Tired of reading the same old-fashioned fan fiction? Tired of wading through paragraphs of meaningless events that take place before microwaves, electric toothbrushes, or even flimsy, corrupt lawsuits were a way of life? Want something a little more modern?

Once in a while, a truly fortunate author will be blessed by the Muses, inspiring him or her to write a moving narrative that will deeply touch their readers. When such an opportunity arises, it is the author’s prerogative....

Okay, -that- was a load of bull.

Anyway... So what does one include in an author’s note? Well, whatever it is, I’m going to veer away from it and write something else: this is really more of a warning than a forward. Don’t expect me to drone on about why you should read the following; rather, expect me to drone about why you -shouldn’t- read the following. Please note:

1) Pregnant women, persons with back problems, heart conditions, or those who are easily startled are advised to avoid the first thirteen chapters.

2) Everyone else is advised the same.

3) Any references to the good people of Apple Computers are ENTIRELY unintentional.

4) If you are any of the following people, I CANNOT be held responsible for what appears in the text beside your name: Richard Simmons, Raquel Welch, Flash the Wonder Dog, Senator Packwood, or Ronald McDonald.

5) If you have been easily offended by any of my previous writings (ex: "Curious George Gets a Vasectomy" or "How to Sacrifice a Small Child to Satanic Rituals: the Easy Way"), please, by all means, go ahead and read this.

Trees swayed gently in the wind.. Birds sang cheerfully in the summer morning air..

Gunfire erupted in the distance..

Billy smiled to himself as he looked out the window, ignoring that last factor. The sky was at that perfect vibrance, a blazing shade of red, contrasting greatly the bleak grey-blue it was to become. It was as if it knew, and was defying its afternoon drab by displaying its full brilliance now, when few would see. Billy was one of those losers who lived for this moment. He tried to put that thought aside, and concentrated on the pleasantries surrounding him. He watched the sky for several minutes, admiring the fiery depths captured in the window, the large black letters spelling out "Don't you wish you were here?", the stillness of—

He frowned. Something wasn't quite right with that last bit. He blinked several times, trying to focus his eyes and adjust to them being open.

It was then that he realized he wasn't looking outside, but at an old poster he had bought at the '89 World Fair, an event he barely remembered. He had been wondering why it seemed the window was suddenly shifted to his left, when it was usually on the right wall.

He turned his head to the right. The sky was the bleak grey-blue of its afternoon drab. The trees were nonexistent; there were a few birds spotting the ground below, long-since dead from the remarkable quantity of carbon monoxide in the air. The gunfire, of course, was still there. The yellowish filth covering his window didn’t do much to lighten the scene.

He sighed, and rolled out of bed... And then remembered too late that he for some reason slept on the top bunk bed, and hit the floor with quite a thud. He had been meaning to get rid of the top bunk, since no one lived with him. Then again, he had also been meaning to move to a quiet suburb in Kauai, Hawaii, but that wasn't going to happen.

(On a side note, exactly ten seconds after Billy hit the floor, an army of large trucks containing several thousand gallons of gasoline crossed the intersection of 3rd and Stevenson Blvd. As it happened, the thud created by Billy's fall had the exact same resonance of the battery of a small Volkswagen, having just enough power to kill the battery just before the car was about to slam into the first of these gasoline trucks, which all would have blown up in succession, slamming into each other. On top of that, 3rd Street happened to be directly overground east LA’s main gas lines; that would have started a domino effect, explosion after explosion, until most of the city was up in flames, so they were really lucky with that.

Please note that any inaccuracies involving the street names, placement of gas pipes, or laws of physics are not considered important enough to dwell on by the author, so complaining will get you nowhere.

What happened of the man driving the Volkswagen will be elaborated upon later.)

Billy grunted his usual I-hate-it-when-I-fall-out-of-the-top-bunk grunt, and rose to his feet, dusting off his He-Man pajamas. Glancing once more at his poster briefly, he changed into his favorite T-shirt, shorts, and cape, and walked briskly through the door and into his kitchen.

(Several unimportant and generally boring things happen around now, but as it is, I'm taking too much time already describing the irrelevancies of sky-color, thud-resonance, and small Volkswagens. For those of you concerned, he had a bowl of Count Chocula.)

Billy stepped cheerfully out the door, pretending not to here the shrill cries of his landlady, and onto the sidewalk. It was a wonder they had sidewalks in his part of town; usually, the grass beside was much easier and safer to walk on. Indeed, there had been several cases of sidewalk injuries reported this past month, wherein people would find themselves hopelessly stranded in a particularly depressed area that they couldn't climb out of. It was suspected that nearly two-thirds of the people reported missing were actually lost in the sidewalk, perhaps falling into the huge gorges separating each piece.

Billy walked on the grass, heading in the direction of city hall, the current happening hangout for people his age. His journey there was actually pretty uneventful (aside from a couple muggings across the street and some guy desperately trying to sell falafels to a fire hydrant) which was mainly due to the fact that for the purposes of this story, city hall was next-door.

He entered the building with a large smile, breathing in the wonderfully stale cigar-dense air, and headed straight for a bulletin board that was conveniently posted near the door. He scanned the many notices there for a moment.. and then frowned. There, amid the many wanted posters of terrorists, serial killers, and ex-football players, almost hidden behind the tabloid articles involving Senator Packwood and a flock of geese, was a piece of paper that caught his attention.

"Raquel Welch," it said in plain, bold letters, "has been kidnapped. Two hundred dollars reward for information leading to her whereabouts; Twenty thousand dollars for her safe return."

This, however, wasn't the piece of paper Billy was looking at. He was reading a brochure advertising a nice home in a quiet suburb in Kauai, Hawaii at the time. A large house, really, with three floors and a glorious view of a nearby alley. It was painted bright orange, which somehow fit into its background, and had six bathrooms, five bedrooms, and a library. Oddly enough, it had no kitchen whatsoever, largely due to an error in the architect's planning, wherein he used the wrong geometrical formula for one part and somehow ended up with three dining rooms. Because of this, they had been forced to lower the deed on the house from an estimated seven-hundred thousand dollars to a more modest sum of twelve thousand. Still, they were having trouble finding a buyer. It was really quite interesting, and Billy spent a good while reading about it. It was several minutes before he got to the Raquel Welch bit.

He frowned and read it again, going over each word carefully to make sure they hadn’t change in the last few seconds. They hadn't. Underneath those words were more, describing six gang members who had been seen near her home in Hollywood around the time she disappeared.

Billy frowned again. It was true, there had been a steep increase in crime recently. The most notorious of the local neighborhood gangs, the Lymph Node Fluids, had only weeks ago begun rising steadily in numbers at an alarming rate, until you practically couldn't mug an old lady in peace without one of them mugging you. There had been several rumors circulating that the mayor was, in fact, the CEO of the Lymph Node Fluids. Of course, the mayor was also rumored by these same people to have an extra invisible ear. Such things weren't taken very seriously, unless the person telling them sounded really convincing.

The reason for the increase in Lymph Node Fluid members was thought to be because they had not long ago chosen a new leader. This was what especially frightened Billy. If the new leader was this influential, the city would be powerless to stop them from their crime sprees, or from taking over the huge falafel-stand industry, should they choose to.

He left city hall with a feeling of despair.. and was immediately shot at. He reacted on impulse, with a generally bored expression. This wasn’t so unusual. He dashed right into the middle of the street, barely missing a hoard of taxi cabs that whizzed by, honking loudly and in danger of driving off the road. He stayed on the street rather than cross it, to maintain his shield of cars. A few more gunshots sounded, but they hit far away. He ran down the street, accompanied by angry shouts and more of the delightful honking. A few cars lost control; one ran onto the sidewalk and crashed into a wall, another ran into a small Volkswagon that had stopped dead right in the middle of the street. The drivers of the two cars began arguing loudly.

It was several blocks later that Billy realized he was lost. The alleys surrounding him were completely unfamiliar, there was an eerie abandoned look to place, and there were several ominous people wearing all green that stared at him in a particularly ominous way. "LNF" was spray-painted every two feet or so of brick wall. He stared at the graffiti, then at the people in green, then back to the graffiti, then reluctantly to the people again. One of them walked slowly towards him, being all ominous again.

"Hey.. You aren't from around here, are you?" The man smirked and nodded to his companions, who also began to ominously walk toward Billy.

"Well actually, I only live a few blocks away," Billy said.

One of the green-clothed men pulled at his cape. "Nice suit you got here. Did your mama make it for you?" He smirked, too.

Billy nodded, beaming. "Yep!"

The man blinked. "Oh.. err.. That's..nice..." he stammered.

The first man rolled his eyes. "Oh, way to go, Steve. I've never seen anyone so intimidated."

Steve straightened himself, frowning. "I didn’t see -you- do any intimidating. 'You don't live around here'. Yeah, Gene, -that- was brilliant."

"It was better than what you had!" Gene shot back. "And at least I didn’t comment on his clothing choice. That's not exactly scaring him into submission, when you 'diss' his cape."

A third man stepped in. "He's got a point there, Steve. That wasn't the best way to go."

"Look who's talking!" Steve shouted. "What about that old man yesterday? You were supposed to take his wallet."

The third man looked trapped. "That... That was different. He was a very nice old man." His expression shifted to one of excitement. "He said he had a pet -iguana-. How many people do you know have pet -iguanas-?"

