The following happened during a small shareholder meeting being held in a convention center in New Mexico sometime in the future. That particular shareholder meeting had two purposes: account for a solid year of lost revenue and make reassurances to owners of common stock in that company that there'd be no repeat of the previous year's fiscal failure. "The problem," said by one of the executives of the company, who happens to be a majority shareholder of preferred stock in Temps & Tiempo Travel, reading from a TelePrompTer "was that we forgot the two most important words in the English language: shareholder value. We stood around and mocked time, both literally and metaphorically. However, the invisible hand of the market is a dutiful student to time. In the first quarter of the previous fiscal year, we decided to exploit a government loophole, an act of legislative fiat with unintended consequences, that allowed private corporations, such as ourselves, to manipulate quantum irregularities in the space-time continuum that not only make time travel possible but with the right technology affordable. As you know, we began to do a series of what we called, 'excursions into the past'. At first people enjoyed petting Triceratops or mocking baby Tyrannosaurus Rex's with a steak but after a while our customers wanted more bang for their buck. At the time many of our customers complained that the safari was an expensive petting zoo, and some even accused of us committing a fraud with pyrotechnics and animatronics. In dealing with those baseless accusations is where we made our mistake in the second quarter. We offered customers the opportunity to hunt down dinosaurs the way rich dentists and poachers during the turn of the 19th century used to hunt for ivory and the like. It should be noted that we technically violated no international or local body of laws because time travel is currently not under the jurisdiction of any single judicial body. Perhaps, due to the inactions of Temps & Tiempo Travels and other companies like it there will be a serious backlash crying out for a Time Protection Agency to be created. However, such backlash as yet to materialize. However, we certainly toed an ethical boundary and as is the nature of unethical behavior it is a tremendous powder-keg of public relations fallout waiting to explode. Poaching dinosaurs was a highly profitable venture until nine people died and many more were injured by more cunning versions of Dinosaur-beast. This would not have been a problem if not for a loophole in the law, which was not in our favor. This loophole allowed those who signed those liability waivers to argue that because the events of being mauled, and nearly killed by a group of Velociraptors happened, chronically speaking, before the agreement was even signed - which, of course, is sort of true given the nature of time travel itself. The courts felt that our liability waivers were null and void. It was in the words of the court, 'a retroactive document no more valid than someone writing a will for the deceased after they've passed away declaring themselves sole beneficiary'. This court decision, of course, without any surprise here, opened us to a whole world of liability. This is how an otherwise profitable quarter could quickly find itself with significant financial loss. So the tremendous profits were made at the time were certainly offset by the staggeringly high out-of-court settlements we ended up making. The third quarter of the last fiscal year, more or less, was the same story. Dinosaurs took b out of our customers and the customers in turn took huge bites of us with lawsuits. These lawsuits took the third quarter from black to red. Now, during the fourth quarter we felt we needed to find a new angle. Word had indeed spread that the 'Dinosaur Hunts' were not as safe as previously assumed. A significant decrease in our sales was a reflection of this trend in consumer preferences to not be eaten by dinosaurs, which is a reasonable expectation for our customers to have. We thought we could offset our slumping sales figures with a free hat and t-shirt giveaway but that didn't help much. Now I can see all the looks on your faces. How does Temp & Tiempo plan to get out of this predicament called a bad fiscal year and not produce a sequel of it? The answer is simple. So simple it can be summed up in two words. Grandpa safaris. Physicists say we can't kill our own grandfathers without creating irreconcible paradoxes. Temps and Tiempo Travel says, 'not a chance'."
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Florentine Usury, Medici Style
This was a story originally told to an employee at his bank by his manager that wanted to cheer him up. The following happened in the Florentine Republic, during Lorenzo de Medici's time (a.k.a. Lorenzo the Magnificent) during The Renaissance. Lorenzo said to someone who was interested in taking a loan out from "[Lorenzo's]...bank of some forty employees" (but reluctant to do so because of a few unsavory details in the agreement), "This is Tuaca. A brandy based liqueur of my concoction that brilliantly blends vanilla and orange. Vanilla and orange, star-crossed lovers not unlike Tristan and Isolde: one a spice, the other a fruit. Truly, fate hath conspired against such metaphysically unlawful unions but alas through a fine, cask aging the impossible was made possible and through Tuaca, vanilla and orange are finally free to love. Tuaca, I think is best served, chilled and served neat. It can also be mixed with ginger ale or hot apple cider, of which I enthusiastically recommend a chaser made of the former. Now about this loan you are so persistent to refuse. I don't understand what grievance you have with it. It is a good offer. Business requires capital and the easiest way to come about capital is to acquire it from someone who has it. I have it. Of course, I wouldn't just give money without an incentive to make it worth my while. For every florin, I lend out is a florin I do not have for my own. Fair compensation is necessary to make the whole venture of lending out florins in the first place to be worth my while."
