plan to use... set up a blog to trade ad space with other bloggers... buy vintage Sinatra CD at the counter... download your bootleg education copy of InDesign... and, um... write."
"What? What if I don't want to do all that?"
"Well, you can always get a frapp instead..." the proprietor shrugged.
Amy interrupted him. "What did you think you'd have to do, to sell books outside of the publishing castle? Did you think you'd just have to sign on to some obscure fanboy forum, and hope the world would beat a path to your door?"
"Um..."
"Welcome to the 21st century... log onto Craigslist and buy a clue! We are on our own out here! No one is going to come waltzing into your local malt shop and 'discover' you! If you want to write, you have to work hard at it! You have to do all the things the publishers used to do for you!"
Then, Amy moved closer to me, and whispered lightly, "Or... you could help us."
"Help you to do what?"
"We're going to bring down the publishing castle," she said. "We're going to level the playing field... for everyone." Even pitched as low as her voice was, many of the patrons looked up expectantly from their laptops and PDAs and waited for Amy's next words.
I asked, "How are you going to do that?"
Amy smiled. "We're going to take away their ability to print."
~
"You," I said, "have my full attention. This has gotta be good."
"Years ago," Amy began, "we thought we could combat the publishing revolution by appealing to the world's sense of conservation of resources. Paper, after all, represents a multi-billion-dollar industry, worldwide, and has contributed to the clearcutting of entire countries' forestry resources."
"Creating soil erosion and sustainability problems, ruining entire ecosystems, and contributing to global warming," I said.
"Right," Amy nodded. "So we were at the forefront of a campaign organized to alert the public to the plight of the world's forests, and to cease the all-out harvesting of our forests for reading material. The idea was, if publishers couldn't get paper, their printing and distributions would shut down, and they'd collapse under their own weight."
"Hmph. That almost sounds like it could work. So, what happened?"
The proprietor replied, simply, "S**t."
"Excuse me?"
"Toilet paper," Amy said, giving the proprietor a nasty glance. "The world uses a lot of toilet paper. They also like to read when on the toilet. And in poorer countries, they use reading matter as toilet paper. They weren't going to sit still... so to speak... while a bunch of fanatics tried to rid the world of paper. So we were shot down every time."
"So, there's still paper," I stated. "What else can you do to stop printing?"
"What's the other essential element required in printing?" Amy asked. "Ink. No ink, no printing."
"You're trying to rid the world of... ink?"
"Not 'rid the world'... we already know that won't work," Amy replied. "Instead, we are working to repurpose it."
"How?"
"After doing extensive research," the proprietor said, "We've discovered that although people are not so hep to protect a few random forests, they are a lot more interested in protecting animals. Especially cute ones. Brings out the maternal instincts, and all that."
"Okay, I'll buy that," I said.
"The trick was," Amy continued, "to find a way to combine that with our needs. We discovered a cute animal that is on the road to extinction, its habitats threatened by industrialization, its food sources running out in many areas. This animal is so popular that people worldwide want to save them, and will pay big money to see them in zoos and private collections. The market is huge.
"However, there simply aren't enough of them to go around, and they do not breed well in captivity. So we are diverting two resources to fill a market for a third."
"How?"
"First, we had to find an animal that was very close in appearance to the endangered animal. We hack into worldwide delivery databases for ink, and arrange to have as much ink as we can diverted to our secret labs in Boca Raton. There, we use the ink to alter the appearance of our substitute animals, to create our endangered animals. Then we sell them to zoos, and use the profits to divert more ink through legitimate sales channels. Here."
Amy brought me over to a writer at a table. After asking to borrow his laptop, she turned it in her direction, and started typing. "You can see an example of it, on our encrypted YouTube page, YouTube-dot-com-slash-user-slash-secretallpaperbooksmustdiediedie." After a few more seconds of typing, she turned the laptop to me, and I saw a video queueing up.
When the video started, I saw a wooden crate being positioned on a small platform by a team of white-smocked technicians. Once they were satisfied the crate was properly positioned, they exited the room. a few seconds elapsed, in which nothing happened... then, a robotic hand extended from somewhere in the ceiling, grasped the edge of the crate, and began to slide one side up and away.
"Our substitute animal is in there," Amy explained. Wait for it..."
A moment later, the animal slowly ambled out of the crate. It was clearly a member of the Ursidae family... that is, it was a bear. However, it was not a bear I'd ever seen. Its coat was snowy-white, even whiter than that of a polar bear, and its face was much shorter than that of the average bear. That short nose, and stubby legs, gave it an appearance that was hard not to appreciate.