"You helped him across the street, you idiot! What kind of random act of violence is that!"

"Well, he asked me nicely! What was I supposed to do?"

"Take his wallet, remember?! What would happen if this guy," He pointed to Billy, "had asked nicely for -your- wallet? I suppose you would have given it to him, and then beaten up yourself if he had asked further?"

"Yo mama!"

"Oh, that wasn't childish."

Gene held up his hands. "Both of you, shut up! We've still got this caped freak to deal with." He also pointed at Billy.

Billy, however, was not there. They looked just in time to see his figure run around a street corner half a block away.

"Aw, nuts."

The men watched the figure irritably until he disappeared, then returned to their corners and resumed the ominous demeanor. The rest of the afternoon was somewhat uneventful. A cloud that mildly resembled a cheese log blew overhead, and Gene tried to ominously stare down a small dog, but that was about it.

Billy slumped against the side of a wall, panting and catching his breath. He let himself slowly slide to the ground, relieved that those particular members of the Lymph Node Fluids happened to be about as intelligent as a moldy lump of sliced pumpernickel. He sighed, and examined his surroundings. There was a large, whitish building across the street to his right, and a smaller brown one directly next to it. It took only a moment before he realized where he was. There should be a Taco Bell right behind the smaller building. Fully rested, he stood up and walked around the perimeter of the brown building before ending up in the back lot of the Taco Bell.

A rush of cold air swept passed him as he opened the door, this time lacking the wonderfully stale cigar-dense quality to it. He walked cheerfully to the counter, paying no attention to his surroundings. Had he been, he might have noticed the two men with playing cards off to his right, the very large, lone man standing on what appeared to be a trap door, and maybe even the little scrap of paper directly beneath him. And had a large ostrich suddenly crashed through the doors and started dancing the can-can, he might’ve noticed that, too. However, he wasn’t paying attention, and that didn’t happen anyway.

(Once again, some generally boring stuff occurs about now, involving Billy ordering three soft beef tacos without cheese, and the two guys playing Go Fish. Well, some of it is pretty interesting, in that one of the Go Fish players unexpectantly fell into a crack separating the string of space-time continuum and appeared exactly three hundred feet above an area in the northern part of the Persian Gulf, and, not so unexpectantly, began to fall those three hundred feet to his doom. However, and even more unexpectantly, two hundred feet below -that-, for just a fraction of a nanosecond, appeared that same vortex, which he fell into and appeared once again in the same chair he had been. All this happened within that same fraction of a nanosecond, and no one noticed, not even him. Mysteriously enough, his right shoe never made the transport back to Taco Bell, and is suspected to have caught an underground current and somehow made the journey to end up in the bottom of the Tasman Sea. The Go Fish player spent much of his retired life wondering what happened to that shoe. Little did he know—little did anyone know, really—that the answer resided in the price of the Timex Billy wore on his left wrist. But as I said before, all of this is really pretty boring, so I won't waste your time elaborating upon it.)

"That'll be $3.56."

The young woman's voice snapped Billy out from his usual Kauai day-dreaming. "Oh.." he said dully, shoving his hands into his pockets and pulling out precisely thirty-two cents. "Here you go." He set the change on the counter, staring into space.

The woman glanced at the tiny collection of nickels and pennies and then up at Billy. She watched him a moment before tapping him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me.. You need another three dollars and twenty-four cents," she said, wondering why she always got the less-than-brilliant customers.

"Oh, right," he responded dully again, reaching back into his pocket and placing another dime on the counter. He was staring directly at a little notice on the wall, not heeding the small woman and her now-annoyed glances.

She sighed and collected the forty-two cents, placing them into the cash register and handing Billy a small bag. She didn't feel like putting up with this today. Taco Bell could stand to lose a whole three dollars and fourteen cents.

The little notice Billy was staring at was actually rather small; yellow with blue lettering. In its entirety, it only contained four words. Billy had been reading them repeatedly, wondering exactly why they had the notice up. After all, he thought to himself, the floor wasn't wet. He read the small piece of paper once more. "Please watch your step," it demanded in its small voice.

Billy turned with his food toward a table.. and immediately slipped on the scrap of paper directly beneath him. His bag, as light as it was, went flying and hit a small man dressed entirely in green, knocking him unconscious. The small revolver in the man’s hand went flying as a direct result, and slammed right into the forehead of another man dressed entirely in green, knocking him unconscious as well. -His- revolver, though, just fell to the ground. This was all very fortunate, as the two were just prepared to rob the place. The very large, lone man standing on what earlier appeared to be a trap door jumped to attention, grabbing both the fallen would-be Taco Bell holder-uppers and throwing them out the double glass doors, not bothering to open them first. He collected the two guns, placed them in a large barrel labeled, "Please dispose of confiscated gang weapons HERE," grabbed the bag containing Billy's dinner and handed it back to him, and then finally returned to his place, which was most likely, as stated twice before, above a trap door.

Billy stood up, looking for the cause of his fall when he saw the small scrap of paper lying triumphantly beside his feet. He picked it up.

"G- Meet me behind the old Faulkner building tonight at 7:30. -G"

Odd, he thought. It wasn’t every day cryptic messages randomly appeared at Taco Bell, or aided in the prevention of a robbery, for that matter. Billy thought he'd better check it out, as he wasn't planning on doing much today, anyway. Well, saving Raquel Welch kinda swam around in his mind—he could use the twenty-thousand dollars—but he wasn’t entirely expecting her to appear on his back porch. Of course, he didn't quite -have- a back porch, but that was irrelevant at the moment.

He glanced at his watch, an old Timex that had cost a good $31.97. It was now conveniently 7:15 in the evening.

This was actually quite a remarkable fact, considering he had only woken up about an hour or two ago, and that had been around ten AM. Then again, if anyone actually -cared- just how accurate this story was, then they wouldn't have let me get away with the whole vortex-to-Persian-Gulf thing earlier.

Even more conveniently, it took Billy exactly fifteen minutes to get to the Faulkner building, an aging, horrid-looking thing, once described by the New York Times to be the "ugliest example of primitive architecture since grass huts." The mayor of LA had quickly responded to that little blurb by pointing out the many uglier buildings in New York, and asking them what the hell they were doing in LA in the first place.

Anyway.. Billy crept silently behind the Faulkner building, staying a good distance from the two men he soon saw conversing. One was Gene, easily recognizable in his entirely green clothing. The other man, though, it took Billy several minutes to make out. It was maybe another two minutes or so of squinting before he realized it was the driver of the small Volkswagen.

"So what now?" Gene asked, his voice clear despite the noise of traffic.

"Now," responded the driver, "we wait for the ransom money."

"And then we give her back when they pay up?" asked Gene.

The driver smiled real sinister-like. "Nope. Then we sit back and watch the city beg for our mercy."

Gene looked annoyed. "We're not -that- influential."

The driver, in return, looked indignant. "We are too."

"Are not."

"Are too!"

Gene brushed his comments away. "Fine, fine. But what happens then? We already have her -and- her agent."

"And her brother," the driver reminded Gene.

Gene only frowned. "No we don't. We were only able to get the two."

The driver raised an eyebrow. "We don’t have the brother? But he’s missing.."

Gene shrugged. "That wasn't us." He paused, turning over a new possibility in his mind. "Do you think we have any competition?"

The driver walloped him upside the head. "Competition in kidnapping? This isn't a contest, you idiot."

Gene felt the bump on his scalp with his free hand. "It was just a suggestion. You don't have to get all huffy about it."

The Volkswagen driver rolled his eyes. "Anyway, we’ll have to make our demands public soon."

Gene opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped. "Err.. What..What -are- our demands, exactly?"

The driver frowned again. "I don’t know. What do you want?"

Gene’s eyes brightened. "Six hundred kilos of Cool Whip!"

The driver beamed. "Yeah!"

Billy watched the two go on about Cool Whip for a few minutes, then they finally shook hands and went in their separate cars. He frowned to himself, trying to determine what that was all about. Kidnapping...kidnapping... and someone with an agent, and a brother. He sat there for several minutes, trying to remember if he'd recently heard about any kidnapping.

It was actually a good two hours later that he remembered Raquel Welch.

It was another hour or so until he realized they forgot to take the cheese off his tacos.

Billy couldn't sleep that night. The idea that Raquel Welch, her agent, and perhaps her brother were left in the hands of the merciless green-clothed brutes was overwhelming. Just the very possibility that the three could be tied to a chair, gagged, subject to whatever horrid torture the wicked minds of the Lymph Node Fluid members could devise was sickening. The notion that their very lives were only insured by the need for the ransom money, and that even then they might be killed, kept Billy restless throughout the night.

Besides that, he had been lying on bag of Cheezits the whole time.

The next morning, he tiredly rolled out of bed, again forgetting the six-foot fall to the floor. He dressed quickly, skipped breakfast, and left.

It was about thirty-two seconds later that he noticed that the abandoned shop across the street, a tiny, wooden structure with an open door, had been bought, apparently by a store called "Earth Alert." The weird thing (or at least one of the weird things) was that it looked as if it were made entirely out of living plants. But it wasn't so much the natural look of the place that startled Billy. It was the fact that the store hadn't been there the day before, or, for that matter, -ever- before. And yet, here it was.