"It's extortion, fair and simple," answers The Man in Lorenzo's home, "Any pretense to suppose otherwise is fraud or delusion on your part."
"The rate is competitive."
"Two-hundred and fifty-percent interest are far from competitive. It is robbery. There is no other word for it."
"The rate is competitive."
"Two-hundred and fifty-percent interest are far from competitive. It is robbery. There is no other word for it."
"I can think of another word to call it."
"What singular word could best personify the sentiment other than extortion and its myriad of synonyms?"
"Investment..." answers Lorenzo de Medici, who soon after offers two more off the top of his head, "Opportunity...privilege."
"I would hardly see myself as privileged if I took upon myself the burden of this loan. To damn myself to pay two and a half florins for each one borrowed would be a folly bordering on madness. In the spirit of pragmatism, I could see myself paying a hundred and ten percent, perhaps up to one hundred and fifty for the right to borrow money at a time most necessary to commerce. For as you said, the venture should be made worth your while. However, this is too much. Like a gluttonous child needs to be told to abstain from sweet things I must be firm and resolute and say, 'no'."
Lorenzo, clever as he was, knew exactly how to respond to the man refusing a loan on general principle. "I understand," he said, "Your reservations are not without merit. I want you to know that I respect your decision despite obviously wanting you to have made the other. It is an example of pragmatism at its finest. You have proven yourself today a wise man who does not care what other people think of him. A wise man who does not care that people will make fun of him and like the currency of some nation low in esteem to all the others, truly debase their value of him in their eyes. I am glad that you have both the confidence and self awareness of your poverty to know you should not take upon, as you said so eloquently, the burden of a Florentine loan because you know you can't afford to pay it back. We both know that if you want to pay a reasonable interest, that is, in essence, a discount compared to one I would furnish you with, you must go to a Jew in the foundries, ghettos. A most loathsome race of men certainly but they do not charge more than forty-five percent interest. If you do not mind doing business with such men who routinely desecrate hosts well power to you, I suppose. I wish I, myself, had the courage and the confidence to go to a discount bank, such as a Jew, because I was both aware and willing to follow the logical conclusions of my awareness, to not be able to pay back the extravagant rates of a real loan. If you can't afford to pay back two-hundred and fifty percent interest, I understand. If you must get a frugal loan because you know, as well as your friends who will know eventually, that you're a small fish in large ponds well that is your prerogative and who am I, the gentleman Florentine, that I am, to stop you.”
“What if my friends find out? They’ll think I can’t afford to pay back two-hundred and fifty percent interest. I will be less in their eyes.”
“Yes,” Lorenzo says, “They’ll think you’ll only be able to pay forty percent interest. However, if you’re fine with your friends thinking less of you in their eyes because financially you're not really an aristocrat well that is your business to be minded and none of their own. If necessity dictates that you must do business with the ones with the weird clothes, wearing that patch with a six-sided star, who often smell because they often live near tanneries and have bizarre customs and names such as Shlomo or Chiam, well be my guest and only pay forty-percent interest, while your friends will have the means to pay me back the other two-hundred and ten percent because they are wealthy enough to afford the indulgence and prove it through action.”
”I can’t do that," the man says, “I just can’t. It’s two-hundred and fifty percent interest. Can’t you, as a gesture of friendship, lower it to one hundred and fifty percent, maybe one seventy-five?"
“This,” said Lorenzo, “Cannot be done.”
”When would the debt, if I were to do it with you, be amortized?”
”That all depends on when you pay it back. Obviously, the sooner you pay it back the less the overall repayment will have been”
”I have a shipment coming into the new world. I need only to pay Ottoman tariffs to clear the merchandise from their customs. I need some capital to pay normal duties, fees. Wet a few Turkish and Balkan beaks to, of course, expedite the process. You know how it is."
“Of course.”
”I am short of cash right now. I would be able to pay it back after I successfully sold the merchandise in Europe.”
“I understand,” Lorenzo said just before his client said, “When can I get the loan?”
“As soon as possible,” answered Lorenzo de Medici, “As soon as possible.”
