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The Camp and the Surreal. The 28th Part. Just Be
The Scene: The Vertigo Board Howyadoin had crept through the halls of CBR looking for his impostor. He had searched everywhere except the boards. Now to his thinking, if someone was impersonating him, they would most likely take advantage of his moderatorship status. Since how was the moderator of the Vertigo Board, he figured that the Vertigo Board would be where he would find his impostor. To say the least, he was disappointed when he found the Vertigo Board empty. He didn't have much time to dwell on it, however, as he spied the shadow of someone sneaking up behind him. How turned around and blew his head off. When the smoke had cleared, he was stunned by what he saw. There, floating three feet off the ground, was a small figure dressed in a purple pin-striped suit and wearing a long vampire-type cape. How was wondering how the figure was still staying afloat with no head, but his question was soon answered when part of the figures head came slowly out of the collar just enough for the eyes to be visible. "Is it safe yet?" came a muffled voice. Howyadoin sighed. "I'm sorry, OzBat. I'm just really jumpy. I've spent the last fourteen chapters searching for my impostor. I thought that you might have been him." OzBat's head (aviator's head-gear and all) came up out of his collar with an audible 'Pop.' "It's alright!" he began, life endangerment forgotten. "I was just trying to find everyone! I seemed to have gotten separated!" "Well, you can go look if you want to, but I'm staying right here. My impostor is sure to show up here sooner or later." Just then the doors to the Vertigo Board flew open. Howyadoin raised his gun. *** The Scene: The hallways outside the Vertigo Board As practically everybody in this story was striding towards the Vertigo Board, Demonicuss turned toward Aussie Boy Peter. "Pete? Go see if you can find Fenris and the others. We're going to need all the help we can get if the conspirators are indeed in the Vertigo Board." "What? Why me?" whined ABP. "I wanna see the fight!" "THINK, pete. If you've been brainwashed to kill Greg Hatcher," Demonicuss began as Greg went wide-eyed and stumbled, "then don't you think you should stay away from him in case someone says the trigger word?" "Oh. Yeah. Good point. I'll be back as soon as I can." Pete said before veering off down another hallway. Once he was gone, Greg sidled up to Demonicuss. "Uh, Demonicuss," he began. "What exactly is the trigger word?" Demonicuss never got to answer Greg's question before, from the front of the crowd, Golden Lion declared, "We're here!" And with that, he threw open the doors to the Vertigo Board. Then, he screamed like a little girl as a crazed howyadoin whirled his .50 caliber desert eagle around and nearly fired a round into GL's face. "OOK! OOOOOOOK!" pulse, uh, ooked. "It's okay, pulse" how said. "I'm okay, I was just worried that you guys might have been someone else. Um, sorry, GL. I'll see if I can't you some new pants from somewhere." "Hey, look!" Demonicuss yelled as he pointed at howyadoin. "It's howyadoin! He's one of the bad guys!" "I am not!" how said through gritted teeth as he raised his gun to D's forehead. "Okayyou'renotsorrymybadpleasedon'tkillme!" Greg Hatcher, sensing the impending violent ramifications of DeMonStar suddenly taking a step towards howyadoin. "Uh, look, how," Greg began. "Why don't you put the gun away? You're just going to get someone hurt." Silently, how lowered the gun. Then he said, "Fine. But it's not what it looks like. There's an impostor of me running around somewhere. He's the one who poisoned Jack Tango. Him. Not me." As certain posters started questioning howyadoin in an attempt to get the truth straight, Greg walked over to Demonicuss. "So, uh, Demonicuss. What was this trigger word that is supposed to make some poster kill me?" "Well, the word is--" "Wait! Whisper it to me! We don't know who's been brainwashed!" "Oh. Good point." Demonicuss said as he leaned over and whispered the trigger word into Greg's ear. Meanwhile, howyadoin had gone to one of the Maker machines from Transmetropolitan and made Golden Lion a new set of pants. "Hey! Thanks, how!" Golden Lion said, obviously impressed. "Y'know, that Maker machine of yours is pretty--" **sudden close up of GL's mouth as he says the next word in slow-motion for dramatic effect** "--nifty." Suddenly, Slick's eyes snapped wide open and he said, "Urk!" *** The Scene: The Visual Representation of Slick's Mind Slick (who, here, is actually just the representation of his consciousness) stood in the center of his mind. All around thoughts and ideas hurtled past him. He was looking at the images of the CBR posters as seen through his optic nerves. He was constantly swatting off the idea string of hunger that kept buzzing around his head. (He hadn't eaten all day.) He was sorting through various thought strings of who howyadoin's impostor could be. Various posters's images flipped past his mind's eye at a rapid rate. And somewhere... somewhere he couldn't locate, he could hear a Britney Spears running through his mind. "It might seem like a crush When had he been listening to that? He couldn't remember. He started focusing on what his senses were picking up. They were pumping howyadoin for more information. Damn, he missed it. Demonicuss was whispering to Greg. Slick couldn't hear what they were saying. OzBat was floating around looking bored. Hey, nice suit! Golden Lion had gotten new pants. "Y'know, that Maker machine of yours is pretty nifty!" Suddenly, all other thought strings stopped. Slick's breath caught as his mind's eye was filled with one word. The word rocked Slick's mind. He fell back, losing some of his thought strings. He fought desparately to form new ones. Simple ones. Run. Fight. Faint. Cry. Any strings he formed, however, were shattered as the word filling his vision reformed itself and made its own thought string. Slick's mind reeled as if something large had impacted it. Slick realized that it was something coming from within! "Oops!...I did it again The awful sound was louder than anything Slick had ever heard before! With each beat, each syllable, his mind rocked from within! He could no longer form new thought strings. The existing ones shattered like a mirror leaving only blackness behind. "You see my problem is this Slick's mind was crumbling all around him. But still he fought. He latched onto the few remaining thought strings that hadn't been shattered yet. Anything but "Kill Greg Hatcher." However, everything he grabbed onto shattered at the wailing that threatened to destroy Slick's mind. "Oops!...I did it again The last desirable thought string shattered in Slick's hand. (He didn't really want to worry about laundry right now, anyway.) As Slick fell through the void, he started lashing out wildly. Suddenly, he arm closed around something solid. Something simple, yet powerful. Friendship. It's always there. Usually underappreciated, but not something that's lightly to be brushed aside. "Greg is a friend!" Slick screamed to himself. He wasn't sure if it was in relief or if he was trying to convince himself. But it worked. He was holding on. He wasn't trying to kill Greg Hatcher. Although, there was something... something about Greg that was making it hard to hold on to Friendship. A quivering of the massive thought string caught Slick's attention. He watched as a tiny portion of the thought string pulled away from the larger and made itself visible to Slick.