(For those of you interested in the various incredible but meaningless coincidences inserted throughout these stories, you'll be delighted to know that thirty-two seconds was the precise time it took Billy to heat up steamed peas in the microwave.)

He walked cautiously to the store, still gaping, not minding the several rude gestures intended for him by the several passing cars that nearly ran him over, and stood in its threshold for a few moments before a soft, soothing voice filled his mind.

"Come in."

He came in.

The putrid air of the outdoors immediately dissolved, replaced by the sweet fragrance of breathable air. The place seemed -alive-, almost a completely different world. It was incredibly quiet and tranquil despite the open door, and yet the store's vibrance was extraordinarily strong. It was as if he'd stepped into some....

Okay, look. I -was- going to go on and on about the particular—for lack of a better term—"neato-ness" of Earth Alert, but...c'mon. It’s starting to disgust you too, isn't it? So to avoid another long and pointless paragraph describing a bunch of plants, we'll condense it by saying that there was, in fact, a bunch of plants in the place.

Billy's throat dried; he'd been gaping for quite some time now. The voice drifted by him again.

"Stop that, would you?"

Well, it was really pleasant sounding, anyway.

Billy closed his mouth slowly, and turned in the direction of the voice. There stood a woman wearing what appeared to be a tree costume. Perhaps adding to the effect of general weirdness that surged through Billy at that moment was the fact that there was actually a stag lying beside her.

Several things ran through Billy's mind at the moment:

~This lady is a couple tacos short of a combo platter.~

~Why is there a deer in here?~

~I wonder if Seinfeld's on tonight.~

The woman chuckled slightly, but pleasantly despite the rather bulky tree costume, as if reading his thoughts. "Sam and I," she pointed to the deer, "are not ‘deficient in our taco-count,’ as you suggest. We are simply concerned with the current state of the Earth."

Billy stammered. "Oh.. okay." He paused, as if trying to decide whether or not to say what he next said. "Um... You're....You're wearing a tree costume.."

The woman continued, ignoring him. "The Earth is our mother. It gives us food, shelter, and protection. We must not let anything else happen to such a gift."

Billy tried again, a bit more persistently. "Err.. -Why- are you wearing a tree costume?"

This also went without heed. "Already, too much has been done to destroy the Earth. Factories pour large amounts of waste into nearby rivers, causing irreversible damage."

"Okay, now you're starting to sound like the environmental public service announcement video we saw in eighth grade." Billy glanced briefly at Sam the Stag.

The woman went on. "These factories also burn fuel, resulting in large amounts of harmful gases to pierce the protective Shield of Ozone, the Defender of the Earth from the Evil Big Yellow Sun-Thing."

"Yeah, yeah. Could you shut up now?" Billy replied.

The woman stopped, as if hearing Billy for the first time, and responded gently. "Sam agrees with me."

"He’s a deer, you freak!"

"He’s a very smart deer."

"Look. I didn't come here to listen to you drone on and on about the evils of pollution. I came here to find out more about the kidnappings of Raquel Welch, her agent, and possibly her brother, and all you've given me is some sermon describing in detail just how much of a life you -don’t- have! I'd be more than happy to listen to your spiritual essays at a later date, perhaps when I'm bored, or maybe dead, but right now I've got a few thousand bucks to earn, and I don't think talking to a woman who wears a size 28 tree or her bucket of venison is gonna make that happen! Now if you'll just shut -up- about this pre-damned planet for once, then I'll be—"

"Raquel's brother wasn't kidnapped by the Lymph Node Fluids," the tree-woman interrupted.

Billy was taken aback. "Wha..?"

"Raquel's brother wasn't kidnapped by the Lymph Node Fluids," she repeated matter-of-factly. "It was someone else; a really short guy with big ears. Someone by the name of Horace de O'Rorierlia, I think."

Billy blinked. "..O'Rorierlia..." he managed to croak out.

"Yep." The woman nodded. "He's from Alabama," she added, as if that explained everything.

"Oh... Okay.. Umm...Thanks." He stared at her for a while, standing awkwardly in place, scratching his head every few minutes. At length, he made small movements toward the door. "I..uh.. I should go now.."

He left Earth Alert quickly, wondering what had just happened.

Billy stopped. It was funny, but the name O'Rorierlia actually sounded kinda familiar. He stood there for a while, just outside the doorway of Earth Alert, pondering as to where he had heard the name before. Well, at least he -thought- he was just outside the doorway of Earth Alert. In reality...okay, pseudo-reality, the store had magically disappeared the second he stepped over the threshold, like a cheezy third-grade story.

When he looked back towards the shop, he was mildly surprised at its disappearance. Perhaps he would have been more enthusiastic if the events of the past two days hadn't already been so unusual. But they were, so he wasn't.

He frowned to himself, still trying to remember why the name was so familiar, and headed slowly back towards his apartment. This, despite the fact that his apartment was just across the street, nevertheless took approximately an hour or so. Apparently, he had dropped his keys in the store, and they had disappeared along with it.

(Actually... Funny story.. Since it was only his subconscious that created the image of Earth Alert, it was again his subconscious that actually made him lose the keys. But since the keys were actually a reality, and the store wasn't, when the two collided some generally Stephan Hawkings-type space-time stuff happened and the keys ended up finding themselves right beside the Go Fisherman's right shoe at the bottom of the Tasman Sea. Again, the exact placement of the two items all relate to the price of Billy's Timex, unless he loses -that- in some rip in yet another sci-fi-ish sort of wormhole.

(My apologies to those who got sick of all this space-time stuff in Chapter Three.)

When Billy was finally able to break into his apartment, he immediately remembered where he had heard the name O'Rorierlia before. (Well, he didn’t exactly break into the apartment. He spent a lot of time -trying-, yes, but it was only after that hour or so that he realized he had left the door unlocked.) There, still sitting on the counter from the previous morning was his box of Count Chocula. He grabbed the cereal box, and flipped it to the reverse side. He smiled smugly at the tiny lettering near the bottom.

"Horace O'Rorierlia, of Montebello, LA, already won the Super-Sweet $1,000,000 Sweepstakes two years ago. Please stop entering. It’s getting very annoying."

Billy placed the cereal pack in the pantry and left the apartment, hurriedly walking towards the bus stop. Montebello, he knew, was only a few miles away.

The bus pulled up a few minutes later, screeching to a halt as it opened the door. Billy stepped on.

"Exact change, please," came the monotonous voice behind the wheel. Billy ignored it and went to an empty seat. He knew from experience that usually they didn't care one way or another whether or not you paid them; when they did, you could easily convince them that you were really just a large duck and therefore didn't have to pay.

He sat in a nice, shiny black seat near the front. Oddly enough, the rest of the seats were a dull red. Of course, that was only because those seats -had't- been entirely covered over by thirty-year-old gum wads, as Billy soon found out. He didn't mind so much though. It was surprisingly comfortable.

He watched the passing houses with intense interest, and when they reached Montebello, with -really- intense interest. And when he finally saw a house that looked very pricey in comparison to the rest, he rang the bell enthusiastically. The bus stopped; he stood, though it was a considerably tedious task with the thirty-year-old gum holding him, and got off. He smiled smugly again, and walked slowly up the walkway to the front door. He noted with added smugness that the mailbox was clearly labeled "...or...i..rl..a..", with a small puddle of fallen letters jumbled on the ground below. He reached the door and let his muscles relax as he calmly placed his hands on the knocker, smugly so, and let it drop, a small smirk and half-lidded eyes on his face.

"Ding-BOP-bada-da-da-CHING-bang!"

Billy looked at the door half with surprise, and half with annoyance that his feeling of smugness had just been ruined by the noise. The door opened, and Billy found himself looking with equal surprise and annoyance at a short little man with big ears.

"Like it?" he said enthusiastically with a broad smile and a thick Alabamian accent.

Billy didn't say anything, hoping maybe he wasn't really there anymore.

He still was, though.

"Yes, well, anyway.. Come in, come in!" The man smiled wider.

Billy came in.

"Thanks," he said with about as much excitement as the bus driver had asked for exact change.

Horace rushed into the kitchen momentarily, returning with what Billy presumed was two cups of tea. He gave one to Billy, and sipped his own, sitting down.

"Make yourself at home! Now, why have you come here?" Billy stood there with an expressionless face, holding his tea.

"Did you kidnap Raquel Welch's brother?" He asked in a bored tone.

"Yep! Anything else?" Horace smiled even wider now. This and his increasingly thick drawl was really starting to get to Billy. Then, much to Billy’s relief, he frowned. "Oh.. I'm going to have to kill you now, aren't I? Hmm.. Could you hold on a sec? I'll be right back." He placed his tea cup on the table and left the room, returning with a large shotgun.

"Okay, just hold still.. I'm not quite sure how to use this thing.." He fiddled around with the shotgun a while, not noticing that Billy had already left the room and wandered into the guest bedroom, where he found Welch tied and gagged. He quickly freed him, and was returning to the living room in time to hear Horace pump the shotgun.

"There you are! Okay, now, hold still.." He took careful aim, and pulled the trigger.

"Ding-BOP-bada-da-da-CHING-bang!"

Horace frowned at his shotgun. "What the..."