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Oleander Test and Other Errors of a Rosy Dystopian Future
12-3-21XX - 2:14 A.M
TO: High Command
TO: High Command
FROM: R.E.F Tanner
Submitted for appraisal, consent to codify me to the upper echelons of the highly desirable position of our world if the following report meets your satisfaction. If not, do so anyway. Reintegrate me into the sequel of Virtual World 2 because Virtual World has just gone into massive system failure.
Observation1: Virtual reality, like all remedies for both the human condition and having to deal with a world filled with humanity, proved to be a disappointment Even in virtual reality you had to force small talk. Past scenarios of climbing Mars' largest mountain Olympus Mon (three times the size of Everest just to put an awe inspiring thing into manageable context) or being Casanova times a million there really wasn't much to do, especially when you did all the stuff that was really worth doing (poaching dinosaurs, tanning on the surface of the sun or recreating the running of the Bulls of Pamplona but with rhinos instead). That's why a majority of people logged onto the virtual reality servers spend the majority of their logging time going to the dentist, paying their taxes, taking their kids to school or going to school themselves. The extreme adventures get old. Minutiae is important but after a while it gets old and they seek the extreme adventure. again After too many extreme adventures they desire mundane experiences. After too many mundane experiences they desire the extreme, A cycle of sorts, quite vicious.
Observation 2: The Oleander Test proved to be unreliable. The objective of the test was simple.but poorly brought into fruition. Determine who is real and who is not. A digital proxy to a human being in the real world or only just a character in the fictional one. The task seemed easy enough but the questionnaires were too vague. They never took into account that an "imaginary friend" could pretend to be human. Never took into account that they'd ever even want to be. It's hard convincing the ones who already have to do so, so why would we imagine fake versions of us would want to anymore than the real ones. I suppose the test designs had a blind spot when it came to seeing things from the "faux human's" point of view. They assumed they'd see the grass the same way we do. Just one shade less than the desirable green.
Observation 3: Wolf in sheep's clothing is clique but it's accurate don't you think? Who'd have thunk it? Computer viruses pretending to be virtual people, a.k.a. imaginary friends, lovers (what have you) who in turn were pretending to be human in the virtual world. You meet a virtual person but really you're talking to a computer virus designed to undermine the beautiful complacency of the majority in a beautiful, yet boring, dream world. What do the computer virus' want? Nothing. That's the funny thing. It's the ones who programmed the damn thing. So what do they want? The end of our wonderful corporation it seems.
Observation 4: As I lay dictating this, code disintegrating, hoping last words don't prove to be vain ones spoken to the air but not caught by your devices that transcribe it. Code looks like oozing blue mathematical symbols. Time looks less likely. Virtual reality is collapsing. Recovery seems impossible. Lots of awkward questions will soon be asked by people who will not likely the answers we will have to give them. "We did this for your own good." will not be among the explainable they will want to hear.
Observation 5: Third quarter profits will look meager. I'm glad I won't see the fourth. Stock will probably drop a few points. It's impossible to imagine it doing anything else. If they, the shareholders, ask, "Why did billions of plebeians wake up from the virtual dreamworld?" the wrong answer to give them will be, "because we were too concerned with maintaining shareholder value when it was brought to our attention by a whistle the unreliability of The Oleander test and the reasonable request for a revision was denied." They'll just see it as you blaming them and will immediately desire your resignation. The answer to give them is, "Yes The Oleander Test was a failure and the virtual reality world we set up to imprison the minds of billions of people failed because of an artificial intelligence, more characteristic of a virus than anything classically intelligent with a strong desire to be human and free those he identified as "his kin" but let's look on the bright side. At least we have our health." If the shareholders don't lynch you I'll say, if my pixels weren't waxing away that is, you got a pretty good reaction.
Sincerely,
R.E.F Tanner
Dictated but never read.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
A Soviet DeLorian
This scene is set in1985. A man, scientist type, is working in his lab on several equations, working them out on his blackboard when the following happened. He is approached by a prominent general who makes the following request of him (once they exchanged pleasantries such as "How are things? How's the family? Learn to putt a par 3 yet (and so on). The General says, "I need to talk to you about something."
"Something 'of the utmost importance'," he asks with a minor chuckle
"As per usual," The General says, "I require this to remain confidential."
"What is it you want to talk about?""Something 'of the utmost importance'," he asks with a minor chuckle
"As per usual," The General says, "I require this to remain confidential."
"Has you know the #1 movie at the box office is currently Back to the Future. President Reagen himself actually screened the movie in The White House, and loved it. In fact when he watched it he was so amused by the fact that Dr. Emmett Brown couldn't believe an actor could become president he had the projectionist stop and rewind the film in order to replay the scene. Personally I didn't care for the president doing this because I, too, was wrapped up in the story. However he's the president so what can you say, right?"