"Aw. Ain't he cute?"
"Just wait," Amy said, "and in a second, he'll be even cuter."
And I remembered what Amy had been telling me a moment before. "Hey, wait a minute... you're not—"
Before I could finish, I saw five robotic arms quickly descend from the ceiling in the video. The arms poised themselves in strategic places around the white bear... adjusted their positions slightly... and all of a sudden, the room was obscured by clouds of pitch-black smoke.
"Jesus!" I exclaimed. "You can't be serious!"
"As a heart attack," the proprietor said from behind me. "Watch."
Sure enough, the smoke began to dissipate, apparently with the help of unseen air handlers. As the air cleared, I found myself staring at a ready-made panda bear. The owner of the laptop clapped.
Amy said, "Now, that's cute."
"And best of all," the proprietor said, "it used up enough ink to keep one copy of War and Peace... or a good Tom Clancy novel... off the bookshelves!"
I straightened up from the laptop very slowly. It was very clear to me now that these people were as insane as you could get without a prescription.
And that, naturally, is when Amy looked me in the eye and said: "So. Will you help us?"
(ROFL icon) Ok, which of your books should I buy to get more of this kind of humor? -Nekokami
Sorry, none of them are this unutterably silly, although there are a precious few moments in Encephalopath and As the Mirror Cracks that come close. I'm not sure if I could sustain that for a full-length novel, though. Otherwise, I'd take that as a request. –the author
The segment of Encephalopath that I read had a bit too much sex-without-plot for my tastes, but if the rest of the book has silly moments like this, I might give it another go. Perhaps I should check out As the Mirror Cracks as well. -Nekokami
What do the substitute pandas have to do with the panda zoo keepers? Are they going to infiltrate the publisher pandas or something? I'm getting confused. –DixieGal
He's let out the whole acutelation process. Now we're going to have to kill him. And I was really getting into the story too, dangit! -pshrynk
Shush, don't put him off. Haven't I told you about MoM yet? Oh yes; I did that in about a week. Well, Don't Panic! Just wait for the full director's cut DVD (Steve; take that as a request!).
By the way, does anyone know when the Popcorn convoy is due to arrive? The concession stand is out again — just got the last box. -LazyScot
At this point, I was starting to reconsider my decision not to take the blue pill. Even Guantanemo might have been better than this lot. However, I was here, and these crazed lunatics were standing between me and my freedom… So I had to think fast, or I’d end up being sold for panda-fodder.
“Help you?” I said. “You seem to have your little pseudo-panda smuggling ring down pat.”
“Yes, but there’s the Zoo to deal with.”
“Didn’t you tell me you weren’t working for Panda-man?”
“Yes,” Amy said. “I was sent in there to infiltrate his organization. You remember all the pandas… we had to find out where theirs were coming from, because they threatened to undermine our operation.”
“And what did you find out?”
“Those pandas are all clones of real pandas,” the proprietor explained. “They can’t produce them as fast as we can create out fake pandas. However, they are perfectly capable of unmasking our pandas to zookeepers, and selling theirs to us instead.”
“Unfortunately,” Amy added, “their cloning process has the unfortunate side-effect of reflecting the number of the clone in his eye-markings. No one wants pandas with numbers on their faces. But if they get that problem licked, our fake panda operation goes up in smoke.”
“We must destroy the Zoo, and its cloning operation,” the proprietor stated. “It’s the only way we’ll ever be able to finance our efforts to kill the printing industry, and thereby make room in the world for e-books.”
“Mmm,” I said, not liking where this was going. “And to do that?”
“To do that,” Amy said, “we have to go back… to the Zoo!”
“Oh, you guys are nuts,” I stated flatly. “Exactly how are we going to sneak back into the Zoo, and get anything done while we’re hiding from everyone there? It’s full of nothing but pandas! It’s not like we blend in!”
“Already taken care of,” Amy stated proudly. “We have clever disguises.” She walked over to the ordering counter, reached behind it, and extracted to jars. She held them up to me. One was filled with a white cream. The other was filled with a black cream.
“We can buy you a white suit and black gloves on the way."
I groaned. Clearly, I needed to start thinking a lot faster.
Given that pandas are endangered, I don't know about destroying the clones. Couldn't they be stolen, or the whole operation could be subverted to the side of virtue or something? -Nekokami
Considering how I'd gotten out of the zoo, I really wasn't expecting how I'd get back in. "What? No blue pill?" I'd asked Amy.