The door suddenly burst open, revealing six policemen with large revolvers pointing frantically at several places at once. "FREEZE!" they kept repeating, to anyone who happened to be in their line of sight, occasionally at each other. After perhaps two minutes of this, one of them saw Horace's shotgun. "DROP THE GUN!"

"Don't bother," Billy replied, wiping the water from his face. "It's a water gun."

"SHUT UP!" they screamed at him. This went on for a few minutes, the frantic screaming and pointing at guns, occasionally at furniture; one of them tried to arrest a nearby crystalline vase; eventually, though, they ended up handcuffing Horace and thanked Billy for his work. The mayor, they promised, would give him his reward the next week.

Billy happily left the O'Rorierlia residence, took the bus back home, (oddly enough, he got the same bus, this time sitting on one of the reddish seats, until he realized it was covered in still-fresh gum), and walked tiredly into his apartment. He flicked on the light switch, and was slightly annoyed at finding that the place had been completely ransacked. He might've cared more if there was anything worth taking, but there wasn't. The most valuable thing in the house, he concluded, was probably the box of Count Chocula. He was even more annoyed to find that they had taken that as well.

The next day, not having much else to do besides cleaning the apartment from the recent ransacking, Billy depressed the "on" button on the computer and watched it flicker to life. Normally, it would take a good ten minutes to load Windows 95, and then an additional ten to log on, open Netscape, and browse through this month’s installment of the Association For The Practical Use of Advanced Algebraic Theorems On-Line Newsletter, as was his intention. This time, though, it eerily forgot to do the whole Windows95-loading deal and went straight to a typed message somehow programmed into the boot procedure.

"Billy, sorry about your apartment, but I didn’t appreciate having you save Welch’s brother without asking me first, so I found some guys in a Thugs-For-Hire service and had them trash what little you own. Love, Babs Yancovich"

Below this, in small letters, "This message provided by Microsoft® Virus Pro Deluxe."

Billy blinked. Okay, that explained why the computer was acting like that, but not who Babs Yancovich was. He rolled the name around on his tongue. Unlike Horace, this name brought absolutely no familiarity to it. (Please note that "familiarity" is, according to the Microsoft Works 4.0 spell check, a valid word, and that I didn’t make it up. That would just be obstitucious.) It was, however, about as odd a name as Horace de O’Rorierlia. Billy wondered how the two were connected, and where Babs Yancovich could be found.

***[BEEP...BEEP...BEEP: There will be a cheap plot-convenience insertion watch until 9:37 pm in the following counties: Montgomery, Harris, Grimes, and Galveston. Please stay tuned to NBC’s Doppler Weather Radar for further announcements.]***

Billy happened to pick up the newspaper at that time that happened to be lying beside him. His eyes darted quickly through the headlines, scanning for something to kill time, maybe another one of those moving stories about how a lost dog returns home just in time to pull a hurt baby out of the way of flaming, malfunctioning farm equipment and becomes the town hero, when they (they being his (his being Billy’s (eyes being the object of possession))) happened to come to a dead stop at the words, "Microsoft Pacific Coast Employee Number 1,000,000: Babs Yancovich." There followed a small article that basically reiterated that Babs Yancovich, a former DoubleDave’s Pizza waitress, was just employed as Microsoft’s one millionth from the Coast and its immediately surrounding areas.

***[BEEP...BEEP...BEEP: This brings us to the end of the cheap plot-convenience insertion watch. Please note that such things are only included to prevent large gaps in the story. That would just be boring. It is well understood that both problems can be avoided simply by adding more creativity to ones writing, but...well...that would require thought. Write your own fan fiction if you expect this from me. Thank you for your cooperation; that is all.]***

Billy calmly placed the newspaper down, turned off the computer, and left his apartment. Of course, he knew where the local Microsoft building was; not far from DoubleDave’s Pizza which in turn was quite close to the Taco Bell he had gone to two days ago. He walked.

Billy opened the door to the office building, immediately chilled by the air-conditioning inside, and went straight to a listing of offices and their floors nearby. Babs’ was located on the eighth floor, which he promptly took the elevator to. She had already gotten her own secretary, as was quickly apparent to Billy. He walked up to the small man behind the desk.

"I need to see Ms. Yancovich," Billy said.

The man looked up from behind his thick glasses, studying Billy for a moment before looking back down at his paperwork.

"She doesn’t care."

Billy paused, and tried again. "Tell her Billy needs to see her."

The secretary didn’t respond.

"I said, tell her..."

"She still doesn’t care," the man interrupted.

Billy rolled his eyes and threw a dollar onto the man’s desk.

The secretary looked up quickly, now smiling, and said pleasantly, "Right this way, sir." He gestured to a door to his right. Billy knocked lightly, and walked in. He was greeted by a bucketful of water that fell from overhead, and a screeching voice. "Water please, make him FREEZE!"

Nothing happened.

"Drat." Babs, who was a large, ugly woman with a thin ponytail that crept down her back, glanced at a stuffed bat in a cage hanging by the ceiling. "Oh, it only works on good days. What’s that?" A pause. "I’m better at it than you are!" Another pause; Billy presumed this was when the bat was "talking" back. "I’d like to see you try!"

Billy thought this would be a good time to interrupt. "Excuse me, ma’am?"

Babs glanced back at him. "Oh, you. What is it you want?"

"That’s what I was going to ask you," Billy responded, drenched. "You set up this virus on my computer..." he started.

"Oh, right," Babs interrupted. She suddenly had a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Stay away from the Welches. You understand me?"

Billy was confused at what Babs had to do with any of this. "But.."

"I -said-, stay -away-. Got it? Now scram, before I call security!"

This didn’t do anything in the way of clearing things up for Billy. "But.."

Babs impatiently raised her arms and chanted, "Winds, I say, take him away!"

Nothing happened. Billy still stood there, soaking.

"Security!"

"Okay, okay, I’m leaving." Billy mumbled as he opened the door and left the office, and then the building. As he was walking back home, he thought it odd how quickly he had been sent away. Then he thought how odd it was that he thought this odd, considering the woman had tried to place two curses on him, and had a stuffed bat, too. Then he thought it odd that he hadn’t thought the stuffed bat odd until now. He did a lot thinking things odd on the way back to the apartment.

Billy had had enough for one day. Besides being held at gunpoint by a short guy with big ears, having his computer hacked into by a large woman with a stuffed bat, and then soaked by that same woman in a failed attempted intimidation process, he was also missing the season premiere of "Cooking With Olga," which was supposed to be a good one. The previews dictated that the sliced zucchini discovers the affair between the paprika and the black olives, but keeps it a secret to prevent them from discovering its relationship with the baco-bits. Unbeknownst to the zucchini, though, the baco-bits really has no interest in the sliced zucchini, and is spying on her for the paprika, who already knows of its unfaithfulness and is only pretending to love the black olives to use her. However, the bean dip is aware of the paprika’s intentions, tells the black olives, and the two team up with Luke Perry to expose the deceitful ways of the paprika, who is in actuality the third cousin of the bean dip’s long lost sister, the mustard seed, who had a fling with the zucchini’s brother two years ago, whom nobody yet realizes -is- the baco-bits’ ex-lover, the sautéed onion.

Granted, Billy didn’t have a TV anyway, and there was no such show as "Cooking With Olga." And if there were, it certainly wouldn’t be about certain food groups cheating with one another, it would be about cooking with Olga. But you have to admit, it did make a pretty good filler for an otherwise unrelated chapter. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of stuff you’ll have to look forward to from now on. Have fun.

Surprisingly enough, it took Billy exactly thirty-two seconds to fall asleep. (Okay, so I only added that part to make yet another reference to what is becoming an over-used running gag.)

He awoke at about 4:00 a.m. the next morning, lured out of sleep by a sudden chill. Of course, this -was- due to the fact that he was now outside in a very unexpected place, at the foot of the Sierra mountains. And, as stated before, at 4:00 a.m. to boot. He rose groggily to his feet, rubbing his eyes. To some, he may have looked ridiculous standing at the foot of the Sierras in the middle of the night in his He-Man jammies. Fortunately for his integrity, no one had planned on joining him. Besides being completely deserted, the landscape was utterly dark. He wouldn’t have noticed that he was in fact even close to the mountain if a light at the top of it hadn’t suddenly ignited, eerily illuminating a glowing pathway towards it. Having not much else to do, he began to climb the trail, pausing every now and then for some rest. As he neared the top, the light seemed to become clearer; soon he was able to distinguish that it came from a small cottage at the summit.

The mountain was still present after the next few minutes, behaving in a typical mountainy way. A few minutes later, it was still a mountain, containing rocks of all sorts within; some iron ore, but mostly just granite. Oh, maybe some sedimentary, too, I suppose. A few small pebbles sorta moved a bit as Billy trudged up the pathway, most having been in existence thousands of years before Billy himself. The mountain itself, surely, had been formed by some tectonic activity of some sort, which did much to explain why it was a mountain in the first place. Luckily for you, before this paragraph could go on any further, Billy reached the top.

He stopped short of the front door, admiring a large gargoyle that had been tactfully erected to scare any insurance salesmen away. He hadn’t expected it to talk to him, though, which is precisely what it did.

"WHAT....is your name?"

A pause.

A quite lengthy pause, really.

Billy spoke. "Umm... What?"

"WHAT....is your name?"

"Why do you..." Billy started.