"Aah! Get it away!" Slick screamed as he lost his hold on Friendship and went plunging into the abyss of his mind. As if waiting for this moment, the Kill Greg Hatcher thought string grabbed Slick and swept him away. *** The Scene: The Halls outside the Vertigo Board Aussie Boy Peter was leading Wolvie's Girlfriend, Papergirl, Expletive Deleted, Tim Drake, and Fenris to the Vertigo Board. "Man, I'm glad I didn't have to go looking for you guys! I wasn't sure where to start! It's a good think we met outside anyway! Everyone's waiting for us in the Vertigo Board!" he was saying excitedly. He didn't normally use so many exclamation points when he talked, but he wanted to be where the action was. As it is, when he threw open the doors to the Vertigo Board, he could think of many places he'd rather be. Standing in the middle of a large circle made up of posters, Slick and Greg Hatcher were standing facing each other, each with their deletion guns pointed at each other. Greg was trying to convince Slick to put his gun down. Slick was obviously going through some sort of inner struggle. Always ready for action, Fenris' keen canine eyesight spotted the .50 calibre Desert Eagle in howyadoin's hand. "How! Shoot Slick!" he yelled. "Fenris! I'm shocked," Tim Drake scolded. "I never would have thought you would be so fast to condone killing! Not even Slick!" "There's no time to explain, but Slick's a special case! He'll be alright! How, you've got to trust me!" "Yeah, baby!" howyadoin exclaimed as he raised his pistol and started unloading the clip. *Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!* When the gun was empty, how dropped the old clip and replaced it with a new one with one fluid, practiced motion. "Uh, good shooting, how," OzBat said, "but that was Greg." Howyadoin squinted at the dead body on the ground. "Oh. Damn." He then raised the gun at Slick. *Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!* "Why'd you do that?" Wiggy screeched. "Slick wasn't about to kill Greg if he's already dead!" "Listen, babe." came the reply. "There's the right way to do things, the wrong way, and then there's my way." "GIVE me that," Demonicuss said as he snatched the weapon away. "Now go sit in the corner. Go. Now. Sit!" Howyadoin hung is head and walked to the corner. "Now, Fenris. Would you mind explaining to us why you told how to kill Slick?" "Gladly!" Fenris said as he sat on his haunches and began explaining. *** The scene: Heaven "So let me get this straight," Greg said to Slick as they sat on a park bench in front of the most beautiful park either of them had ever seen. "We're both actually dead. And we're both actually in Heaven. And you can get us back to Earth and alive, because you've made a deal with dead actor Telly Savalis." "Yep, that pretty much covers it." Slick said. He tossed a piece of bread to some Heavenly geese. "Jeff, that is the absolute weirdest thing I have ever heard." "Yeah, I know. But that's the way it works. It's a long story, but I've done this a few times before. Not many people know about it, though. Fenris is one of them, and I'm certain that's why he told how to shoot me." "Well, I hope your friend comes by here soon. I'm sure I'll like Heaven and all, but white just isn't my color." "Yeah, there's no bars here, either." *** The scene: Downtown CBR Loren was quite displeased. "What do you mean you've released my client!" he roared. "What are you getting so worked up about?" Conn Seanery replied. "I thought you wanted Golden Lion released." "Don't presume to tell me what I want!" Loren said as he stormed out of the office. He headed outside to a payphone and called his employer. Jade Dragon answered. "Hello?" "Why are you there? Where's fly?" "Tango sent him back to CBR to do his naked superhero fight riff." "Why?" "So he wouldn't do it here." "Oh. Well, listen. Tell Tango that they've released Golden Lion, and if those papers that Slick faxed me are accurate, Tango's not going to succeed until GL is in our camp. That's all. I have work to do." "Okay, bye." Jade Dragon replied as he hung up the phone. He turned to the figure lying in the bed. "They've released Golden Lion." "I figured they would." Jack Tango, replied. "Listen... Jack. Maybe it's time we moved you. Sooner or later somebody's going to figure out that fly wasn't a real doctor, and when they do, they'll send in someone who knows what they're doing. If they're smart enough, they'll figure out that you're just Jack Tango's mind transplanted into an old Johnny DC robot." "But, I need to operate this way. It's for my protection." "I know, I know. It's just that I think we have a better chance of success against... HIM, if we're not where someone can easily find you." "Maybe you're right."
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