"Those things are expensive... and dangerous," she replied. "Besides, we haven't been able to steal any from the zookeepers. It's this, or nothing."
"Yeah, but... this?" Parked next to me, inside a C-51 cargo plane that had flown us out of a tiny Florida airstrip anecdotally known to be popular among Columbian drug smugglers, was a tandem hand glider, made of non-reflective black fabric and black-anodized aluminum framing. Someone had cast a light on it, before we'd left, and it seemed to magically absorb every bit of the light.
"It's the only way we can get in unnoticed," Amy explained. "The zoo's sensors would detect close-passing aircraft, engine noise or heat signatures."
"Please tell me you've done this before," I asked. I'd actually tried hang gliding once, and had gotten scared witless when I managed to reach a grand total of twenty feet in altitude.
"Only once before," Amy replied. "That time, it was in the middle of heavy winds, and we got down fine. We won't have any trouble today."
"We?"
"I've taken others inside," she explained.
"Oh. Will they be helping us?"
"Not likely... they're all dead."
"Caught as spies?"
"No: Turned out to be allergic to leeks."
"Mm-hmm."
Once we were over the drop point, some thirty miles distant from the zoo, the rear of the cargo plane started to open, whipping any dust and loose debris about like a mini-hurricane, and drowning us in wind noise. Amy patted me on the knee, and stood up. "Time to go!"
Our harnesses that fit over our coveralls included a sort of body-sock that you shrugged into, to aid aerodynamics. Once into the harness, an accompanying technician helped me into the tandem, with Amy strapped in on top of me—forcing me to consider how many times I'd managed to get this close to her in the past few days, with no result. Talk about incentive to get this whole mess over with. As I fought to not overdwell on Amy's practically straddling me, the technician pushed us out of the back, where a tether strung us out to a safe distance, then cut us loose.
Immediately, the hang glider began twisting and flipping through the air... despite our distance from the plane, its backwash tossed us like a kite during Katrina. I bit my lip and squeezed me eyes shut, assuming at that moment that my concerns over dragging this adventure out were probably unfounded. But in time, Amy managed to wrest control of the hang glider back from the elements, we were finally able to tuck our legs into the socks, and we began a leisurely glide through the night.
I knew Amy had a heads-up display in her helmet, but mine had no such equipment. So I asked: "How long until we reach land?"
"About an hour," she replied. "You can't rush espionage."
"Speaking of which... I know we talked about this mission, and all. You said there might be casualties. But I hope you understand that I want nothing to do with the killing of innocent pandas, clones or no."
"Don't worry," Amy said. "We discussed this. If the plan goes properly, not a single panda will be harmed in the accomplishment of this mission. Now, settle back and enjoy the ride."
"If you wanted me to enjoy it," I complained in a low voice, "you should have had us reverse positions..." My complaint was cut short by a knee-jab on the back of my thigh, preventing me from suggesting further that I could have been facing upward, at least...
Traveling at night on a silent glider, when you can't see anything around or below you, tends to drag out a trip. Consequently, when it seemed like about day and a half had passed, Amy finally announced, "There it is." Now I could vaguely see lights ahead and below us, though it was too dark to make out details. "I'm going to aim for the east beach. Remember to relax and let the sock take the landing."
There was nothing for me to do but hang on, while Amy brought us about and angled for the ground. Abruptly, I could make out the beach below us, approaching fast. Amy flared us out, and we flew parallel to the beach for a few yards. She lowered us easily, and then, my sock was dragging on the sand, bringing us down and killing our airspeed. I, Amy, and the glider did the last few yards on my chest, as I sputtered to keep sand out of my mouth.
"Perfect," Amy whispered, as she shrugged out of her sock and started to climb off me.
"Yeah, I'm sure you enjoyed it immensely," I replied, still spitting sand out of my mouth.
"Shh! Let's get rid of the glider." After I was out of my gear, we picked the glider up, walked it over to the surf, waited for the tide to go out, and simply deposited it on the sand. When the tide came in and washed over the bottom of the glider, it immediately began to melt like a sand castle, fabric, struts, and all.
"No way," I whispered.
"What better way to get rid of the evidence?" Amy smiled in the gloom.
"But... what if we'd had a problem, and had to ditch in the ocean?" I asked.
Despite the dark, I could see Amy roll her eyes. "Men: You're such pessimists! Come on."