"WRONG!" The gargoyle boomed; it waved its arms frantically, and soon Billy found that the cottage had suddenly shrunk to a mere fraction of its original size. He realized a few nanoseconds later that this was because he was again at the bottom of the hill. He grumbled and climbed back to the top. The gargoyle was waiting for him.

"WHAT...is—"

"Billy," he responded quickly. The gargoyle seemed to approve of this answer, and asked another question.

"WHAT....is your place of birth?"

Billy didn’t hesitate. "Windsor Hills, Los Angeles."

The gargoyle continued. "WHAT....is your social security number?"

"I am -not- going to give you—"

"ANSWER!"

"No." Billy remained defiant.

The gargoyle was obviously losing his hold on Billy, and he realized that.

"...Just the first three digits?"

"No."

"Oh, come on.."

"No."

"Okay, I’ll guess.. Just tell me if I’m hot or cold."

"No."

"573-54...?"

"No."

The gargoyle’s shoulders sagged. "Oh, okay. Go on through."

Billy went on through. Just before the door closed behind him, he heard the gargoyle warn him to go straight up the stairs, and through the first door on the right.

Oh, but he was tempted. The place was a whole other world; dazzling to the eye, brilliant colors across the spectrum decorating the walls, beautiful crystalline figures sparkling with the infinite magnificence of diamonds, the purity of pearls. Heavenly sounds drifted from above, surrounding Billy in a splendor of rich acoustics incomparable to anything he had heard before; the sweet aroma of ambrosia drifted into his nostrils, filling him with a sensation—

All right, he was really only interested in the nice, shiny objects.

Still, he resisted, and headed for the stairs. He glanced upward towards the top for a moment, then climbed them slowly, focusing on the now-visible door he had been instructed to enter. He reached the top of the steps, and then the door, and placed his hand on the cold doorknob. He took a deep breath, and opened it.

There was a little man inside talking to a large sewer rat, both wearing He-Man pajamas to match Billy’s. The man glanced over as the door opened, and smiled.

"Ah, glad you could make it!"

(This chapter doesn’t end with anything funny.)

Billy looked around. The place was quite large; he was surprised the room could fit in the small house. There was a huge window taking up an entire wall overlooking the far side of the mountain, and another wall covered by a large, purple curtain. An oval table sat in the middle of the room; on one side was the little man, on the other, the sewer rat. Both were wearing nightcaps, and both were staring at him. Yet, oddly enough, Billy felt like the weird one.

"Who are you..?" he asked, almost cautiously.

The man answered. This really wasn’t much of a surprise, since the rat didn’t exactly have the biological capabilities to talk to him, or the intelligence to learn more words than just "squeak."

(Wait a second here. Is anyone else getting an overwhelming feeling of general cheesyness? I mean, c’mon.. This is just -way- too predictable. I think it’s quite obvious who the two characters are supposed to represent... Oh well. If lack of creativity hasn’t stopped you before, it won’t keep you from reading on now.)

"Sam Rues. You can call me Sam. And this," he pointed to the rat, "is Rufus. You can call him—"

The rat interrupted. "You can call me anything other than Rufus."

Billy might’ve considered this rude, but he was still stuck on how it was able to interrupt in the first place. He productively spent the next few minutes staring at Rufus the Rat.

Rufus stared right back, though more indifferently. He had, after all, seen talking humans before.

"Sit down, Billy." Sam gestured to a chair, apparently sensing the awkward silence.

Billy sat down.

Time passed.

More time passed.

Time, yet again, passed.

Surprisingly enough, Time, in perhaps an effort to remain its place as the leading cause of any and all events, passed.

And still Billy sat staring at Rufus. This was really sort of weird, considering all the other oddities he had seen in the past few days. A talking rat shouldn’t have been high on the freak-o-meter. But it was.

Sam spoke again. "While readers from later generations ordinarily have trouble relating to a particular work existing before their time, ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ consists—"

(Wait... Sorry about that. I accidentally cut-and-pasted the thesis to an English paper I was doing...Let’s try that again.)

Sam spoke again. "Do you like jokes, Billy?"

"No," Billy responded, wondering how he knew his name.

"Splendid! I’ve got one: What do frogs drink?"

"Sam, please, I really don’t—"

"Croak-a-Cola!" Sam interrupted.

A chunk of baby Swiss suddenly rammed itself into the side of Sam’s head.

"I -told- you to -never- tell that one again!" Ren protested, clutching another ball of cheese for ammunition lest Sam continued.

"Okay, okay," Sam said with some annoyance, wiping the Swiss off his temple.

Billy fidgeted uncomfortably. "So..um...Why am I here again?"

Sam looked up, still removing excess cheese from his head, and gave Billy a thoughtful smile. "Do you like games, Billy?"

"Some. But how exactly do you know my name?"

The little man ignored his question. "Good.. I’ve got a game here we can play." He motioned toward the wall covered by the curtain.

Billy gave up his fight for sanity. "Great," he muttered in a bored tone.

The man’s eyes lit up. "Oh, you’ll like it!" Sam rubbed his hands in anticipation. "It’s a wonderful game, one I made up myself. Believe me, it’s like -nothing- you’ve played before—simply the most perfect thing ever devised!"

Billy nodded, not really caring much. "What’s it called?"

"Pictionary."

Billy sighed. "You know, Pictionary’s not exactly—"

Sam interrupted again. "I did too invent it!"

"I never said you didn’t."

"Oh." Sam twiddled his thumbs. "Nevermind."

"...But you didn’t," Billy said quietly.

"Did too!"

"Yeah, yeah." Billy dismissed his protest with a wave of his hand. "Go on. We were about to play Pictionary?"

Sam’s eyes lit up once more. "Right!" With that he lunged toward the curtained wall, pulled the cord, and watched with delight as it fell to the floor revealing...well, a huge piece of paper and a giant magic marker. Sam hurried toward the marker, which Billy guessed to be about four feet long, uncapped it, and began scribbling away on the paper. Just a few minutes later he was done, laying the marker back on the ground and stepping aside to let Billy view the drawing.

"All right," Sam said with some excitement. "Can you guess what it is?"

It was amazing... I was a perfectly detailed drawing of Babs Yancovich. Billy could even see the individual cilia on the cells at the very tip of the split ends on the hair on the small mole under her chin.. And of course, there was the stuffed bat above her. She was staring back at him with a particularly sinister expression. Billy nodded slowly, staring at the drawing, dumbfounded.

"Babs Yancovich... the one millionth employee of Microsoft in the Pacific Coast area.." he recited.

"That’s right!" Sam was elated. "What about this one?" He grabbed the marker again, with surprising ease considering its monstrous size, and drew another picture to the left of his original. In just a few more seconds, he completed a quick sketch of a perfectly geometrical figure—the head was an icosahedron; a thin circular neck protruded down to four thin and crystal-like legs. Sam stepped aside again, throwing Billy a quick glance.

"And that’s a virus..." Billy mumbled, admiring the straight lines and methods of shading.

"Right!" Sam was ecstatic now, and moved to make another drawing. It occurred to Billy that it should be his turn by now, but he let it go, thinking that Sam must have a reason for continuing. Besides, he was unsure as to how Sam knew of Babs Yancovich. And he was still vaguely curious as to the little man’s knowledge of his name. Oddly enough, the one thing he didn’t question was how he was transported to the Sierras in the middle of the night.

Sam picked up the marker yet again, and drew this time an oblong, undefined shape of some sort. Really, it looked like just a blob of ink on paper. Billy frowned.

"What’s this?" he asked.

Sam smiled to himself, and moved to make another drawing. "Don’t worry. It’ll come to you in time." He paused. "Can you tell what this is?" he asked, finishing his fourth drawing. He stepped aside yet again, revealing another detailed drawing; another portrait, in fact—this one of Raquel Welch. However, she was surrounded by several people: Her agent, the two Lymph Node Fluid members, Gene and Steve, the Volkswagen driver, and Horace de O’Rorierlia. Standing beside the latter was Raquel’s brother. Billy turned towards Sam.

"How are you..." he started.

Sam interrupted again, rushing toward the huge piece of paper yet again. "Wait... Just one more." The marker slashed across the canvas with particular vigor, creating an image before Billy’s eyes. In just moments, a form began to take shape. Before the old man was even finished, Billy could see it was a young woman; a very beautiful young woman. But she was holding something... Billy stepped forward and peered at the box clutched in her hands. It took several seconds to recognize it.

It was a copy of a McAfee Anti-Virus program.

Billy furrowed his brow. He moved to get a closer look at it.

"Who is—" Billy was interrupted as he unexpectedly tripped over a lump of cheese and somehow crashed through the giant window overlooking the other side of the mountain. Gravity kicked in about then, and he fell—quite fast. He began to scream, when he remembered he had been at least twenty feet away from the window, and couldn’t possibly have tripped that far, unless he did so near the speed of sound. He began to calculate the exact mechanics of this, soon figuring that he would have had to indeed have been "tripping" several hundred miles per hour with a mass of thirteen tons to have made the twenty-foot journey he made in the tenth of a second it took. He smiled satisfactorily, congratulating himself on a physics problem well-encountered.

Then he hit the ground. Hard.

But then, to the disappointment of the many Event Horizon fans, he woke up. He clutched his head irritably. It ached quite badly, due to the fact he had hit the ground before waking from his dream, which was understandably a big no-no to many people. He blinked several times, his eyes, after a lapse of perhaps six minutes while they perceived everything in the room as a throbbing red, adjusting to the darkness and reassuring him he had woken up in a normal place this time. He sighed, and then went back to sleep—it was 4:00 AM. Before he closed his eyes once more, though, he pondered briefly over the events of the dream. Then he remembered he didn’t care, and was immediately overtaken by the drowsiness that overpowered his pounding headache.

Twelve figures, huddled together, moved quickly across the street. The mass collected at the door of Billy’s apartment complex, paused, and entered.

Inside, the hallways were void of any sound. For the moment. Soon, though, a faint thudding of footsteps drifted up the stairway. The sound became louder still as the group ascended to the third floor, and then pounded down the hallway.

Twelve angry women in full army gear and wielding shotguns stopped directly in front of Billy’s door. One of them pulled out a scrap of paper, glanced at it, and spoke to the others:

"This is it."

She paused, readied herself, and then launched her right foot to the door, accompanied only by the following bit of monologue:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!"

The door obediently removed itself from its hinges and slammed onto the ground. The twelve angry women removed the shotguns from their back straps and stepped inside.

Mr. Dermit sat idly in his chair in his second-story apartment room in the heart of eastern Los Angeles reading the paper and munching on oatmeal. His wife, a few years shy of his age of seventy-two, sat directly opposite him on the table, watching him with a slight frown betraying her thoughts. Finally, she spoke.

"Henry, we need to talk."

Mr. Dermit grumbled almost inaudibly, not lifting his eyes from the paper.

"Wot for?"

His wife leaned black in her chair.

"Henry, we never go out anymore."

Henry peered at her from behind his reading glasses, and then returned to his paper. "You nev’r complained ‘afore."

"I’m not complaining, Henry, I just think—" A pounding of feet upstairs interrupted Mrs. Dermit. Her husband grumbled again and glared at the ceiling.

"Durn kids." He reached for his cane.

Mrs. Dermit remained impatient. "Don’t worry about the noise, Henry. I’d really...like to..." She trailed off, sighing as her husband was paying her no heed. He forced himself on the table, ignoring Mrs. Dermit in her continuing protests: "Henry, please don’t, you’ll hurt yourself. The doctor said—"

"Nev’r mine’ ‘bout wot th’ doc sed." He raised a weary arm toward the ceiling, tapping it with his cane. "Ah’ll be fine." He raised his voice. "Hey! Yew kids! Keep it d—"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!"

Henry Dermit froze, his eyes bulging, his cane no longer poking at the ceiling. He dropped it in astonishment; it thudded lightly on the floor below.

"Wot was—"

BAM! The ceiling shook as Billy’s door slammed onto the ground, consequently sending Mr. Dermit onto his own floor.

"Nancy," whispered Henry, "git me mah Besse."

Mr. and Mrs. Salinsky, in the apartment below the Dermits, just glanced at their ceiling in annoyance.

Billy awoke with a start at the noise, hitting his head on -his- ceiling and then toppling to his usual spot on the floor. He rose quickly, ignoring his bruises, and crept toward the doorway of his bedroom and poking his head into the hallway. He could see the door to his apartment from that point—or rather, he would have if it weren’t absent from its normal spot at the moment. He blinked, and wandered into the living room.

The sound of twelve shotguns cocking filled his ears; he turned to find himself surrounded by an apparently very angry bunch of women.

Wearing camouflage.

With steel-toed boots.

More importantly, they were pointing loaded weapons at him.

He blinked again.

He was not having a good day.

Again.

One of them, whom Billy perceived to be the leader of the bunch, spoke. "We are Division Six of the LA chapter of W.A.E.M.D."

"W.A.E.M.D.?" Billy asked.

"Women Against Everything Men Do," replied the leader. "It’s a women’s rights organization concentrated in the state of California."

"And this would pertain to me...how?" Billy questioned.

"We received word that you verbally attacked one of our members yesterday about the color of her purse not matching her blouse."

"I did no such thing," Billy responded.

"LIAR!" The woman screamed. "Just where do you get off telling a woman that her purse doesn’t match her blouse? HUH?"

"I -didn’t-.."

"I don’t care what you say, brown -does- go with black!" The leader was becoming frantic now.

"I don’t really care about that either, really.." Billy started.

"Black goes with anything! Even a -man- should know that! How DARE you offer your opinion on a matter you know nothing about!"

"Miss, I -really- don’t know what you’re talking about.."

"OUR SOURCES DO NOT LIE, MR. DERMIT!"

"Er... I’m not Mr. Dermit. He’s downstairs. 12B."

The lady paused.

"Oh.. Um...Downstairs?"

"Yep. This is 12C."

The leader lowered her weapon, cursing under her breath. "I -told- you it was the wrong floor, Lucy!"

Lucy spoke up. "You were the one who kicked down the door like a rhino on steroids, remember?"

"Yeah, but it would’ve been nice if you had told me—"

Two more figures appeared in the doorway, one of which was clutching yet another shotgun in his withered hands.

"Freeze, y’crazy Amazon war’yers!" Mr. Dermit screamed.

The twelve WAEMD members responded by raising their own weapons. "Put down your gun! Now!" screamed Lucy.

Mr. Dermit kissed one of his two barrels. "Besse don’ EVEH leave mah side!" He jerked his head to the left, where his wife stood with a broom. "Git ‘em, Nancy!" He cocked his gun, and turned to the leader. "An’ yer face paint don’ match yer boots, neither!"

Billy watched the Dermits briefly and wandered over to the fire escape, sighing over the sudden eruption of gunfire. Buckshot slammed into the wall near him as he swung his leg over the railing. He glanced back at the disturbance to catch a quick glimpse of Mrs. Dermit smacking one of the feminists with her broom before lowering himself to the emergency staircase outside. He was still clad in his He-man jammies.

Something was missing. Billy knew that Babs Yancovich was interconnected with the Lymph Node Fluids and the kidnapping of Raquel Welch, but he didn’t know how. Or why. He needed a clue. More specifically, he needed a complete explanation.

He stared at the ground as he wandered down the street, deep in thought. The light gusts of wind pulled at his pajamas, but he paid them no heed.

Billy soon found himself in a part of the city he wasn’t familiar with. For a brief moment, an intense feeling of panic swept over him as he recalled the events of the grueling interrogation by Gene and Steve a few days earlier. "Nice suit you got here;" he could almost hear Steve’s demanding voice: "Did your mama make it for you?"

He shuddered, and shook the feeling away. He wasn’t going to let -that- happen again. A few minutes later, however, he still wasn’t getting any closer to home. Every turn he took was unfamiliar, every block he walked he sank deeper into the confusion of the vast city. He had no idea where he was, aside from the faded and unreadable street signs that were of no help. It was then, however, that he spotted a well-kept shop that contrasted greatly with the surrounding slums. A crude, wooden sign hung over it, reading "Beth’s Flower Shoppe," and gave it a sort of cozy look that only added to its comfortable nature. Billy stepped inside without hesitation.

And the inside was glorious; a large tree stood in the center of the room, fanning out and encompassing the floor below with its green brilliance. The floor was void of anything but planted flowers bursting with color and a little stone pathway leading to the tulips, the carnations, the roses, the daisies, and back to more tulips, pansies, petunias—flowers of all imaginable kind. The ceiling was painted a perfect sky blue, dotted with tufts of white here and there to resemble clouds. But best of all, the door didn’t have any of those annoying entrance chimes that rang endlessly until one was compelled to leave or drive an eight-and-a-half inch screw bit through one’s head. Naturally, this was the first thing Billy noticed upon entering. All that "beautiful flower" crap I stuck in there as a filler was brought to his attention later.

Oddly enough, there was absolutely no one in the store besides him.

Billy skipped down the stone path toward the pansies like a little girl at Christmas, stopping to smell the roses, tulips, and petunias along the way. It was then that his body bid his center of gravity a fond farewell, and his nose, in turn, personally became acquainted with the pathway. Thoughts of lawsuits and financial gain for his accident instinctively began swimming through his head when he suddenly noticed a large, oblong stone, no more definitive in shape than a blob of ink, resting a good seven inches from his head. The images of court summons papers immediately dissolved out of his mind, the newfound rock replacing their position as his current object of interest. It was, after all, a rock. Naturally-formed entities were a rarity in urbanized Los Angeles.

He pulled himself to his feet, coaxing his balance to return, and bent over the rock to examine it.

It was a neat rock. He named it Mikie.

That was, however, before he noticed the tiny inscription on the side. He peered closer, barely able to make out the words...

The door to city hall swung open, allowing a gulp of the afternoon sun that survived the filter of smog before they closed again, sealing the building from the outside world. Billy stepped in, kicking aside a bird fated for its lethal ingestion of carbon monoxide that managed to slump inside before the doors closed. He scanned the room, looking for the one that could be the Lethargic Elder, as the inscription had instructed him to find. It was seconds later that he spotted the old man snoozing in the corner. Billy walked up to the slumped-over figure, tapping him lightly on the shoulder.

"Excuse me? ...Are you the one they call the Lethargic Elder?" Billy asked in his tiny, weak voice. The man woke with a start.