We snuck off the beach and into the zoo village, and my proximity to this strange place that I felt like I'd just escaped from, left a bitter taste in my mouth. Or maybe it was just sand. Amy steered us to a small building, and used a key to open the door. We entered, using a small flashlight to find our way. Eventually, Amy stopped at one of many unmarked doors, and we stepped inside. She locked the door behind us, then found a light switch on the wall. The room was a storage closet, with the usual cleaning tools, a small sink, and a locker on the wall.
Amy unzipped her coverall and pulled it off, revealing the white suit underneath it. I did the same, and we deposited the coveralls in the locker. Then she held out the black and white creams to me. Suppressing a groan, I started to smear cream on my face, copying Amy's treatment of covering her face with white, then her eyes and ears with patches of black. Once we were done, she put the creams in the locker, and we donned our black gloves.
Amy grinned at me, as we shouldered the small packs we'd brought with us. "Showtime!"
I'm amazed by your talent! And will overlook that their hair is showing, or if the panda suits have hoods, then why would they blacken their ears? -DixieGal
It was already approaching dawn when we emerged from the building where we had changed. Soon, as I had been told during my briefing, we could expect the pandas to come out and start circulating about the zoo.
At once, Amy unzipped her pack, and removed a small device. It looked like a PDA, although I had been told that it was really a cheap Chinese knock-off, and it actually only did two things as purchased: It stored addresses; and it stored notes. She took the bogus PDA, and placed it on a low wall where it would be sure to be noticed. Then she nodded at me and my pack. I opened my pack, and we both began moving about, depositing identical PDAs around the zoo.
Not for the first time, I looked at our outfits... simple white shirts, white pants and white sport-coats, black shoes, and black gloves... not to mention the ridiculous white and black makeup on our faces... and muttered, "I can't believe that this so-called 'disguise' could actually fool any panda."
"Yes, hard to believe... isn't it?" Amy admitted. "It's due to the cloning process, apparently. It leaves the pandas less able to distinguish another panda, or to tell the difference between a panda or a human dressed like this."
I began to express my disbelief, but at that moment, Amy stopped walking, and signaled me to stop. I did so, and after a moment, I saw what was happening... I single panda had ambled around the corner, and was walking towards us. He saw us, stopped, and regarded us for a moment. Amy quietly reached into her pack, and handed a PDA to the panda. The panda looked at the screen of the PDA for a few moments, then walked off with it, heading for the beach.
"It works like a charm," Amy whispered, and started off again. I merely shook my head in amazement, both for the effectiveness of our disguises, and of our plan, and followed her.
We continued to leave the PDAs about the zoo. As dawn broke, more pandas began appearing, wandering about singly or in groups, or picking at stands of leeks along the sides of the road. As I continued on, I would occasionally look back and notice the pandas all finding PDAs, examining their screens for a few minutes, then heading off, always towards the beach. At one point, I reached a spot where I could look down the road, between the houses, and see the beach from my vantage point. There, near a distinctive outcropping of rocks at the water's edge, had gathered an enormous mob of pandas, and more could be seen approaching the rocks from the village.
Impressed at the sight, I was surprised when Amy and I came around the corner, and discovered a man, dressed in the same white suit and black-and-white makeup, crossing a street. He saw us at the same moment, and said, "Hoy! You two! What's going on?"
My blood ran cold, but Amy immediately veered his way. "Hey, Miles."
"Oh... is that you, Amy?" The man addressed as Miles seemed to relax. "Haven't seen you around for a few days."
"I had some leave time coming. Use it or lose it, you know."
"Oh, right. Who's this?"
Amy nodded at me. "This is Bob. New guy."
"Hi, Bob," Miles said, offering his hand. "Say, what's the deal with all the pandas? Where are they?"
"They're all heading for the beach," Amy explained. She handed Miles a PDA. "They've all seen this, apparently. Once they see it, they head down there."
Miles took the PDA, and turned it on. After he examined the screen, his eyebrows raised a bit. "Oh, yeah? That might be something to take a look at..." He paused, when he noticed our packs. "Hoy, what's all that, then?"
"More of the PDAs," I replied quickly. "We're trying to collect as many as we can... for evidence."
"Aye... good thinking, Bob," Miles said. He looked again at the PDA. "Um, I'm going to go and check this out... to make sure the pandas aren't... uh... hurting themselves. Heh." He grinned at Amy. "Catch you later, guys."
"See you," Amy said, as Miles headed for the beach. She turned to me. "Nice work, 'Bob'."
"Thanks," I replied. "Let's get on with this, shall we?"