"Wha? Ahh?" He blinked several times, sitting up straight, and glanced at Billy with an irritated expression. "What is it you want, boy?"

"I was wondering... what you knew about Babs Yancovich?"

The old man jumped to his feet, a particularly difficult task for a geezer of his condition. "Babs Yancovich? I haven’t heard that name in a while.." the old man muttered as he rubbed his chin. After a moment of thought, he spoke once more. "Come." He began walking toward the back of the building, and gestured for Billy to follow.

Billy followed. They came to a bookcase alongside a wall on the west wing of the building. The Elder began searching though the books until he found the one he wanted. He flashed a satisfactory grin to Billy and pushed the book in. The wall beside them moaned in protest as it forced itself open, revealing a dank, ominous stone passageway. The old man stepped inside without hesitation, grabbing a torch off the coarse stone wall. Billy did little to conceal his surprise, and proceeded.

"-Why- is there need for a secret passage in city hall?" Billy asked after the door had groaned itself back shut behind them.

"For this," the old man replied, stepping into an open room connected to the narrow passage. He directed the torch toward the center of the room, barely illuminating an old table, on which rested a large book. The Lethargic Elder blew away the inch or so of dust and cobwebs, and opened the book.

"This," he said proudly, "is the Book of Records for City Hall."

"Can’t they just keep it in the bookcase with the rest?" Billy asked.

"Well, they would’ve, but by the time they realized how much simpler that would’ve been, they had already completed much of the architectural design of the passage." The old man flipped the pages of the book. "Yancovich...Yancovich....Ah!" He shoved a bony, withered finger to the page. "Here we are. Babs Yancovich." He handed the book to Billy, suspending the torch above to provide adequate light.

"August 3, 1975: REDMOND— The Traf-O-Data Corporation, a newly-formed software company, officially announced its name switch to ‘Microsoft’ early yesterday morning to the press. Among the first employees of this enterprising young company is one Babs Yancovich, recently noted in newspapers and magazines for her latest book, "Why I Should Control The Planet and What You Can Do as a Lowly, Submissive Slave to Better Serve Me," which has produced much controversy among certain associations.

"When asked what she thought the future held for the computer industry, in consideration of several comments by mass consumers that it had no chance to evolve, Yancovich replied, ‘Puny mortal! Your soul is mine!’, which was immediately followed by a series of witch-like laughter and ineffectual curses.

"William Gates, founder of the Microsoft Corporation, who personally hand-picked his company’s first employees, hired several friends from his old boarding school at Lakeside; among them Ric Weiland and Paul Allen. Gates stated this when asked why he specifically hired Yancovich, someone he hadn’t come in contact with until just last May: ‘Frankly, she scares me. A lot.’ "

Billy frowned at the clipped article, glancing at a few other headlines:

"Babs Yancovich expected to head engineering division"

"Yancovich fourth-highest paid Microsoft employee as Paul Allen leaves corporation"

"Babsy’s Big Break Brings Bunches"

"Man returns home with eighteen arms after living in sewers for thirty years"

Billy’s frown deepened at the last one. "What’s that in there for?"

"Oh... That’s someone else," replied the Lethargic Elder. "Ignore it."

"Okay." Billy tapped the article. "It says here that Yancovich was employed in 1975, but she was just recently in the newspaper for being the one-millionth employee in the Pacific Coast area."

The Lethargic Elder scoffed, something very difficult to accomplish successfully at his age without having spittle fly out of several facial orifices. Billy was impressed. "Do you have any idea how rich Babs is?" the Elder asked.

"Yeah.. It says she’s the fourth-highest paid..." Billy started.

"That was in 1983. Since Steve Balmer and Ric Weiland left, she’s become the second-highest. She left Albuquerque to move here when Gates gave her control of this district."

"So..." Billy was slowly catching on.

"She’s -that- rich," continued the Elder. "And extremely powerful. And without anyone of higher rank to stop her, she more or less has a monopoly on the computer industry in this half of the country." The Elder paused. "In effect, she owns this city."

"And when you control a city, you control everything within it, including the newspapers," Billy finished, finally understanding. "But why would she pretend to have just been hired?"

The Lethargic Elder sighed, not so much for effect, but because he was missing "Mama’s Family," having to explain everything to Billy. "She’s been working in secret since the mid-eighties. Even then people didn’t follow computer technology in the papers as much as they do now, and she was still not very well known, mainly because she preferred it that way. She doesn’t like publicity."

"Why not?" Billy asked.

The Elder controlled his urge to strangle Billy. This was his seventh question. "She doesn’t like people to know how much power she has. She’s somewhat paranoid about overthrows, within and without the company. She’s anti-social. It’s sort of a personality disorder."

"You mean aside from the curses and the stuffed bat?"

"Right." The Lethargic Elder glanced at his watch. "According to legend, she made a pact with the Lymph Node Fluids a decade ago..."

"The Fluids?" Billy broke in, now very interested. Suddenly, a few previously unconnected thoughts slowly started drifting towards a central point in his brain.

"Yeah. She’s been laying low for the last ten years," responded the Elder. "Very few people know, and most of them that do work for her. Incidentally, it’s hard to prove much. This is where her public shyness comes in handy."

"Why is she working with the LNFs?" Billy asked, trying desperately to piece everything together.

"Technically, they’re working for her. She’s basically using them," said The Elder.

"What for?" Billy persisted.

The Elder paused, catching his breath. "Legend has it that long ago, Raquel Welch’s agent came to the Ogress Yancovich looking for a contract. At the time, Welch wasn’t getting many movie deals, so she had to settle for commercials. When Yancovich refused, Welch’s agent spit at her and stormed out the door. Infuriated, Babs vowed to take revenge. She placed a curse on the Welch family."

"How did the curse go?" asked Billy, perking his ears at the sound of Raquel’s name.

The Elder strained to remember, furrowing his brow for several moments, before he chanted,

"BEGIN

If running(program) THEN Halt(0)

Else begin clrscr;

For i:=1 to EndCnt do Begin

assign(outfile[i], FilePath); reset(outfile[i]);

rewrite(outfile[i], ‘Error ’, ErrorMsg(i), ‘ File deleted.’);

FilePath:=file[i+1]; End; end;

Close(outfile); Close(infile);

END."

Billy stared at the Elder. "What?"

The Elder shrugged. "It’s a virus. She wrote it up after the agent left, and sent it to the Welch’s residence via her modem. Their computer crashed, and their thousand-dollar security system, also run entirely by computers, was rendered useless. It wasn’t difficult, I imagine, for her kidnappers to abduct her. When she was reported missing, her agent, overcome by guilt, swore to spend the rest of his life searching for her. A few hours later, he was kidnapped too.

"Unfortunately, the virus spread. After just five days, it had already infected hundreds more systems over the city, thriving on the growing Internet population. Eventually, all of LA was covered with the thick film of Yancovich’s Curse. Looters took advantage of the felled security systems citywide, breaking into second-hand television stores and such. Riots got out of hand. Crime rose to an alarming peak. It was during this time that the Lymph Node Fluids formed into a gang. Since then, their computer-virus-ridden habitat has suited their needs well.

"This is where Yancovich comes back into the picture. If word of her deed ever got out, she would become powerless to the angry public. This, above all, she can’t have. So she uses the LNFs to prevent this.

"Legend has it that Yancovich’s arch-nemesis, a beautiful accountant by the name of Beth, once came to defeat her. She brought with her a countercurse, one that could wipe out Babs and her entire operation. Unfortunately, the countercurse feel into the wrong hands, and was brought deep into the LNFs’ lair, where it remains to this day. Babs employed the LNFs as the Keepers of the Countercurse, knowing that with it out of the way, she could successfully rule the economy of the city, and soon the world." The Elder paused. "And she was hoping to take out LA’s falafel-stand industry. That’s where we are today. The only hope this city has is to break into the Lymph Node Fluids’ hideout, take out their new leader, and bring back the countercurse. Unfortunately, everyone’s too lazy."

The Lethargic Elder finished the tale, taking a breath. Billy stood amazed as almost all of the pieces of the puzzle suddenly jammed together in one mass collision. There were still a few holes, though.

"Do you have a picture of the one they call ‘Beth’?" he asked.

"Sure," the Elder replied, and gestured to the Book. "It’s in there somewhere. Her final resting place is a little north of here, in a small flower shop." He paused, glancing once more at his watch. "Look, I’d like to help you some more, but I really wanted to watch this episode."

"Okay," Billy murmured, lost in thought. He was searching through the Book of Records, thinking of the Flower Shoppe that he had visited just before coming to city hall.

The Elder walked back through the secret passageway. "Lock up when you leave."

Billy flipped a few pages in the book, and found the picture. He stared at it for a few moments, racking his brain for some familiarity. The picture was of a very beautiful woman; the most beautiful person he had ever seen.

And then it hit him. She was the fifth drawing in Sam Rues’ game of Pictionary in his dream.

She was the one holding the McAffee Anti-Virus program.

Billy left city hall deep in thought. He remembered the meeting between Gene and the Volkswagen driver that took place behind the old Faulkner building; that seemed his best bet as the LNFs hideout. No one had touched that building for years—it was especially avoided by little kids around Halloween—and would make a perfect Evil Gang Lair-type thing.