We continued to leave PDAs about, and the pandas continued to find them, examine them, and head for the beach. Eventually, we were out of PDAs, and had worked our way to a wooded area roughly behind the green dome. Amy started picking her way carefully through the woods, until she reached a spot beside an ivy-covered hillside that caught her attention. She found a small rock on the ground, bent down, and placed her hand upon it. A moment later, the ivy on the hillside seemed to part like a curtain, revealing a steel door embedded in the ground. The door opened silently. Amy nodded to me, and I followed her inside.
"So much for phase one," she whispered. "Now it's time for phase two..."
I find I'm trying hard not to imagine what the pandas are seeing on the PDAs... –Nekokami
Seeing they're all rushing to the beach....
PDA -
Panda Depth Alert... –GeoffC
Are they just sitting and staring, or are they doing something? I picture them uncovering something. And where's the giant panda? It was already hanging around the beach. OK, the PDA's only have address books and notepads. Is there some special instruction written in pandese? -DixieGal
The PDA's are all announcing a MobileRead Meetup at the beach. The new Polymer Vision Readius will be previewed. It will be displaying German newspapers: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27327... –Moe the Cat
Under the green dome, Panda-man was staring at the many walls of his inner sanctum, perplexed. The screens showed either empty areas of the zoo, or pandas all apparently heading in the same direction.
"What's happening? Where are all the pandas going?" he muttered to himself. He reached for his control console, and started pushing buttons. "Report! Report! Where are the pandas? What's going on?"
Abruptly, a screen changed to show an operative, in full panda makeup, standing near the beach. The pandas were visible behind him, with more passing him and heading towards the rock outcropping at the beach. "I've found them, sir," the operative said. "They seem to be a bit agitated, but other than that, they're not doing much of anything..."
"I'm coming down," Panda-man announced at once. "Stay there." The operative looked like he was about to speak, but before he could get another word out, Panda-man had cut off the channel. He quickly grabbed his white sport-coat, checked his makeup, and dashed out of the inner sanctum without another word.
An unused taxi was parked outside of the green dome, and Panda-man jumped inside and kicked the accelerator, leaning forward for speed as the golf cart took off at a trotting pace. A few minutes' travel brought him down to the beach, and he abandoned the taxi when he reached the sand. Ahead of him were what looked like every panda in the zoo, all milling about, and occasionally lifting a small electronic device to their faces, then milling about some more. Even the huge uber-panda was there, sitting on the sand and watching the rest of the pandas expectantly.
"Miles! What's going on?" Panda-man bellowed, as he approached a group of operatives that were watching the pandas from a low rock. The operatives looked about at each other in confusion, until one of them, the one addressed as Miles, finally addressed Panda-man.
"You mean... so this isn't one of our experiments? We thought maybe—"
"No, it's not one of ours, dolt!" Panda-man cut him off. "Why would you think it was?"
"I don't know," Miles backed off, and in a moment, held out one of the PDAs that were being handled by most of the pandas in evidence. "It's just that it looked like one of... uh, like something we might... er, uh..."
Panda-man abruptly snatched the PDA from Miles' black-gloved hand, and gave him a final disgusted sneer before looking down at the device. The moment Panda-man grabbed it, something in the device triggered it, and it came on. Although it was originally designed to do only two things, it had been modified (by the simple expedient of changing an internal DIP switch from the "zero" to the "one" position, something fairly common with electronic devices, as it turns out) to do a third thing: Play videos. And when it came on, it immediately began to play a video loop of two pandas fornicating, on a cheap-looking stage that included a backdrop of the beach they were standing on, the angle highlighting the jagged outcropping of rocks nearby, for easier pinpointing of the spot.
Panda-man stared at the mob of pandas in shock. They all seemed to be searching around, like a bunch of high-schoolers looking for some action.
"Stupid clone pandas!" Panda-man spat. Then he turned on his operatives. "Where did these pathetically-produced panda porn-loop PDAs come from?"
Miles shrugged, trying not to blink at all the spittle Panda-man's alliteration had thrown his way. "I don't know. They were just everywhere this morning... the pandas just picked them up all over! Amy said she was going to collect as many as she could, for evidence—"
"Wait!" Panda-man stopped him. "Amy? You've seen her?"
"Yeah," Miles replied. "He and Bob were heading towards headquarters with—"
"Bob? Bob who?"
Miles' eyes went wide. "New guy?"
Panda-man stared at him for a moment... then his own eyes went wide. "Back to the dome, men!" He shouted, and they all turned to head back from the beach. Panda-man paused a moment to spin back upon Miles, who skidded to a stop behind him. "You're relieved of duty, idiot! You're confined to quarters!" Then Panda-man turned and ran off.
Miles stood there a moment, shocked and confused... then a smile crept across his face. "Oh... aye... thank you, sir! Now I can catch up on me technical manuals!"
Panda-man took the taxi, driven by an operative. The other operatives ran alongside. They all reached the green dome at the same time. Panda-man bounded out of the taxi and raced for the door... and was taken by surprise when it did not open for him. He ran headlong into the door and bounced off, colliding with a half-dozen operatives and sending them all tumbling into the grass beside the stoop.
"What the—?" Panda man goggled at the door, then clambered to his feet. H erushed up and pounded on the door, shouting, "Let me in! What's going on in there? Let me in!"
"I'm sorry," a voice emanated from a wall-mounted speaker, "but this publishing house is under new management. Do we know your agent?"
Panda-man blanched (not an easy thing to recognize under the white makeup). "Amy?"
~
Once Panda-man had vacated the green dome, Amy snuck us into the inner sanctum by simply accessing the code-lock and inputting the password, "password." We entered the round room, and as Amy headed for the central control in front of the round chair, I snuck a glance at the many views of the zoo, now dominated by empty streets, and a shot of pandas milling about down at the beach. In one view, a taxi scooted past, and I could clearly see Panda-man driving it.
"We don't have much time," Amy said as she worked over the controls. "You have to get down to the cloning control, and plant the charges. You know the way?"
"I've got it on my TomTom," I replied, calling up my favorites on its screen. At once the GPS device's voice said: "Proceed west, and take the elevator on the left."
"I'm on my way," I told her.
A quick elevator ride later, I was in front of the top-secret cloning lab's door. I accessed the code-panel and input the password: "Money." The door opened with a light hiss. I stepped inside the vast space, which was festooned with high-tech devices and sophisticated medical apparati, scary-looking gestation pods steaming with liquid nitrogen, lots of chrome and white plastic, a few biohazard stickers placed seemingly randomly on walls and other surfaces, and a panda sitting on an examination table.
Oops.
My mission was to destroy the place. I didn't want to destroy any pandas. I thought fast. Remembering that I still had a PDA in my pack, I extracted it, and handed it to the panda. The panda eyed its screen for a few seconds, then put the PDA down, and looked at me expectantly.
"Oh, great," I muttered. "I find the one gay panda in the whole place." Then something occurred to me. "Say... you must be the one that big panda was talking about!" The panda's eyes seemed to focus hard on me. "Yeah, yeah... he's been asking about you all morning, wondering why you aren't at the party... the one on the beach."
Without hesitation, the panda bounded off the table and high-tailed it for the exit.
Sighing with relief, I started to plant my explosives.
Upstairs, Amy was busy transferring evidence on publishing procedures, including those procedures designed to discourage authors from producing e-books, into her own PDA. While that ran, she occupied her time by resetting controls that would shut down the stealth equipment that kept the outside world from knowing about the zoo, and unfreezing its assets, accounts, transactions and back-room dealings from public view.
She was so busy with her work, that she was taken by surprise by a thump heard somewhere outside the control room, followed by a warning light on the console. She looked up at the wall-screens around her, until she found the one that showed Panda-man and a phalanx of operatives, sprawled on the grass outside of the front door. She grinned as she watched them collect themselves, and re-approach the door, with Panda-man pounding on the door and yelling loudly.
Amy finally triggered the front door intercom. "I'm sorry, but this publishing house is under new management. Do we know your agent?"
Panda-man blanched (not an easy thing to recognize on a black-and-white intercom monitor). "Amy?"
"Yes, it's me," Amy replied. "And it's time for your little publishing castle to be brought down around your black little ears."
"No... no! You can't!" Panda-man pushed up to the camera in panic. "Don't you realize we're the only thing keeping mainstream publishing from collapsing completely? We have to maintain the status quo! It's the only way to guarantee profits for all!"
"You mean, for those already in the publishing industry!" Amy snapped. "What about all those budding, deserving authors out there, who just want a fair chance at a literary living?"
"Bah! A bunch of nobodys? Why should we try to make any money off of them, when we already have J.K. Rowling?"
"If you don't understand why," Amy said, "there's no point in explaining it to you..."
"Wait! Wait! Amy... we can help each other! Didn't you tell me once about that travelogue you wanted to write... 'The Entire Northern Hemisphere on One Thousand a Day, Pending Local Exchange Rates'? I can make that happen for you! Just say the word, and I'll have the money in your account in the morning!"