Actually, when he thought about it, they weren’t really much of an "evil" gang, in the traditional sense of the word. They were more like an opportunistic, simple-minded gang.

But that was unimportant at the moment. Billy headed in the direction of the suspected Opportunistic, Simple-Minded Gang Lair-type thing, not far from Taco Bell. It was a fifteen minute walk.

Billy reached the back lot of the old building, not bothering to repress the disgusted expression that involuntarily plastered his face whenever he looked at it. It really was an ugly shade of brown. One or two of the windows weren’t broken. He stopped and hid behind a bush, noticing with fear the many LNF members lounging around in the parking lot between him and the back door.

He paused to gain his courage, and sprinted toward the door. He stopped panting at the threshold, daring a look back.

No one had noticed. He had literally barge through a few dozen gang members, even running into a couple, and not a single one of them regarded him as anything more than an unsuccessful mugger. He was pretty lucky there, really.

Billy glanced at the door, which had long ago been kicked in, and reclined at an odd angle, delicately resting on one rusting hinge. He paused, then walked in.

A foul stench rushed up his nostrils immediately, embedding themselves in his olfactory sensors with a tremendous force. Billy tried unsuccessfully to ignore it, and walked further into the building, trying to maintain his consciousness.

"Hey!" someone shouted. Billy stopped, turning toward the voice. It was an LNF member, immediately recognizable in his green jumpsuit. Billy sprinted for an office room off to his right. The gang member ran after him, accompanied by two others. Billy dashed into the room, slamming the door behind him and locking it. He leaned against it, surveying his new surroundings, and noticed three other doors, a table, a chair, and a candelabra. He rushed toward the door to his right, slamming it shut and placing a chair in front of it. Just a split second later, the doorknob rattled from the other side. He shot a quick look at the other two doors left opened, but was left helpless when he realized he was out of chairs. Thinking quickly, he searched his pockets for matches, then lit the candelabra.

The trio of gangsters ran into the room from one of the remaining two doors, but came to a halt when they saw Billy with a lighted candelabra.

"DIE!" Billy shouted, rushing at the LNFs with his weapon.

"Oh, dear," responded one of them. The other two fled.

Billy turned the candelabra around and batted the remaining gang member on the head. He slumped to the ground, blissfully unaware that he was unconscious.

Finding no one left to wallop, Billy walked through the door his attackers hadn’t. He ended up in a curious room that reminded him more of something from a carnival fun house. There was a short man in a business suit sitting in a chair in the center. The man watched Billy a moment, then began picking up various objects around him and hurtling them at Billy.

"Oh...Hey.." Billy said, deflecting some of the objects with his candelabra. "Um... Please don’t— Ow!" He stammered. The man in the business suit paid him no heed. Eventually Billy gave up and walked through the door on the far wall.

He had entered a personal office; that much was evident immediately. There was a large desk with an expensive looking computer on it, and a very comfortable chair, the latter of which was facing away from him the window. This apparently had once been one of the office suites.

Then he noticed there was someone sitting in the chair. He froze, suddenly realizing he had found the gang leader.

"You’ve gotten pretty far," came a distinctly female voice from the chair. "Unfortunately, you won’t be getting any further." The chair slowly turned around, and Billy found himself facing the leader of the Lymph Node Fluids.

It was Raquel Welch.

Billy stared in amazement. "Of.. Of course! Everything makes sense now! The Lymph Node Fluids weren’t looking for a ransom, they were looking for someone of power to protect them from outside forces!"

"Shut up," Raquel said. She was obviously under some sort of influence—she had no idea of her true identity. "Now, I’d like..."

Billy tuned her out at moment, having just spotted a familiar box resting on the shelf on the right wall. It was the coveted McAffee Anti-Virus Detect program. Raquel followed his gaze.

"Oh, no you don’t," she shouted, and made a kamikaze dash for Billy. He lunged for the box, narrowly missing her steely grip. He tore open the box and yanked out the CD. Dodging Raquel once more, he opened the CD door on the computer and shoved the countercurse in. With that, he fell to the floor in exhaustion, letting the auto-install do its work. In just a few moments, a light-hearted message popped up on the screen:

"Ogress Virus has been detected and destroyed."

It was over.

Raquel blinked several times, gazing at her environment as if for the first time. "Who...who am I? Where am I?"

"You’re Raquel Welch, and you’re in an old abandoned office building currently being used as a hideout for a ruthless inner-city gang in a complex plot to deteriorate LA’s economy by destroying the computer industry and any stray falafel stand," Billy responded cheerfully.

Raquel started; she hadn’t noticed Billy yet. "Hey! Who are you?"

"Oh, I’m—"

"Purse snatcher!" Raquel shouted with the ferocity of an Amazon warrior. She began kicking at Billy, and had just raised the candelabra over his crumpled body when he responded, "Hey! I’m the guy who just sent you out of your stupor and ended LA’s financial crisis! You were being controlled by the Ogress Babs Yancovich, head of Microsoft’s LA division."

Raquel stopped. "Oh. Sorry." She lowered the candelabra.

The man in the business suit wandered in the room, looking a little confused. "Um..." he said, then spotted Welch. "Oh! Raquel. ...Why are we here?"

Raquel waved. "Hi Don." She pointed to Billy. "We were under an evil ogress’s powerful influence. This is the guy who just saved us. Billy, this is Don, my agent."

"We’ve met," Billy replied. "Anyway, let’s get out of here."

The trio left the office building, easily passing through the many confused and baffled-looking Lymph Node Fluid members, who just sorta stood there. Finding Raquel’s limo in the parking lot, they climbed in and drove off towards city hall.

The Lymph Node Fluids began wandering aimlessly through the Faulkner building, not really sure what to do.

"That was weird," Gene whispered to Steve, who he found near the water cooler.

"Yeah..." Steve agreed.

Time passed.

"So... what now?" Steve asked.

"I dunno," responded Gene, then paused. "Let’s go see if Taco Bell is hiring."

"Yeah, okay." Steve nodded his head.

They left.

"Let me off here," Billy said, a few blocks from city hall. Raquel and her agent didn’t argue. They were still a little bewildered by the last few days’ events. Raquel’s normal week usually consisted of drinking tea in her mansion, getting a movie deal, and then going back home to drink more tea; it wasn’t often that heading a citywide criminal plot to take over the economy was tacked onto the agenda. Besides, she really didn’t like Billy all that much. His ears stuck out a little.

He stepped out of the limo, and watched it drive off before he turned around. He was in front of the Microsoft building. Billy smiled a little to himself, and walked in. In just a few moments, he was once again on the eighth floor, in front of Babs’ secretary.

"Ms. Yancovich is busy," murmured the secretary without looking up. Billy ignored him, passing by his desk as he walked toward her office. "Excuse me!" he called after Billy, who continued to ignore him.

Billy opened the door and stepped back, waiting for the bucket of water to fall before he entered the office. He was greeted again by a hideously screechy voice.

"Water please, make... Aw, nuts," Babs muttered crossly, her annoyance at Billy’s presence increased by the failed trick. "So you’ve come back, eh? Well, I’ll teach you to go against -me-, won’t I, Joey?" She looked up at the stuffed bat, stiffly hanging in its cage. A moment passed, then Babs turned her cold eyes once more to Billy. "Joey says, ‘Right’."

"Ms. Yancovich..." Billy started.

"Quiet you!" She raised her arms as if preparing to cast a spell. "Now I shall place my Ogress Curse on you." She uttered a terrible sequence of screeches, which Billy took for evil laughter, then began to chant:

"BEGIN

If running(program) THEN Halt(0)

Else begin..."

"SILENCE!" roared Billy. Babs halted in mid-curse, staring with furious eyes at Billy. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Billy cut her off.

"Now, feel the wrath of Beth’s Countercurse!" he shouted, and continued in a low, contemptuous voice:

"BEGIN

If detect(vir, prog) THEN begin

If (DetVir.name = ‘Ogress Virus’) AND (DetVir.cnum = ‘6607833’) THEN

Begin redir(DetVir, origin); delete(DetVir); end;

End; close(vir, program); END."

Babs stood in shocked silence for a moment, her eyes wide open in fear and understanding, then let out a slow breath. "No... not Beth’s Countercurse!"

Billy snickered. "It’s already been uploaded and sent to every system in the city. See for yourself." Billy gestured to Babs’ computer, sitting forlornly on her desk. A single line ran across the screen in quiet triumph: "Ogress Virus detected and redirected. System shut down."

"NO!" shouted Babs.

Billy grinned. "It’s over, Babsy," he assured her, and walked out of the room, leaving her with her misery and any possible bacterial infections she might get from the stuffed bat.

Billy relaxed in the king-sized bed in one of his house’s five bedrooms. He was counting the money he had left over from rescuing Raquel, her agent, and her brother. It was twenty-thousand for Raquel, another ten for her brother, and three shiny pennies and a stick of gum for her agent. With the plane trip to Kauai and the twelve-grand orange house subtracted, he still had a good seventeen thousand dollars and three cents. And a stick of gum.

He was using some of the rest to install a kitchen.

Billy glanced out of the window of the master bedroom of his new home, which faced southwest, and was rewarded with a glorious view of a nearby alley. He tried the French doors on the left wall. That worked. The Pacific Ocean stretched out in all directions, glittering in the sunlight like a large body of water. It was actually blue here.