Despite herself, Amy found her hands moving noticeably more slowly across the keyboard as he spoke.
"Think of it, Amy... your name and face, sitting on every coffee table from here to Hong Kong. Your book entertaining millions... hell, billions... at current distribution rates! We'll set up a deal with the Discovery channel... they'll follow you and document your travels! You'll be a celebrity!"
Amy's hands had stopped. "I... could have the money tomorrow?"
"By nine AM! I swear to Macmillan!"
Something changed in Amy's eyes. "And what about the digital rights? Will I retain those?"
"Done!" Panda-man replied. "We'll make sure those little e-books go out at twice the hardback price, no more than a year after printing!"
"Panda bastard!" Amy punched at a red button on the console. Outside, two small doors were sliding open on either side of the front door, releasing robotic attack-armadillos. Amy saw Panda-man and his minions scream like little girls, turn and run from the front stoop, followed by large rolling armadillo drones.
Amy hit another stud. "Get those charges set! We don't have much time!"
~
I finished with the last of the charges. Based on what we'd covered in the briefing, the exact placement of the charges would ensure that no more ilicit cloning would be taking place in this lab. Satisfied that I'd done my job, I patted my hands together in the universally-recognized alternating up-and-down motion that meant I was finished.
Then I remembered I wasn't finished, because I hadn't actually set the charges. Extracting the remote detonator from my pack, I set it for fifteen minutes, more than enough time to get clear, and started out of the room.
(In hindsight, I should have known that that was the absolute last thing I should have done. I've watched a bit of television in my time, after all.)
I headed for the door out of the lab, triggered the lock, and swung the door open. And I was immediately struck by a large, black-and-white wall of fur that hurtled me back into the lab. I bounced of an examination table and tumbled onto the floor, a 200-plus-pound mound of hurt.
I looked up, with the one eye that was still open, and saw the uber-panda breaking through the door-frame and into the lab.
"Um..." I mumbled, hoping to buy me some time. "What a coincidence... I just told a friend of mine to go down and see you..."
At that, uber-panda roared, and charged through the lab at me. Before I could get clear, he connected with another paw, and I went flying across the room, knocking over an incubator before I came to a stop against the wall.
"Ungh... so, I guess he found you..."
Fortunately, the lab was full of equipment that uber-panda had to move, in order to get to me. Unfortunately, all he had to do was swipe an arm, and most of that equipment went flying easily enough. I tried to stay behind the smashed equipment, keeping low, hoping I could get to the exit without him spotting me. I started to make headway, sure I was only a few seconds away from safety.
Then I saw the collapsed framework of the ceiling's block-and-tackle across the doorway, and I realized I wouldn't be getting out that way.
An instant later, and something grabbed my foot. And I realized I might not be getting out at all.
Uber-panda swung me over his head, my own head barely avoiding an impact with the ceiling, and threw me clean across the room. I hit the floor, skidded, and slammed into a table of equipment and beakers that fell to the floor all about me, peppering me with glass and noxious chemicals. When I could sit up, the first thing I saw was uber-panda, walking unerringly towards me with a fierce expression.
This was really not looking good.
He leapt to close the distance between us. In a moment of blind panic, I grabbed at the nearest thing I could find to throw at it... which happened to be a beaker of some bubbling red fluid. I hurled it, and tried to roll away, expecting at any moment the killing stroke. But instead of a huge weight landing on me and a bite-mark the size of a Honda on my neck, there was a small explosion over my head.
It took a moment before I could see through the red smoke that had filled the room... but when I did, I saw a normal-sized panda sitting on the floor next to me. I repeat for emphasis: A normal-sized panda. No bulldozer-sized pandas in evidence. I stared at it, as it sat there and stared at... itself. It seemed to be as surprised as I was that it was now normal-sized.
Then it noticed me staring at it, whereupon it padded over to me, and gave me a big panda-bear hug.
"You're welcome," I said when it finally let me loose. "But we can't stay here. We've only got—" I looked at my watch. About twenty seconds. Yikes.
"Gotta go!" I got up, collected the panda in my arms, and headed for the exit. It took waaay too much time climbing over debris before I reached the door, crawled over the block-and-tackle, and gained the hallway. I bolted for the elevator at the end of the hallway, and was thrilled when I saw it open before I reached it.
"What took you so long—" Amy was saying from inside the elevator car, when she saw me, the panda, and the wild look in my eye.
"No time! Did you find a blue pill?"
"Yes," she replied, eyeing the panda, "but it's not balanced for three—"
"Use it!" I cried, as we tumbled into the elevator together.
Behind us, the explosives triggered. The cloning lab went up, and thanks to the placement of explosives, specific facility-wide systems were also caught up in the explosion. The systems in the green dome went up, and transmitted their disaster through electric and gas lines that networked throughout the village.
As the pandas watched, safe on the beach, the zoo/village erupted like a Quinn Martin production, destroying forever the massive publishing conspiracy that had been the bane of my existence for... well, about four days, all told... but man, had they been pretty extreme days. The green dome was seen to rise straight up as if it was jet-propelled, followed by much brickwork, and strange multi-colored clouds of smoke from below its foundations.
Eventually, debris began to rain down, most of it (to the pandas' relief) landing right where it had taken off, on the ruins of the zoo. One piece of debris was an exception: A door to a certain subterranean elevator, which landed on the beach next to a panda that was looking for an uber-large date...
Oh baby, the climax was thrilling! -DixieGal
The offices of Fox Television happened to be quiet that day: Obama and McCain hadn't done anything worth even mentioning, hurricane Farouk hadn't yet ruined anyone's day, Britney was staying indoors, and no one even knew where the Jolie-Pitts were hanging out that week.
Consequently, when there came a flash of light, a squawk from two voices, and a mighty crash from within a closed office, most of the sixth floor took notice.
A brave accounting assistant approached the door to the office, hesitatingly, as there came muffled thumps and voices from an office that was supposed to be vacant all week... it was her boss' office, and he was out of town. Others gathered round her, to bolster her courage, albeit from a safe distance. Finally, she turned the doorknob, pushed the door opened, and stood back.
Amy and I stepped out, supporting each other—we'd landed painfully atop a teak coffee table, and neither of us could walk without limping—and followed by a small panda bear. The three of us stopped, and stared silently at all of the people silently staring at us.
Amy and I did the only thing we could think of: We did an impromptu soft-shoe number, limp-shuffling for the elevator bay, followed by the panda, which ran around our legs like a show-dog. We reached the elevators, a door opened, and without paying any attention whether it was going up or down, we high-kicked aboard and doffed our imaginary top-hats as the doors closed upon us.
When the doors closed, the accounting assistant muttered, "I hate sweeps week."
We had to dance at four other floors before we reached the bottom, whereupon we quick-stepped through the lobby and, once we were outside, ran like our pants were on fire.
We stopped when we reached a park, where we found a water fountain and washed the paint off of our faces, using our gloves as rags.
"So, that's the end," I said as I wiped the last of the black paint from behind my ears. "Now what?"
"Now," Amy said as the panda helped himself to water from the fountain, "we have evidence of how the publishing industry has been intentionally keeping e-books at bay. We can go to the public, to the authors, and to the media, and expose them for the monsters they are."
"And hope the world actually cares," I added.
"Yeah... there's that," she admitted. Amy regarded me, and a funny expression came across her face.
"What?" I said finally.
"Well," she replied, "for an ex-published author, with no espionage experience, who fell clumsily into a trap, almost got himself killed escaping, was crazy enough to go back, and unlucky enough to fight with a 2-ton panda, you handled yourself pretty good back there."
"Thanks. I think. And may I say that, as I repeatedly got the s**t kicked out of me, I never had better company."
"Thank you," she said, and actually blushed a bit. (Actually, it might have been from my cussing.)
"What will you do now?" I asked.
"Well," Amy replied, "I've got to find work again. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure this is Washington, D.C. That means there are lots of non-commercial editing jobs about, if I can get one. Places where maintaining tight-fisted control over profits is not so vital as commercial publishing. You know... like academic textbooks. And how about you?"
"Mmm," I thought. "Well, all of this might make an interesting germ for a story, given a bit of polishing and embellishment. I could stand some additional research on the subject matter, though." I moved closer to Amy. "Something a good, experienced commercial editor might be able to provide, with the right... incentive. Someone who knows the... intimate details. What do you think?"
And Amy looked at me, with those dark Mediterranean eyes, smiled, and said, "Yeah, good luck with that. Is there a Metro station near here?"
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - for with Amy, I have struck out!
No pandas were harmed in the telling of this story (unless they were particularly sensitive to cussing).
That's not true! I was crushed — crushed I tell you — that there weren't any llamas in the story! I may never recover!
Hey! Cookies in the breakroom! -pshrynk