"What does this have to do with anything?"
"Have you seen the movie?"
"Yes," The Scientist admitted, "I saw it with my nephew and niece. We loved it."
"Yes," The General says, "So you know what the movie is about so I don't need to explain anything, which can now lead me too my point."
"Which is what, sir?"
"As you know The Soviet Union is a very closed society. We don't really know what they do and they won't tell us. Quieting fears and suspicions is quite difficult if you don't know exactly what is you're trying to quiet in the first place."
"I don't understand the connection between the USSR and Back to the Future, sir."
"After the White House premiere I was talking to the President personally. As I mentioned before he loved the movie but there was an aspect of it that greatly troubled him."
"What aspect was that sir?"
"You know how we've spent billions of dollars trying to get the Strategic Defense Initiative, a.k.a. Star Wars, going in order to prevent nuclear war from outer space."
"Yes," The Scientist says as he walks to his desk to sit down, "I remember."
"Well what if The Soviets are doing the exact same thing. Except instead of trying to coordinate satellites in space to shoot down ballistics they've done the next best thing."
"What's the next best thing to that?"
"Be able to take out the enemy before he's even created," The General said, "It'll be like The Terminator but with nations, instead of future messianic figures battling robotic Gogs and Magog's. If the USSR had access to a time machine of their own they'd be able to turn the entire world into a member of the Soviet Bloc without a single shot fired. Moscow would be the world capital of the world like Babylon was during the Tower of Babel. And worst of all we wouldn't be able to do anything about it because we'd never even know that time was changed at all. How could we?"
"Are you seriously proposing that the Russians might be building a time machine of their own?"
"Whichever one will allow them to retroactively win The Cold War."
"Hypothetically we're very vulnerable to a breach in the space-time continuum. That is, unless we had a time machine of our own as well. If we had one ourselves we might be able to stop Soviet aggression against causality through a pact of mutually assured destruction. With a DeLorian of our own we could have a deterrent against abusing time travel like we have against full out nuclear war."
"And if we can't produce a DeLorian of our own before they do?"
"Time travel is strictly hypothetical. It can't be done. At least not with a human being. Heck, not even with a dog or the flea biting his neck. Not unless you can go faster than light, which nothing can. The universe seems well adept at preventing time travelers except on the quantum level," suddenly The Scientist realizes something, "Except..."
"Except what?"
"If they could properly manage time dilation."
"Time dilation?"
"Einstein proved that the only constant in the universe is light. That time, like space, varies from place to place, flowing at different rates. If The Soviets could figure out where time was, for lack of a better word, most sensitive to exploitation, perhaps it would be possible to send a time traveler back, one way, provided they survive the journey. However surviving the journey would probably be impossible. It's unlikely that a time traveler would succeed in changing the past to redesign the future."
"So what should I tell President Reagen?"
"General, tell President Mikhail Romanov that if The Japanese were building a time machine we would know about it. He need not worry. The Soviet Oblast of America and the space-time continuum will be fine."
"What does this have to do with anything?"
"Have you seen the movie?"
"Yes," The Scientist admitted, "I saw it with my nephew and niece. We loved it."
"Yes," The General says, "So you know what the movie is about so I don't need to explain anything, which can now lead me too my point."
"Which is what, sir?"
"As you know The Soviet Union is a very closed society. We don't really know what they do and they won't tell us. Quieting fears and suspicions is quite difficult if you don't know exactly what is you're trying to quiet in the first place."
"I don't understand the connection between the USSR and Back to the Future, sir."
"After the White House premiere I was talking to the President personally. As I mentioned before he loved the movie but there was an aspect of it that greatly troubled him."
"What aspect was that sir?"
"You know how we've spent billions of dollars trying to get the Strategic Defense Initiative, a.k.a. Star Wars, going in order to prevent nuclear war from outer space."
"Yes," The Scientist says as he walks to his desk to sit down, "I remember."
"Well what if The Soviets are doing the exact same thing. Except instead of trying to coordinate satellites in space to shoot down ballistics they've done the next best thing."
"What's the next best thing to that?"
"Be able to take out the enemy before he's even created," The General said, "It'll be like The Terminator but with nations, instead of future messianic figures battling robotic Gogs and Magog's. If the USSR had access to a time machine of their own they'd be able to turn the entire world into a member of the Soviet Bloc without a single shot fired. Moscow would be the world capital of the world like Babylon was during the Tower of Babel. And worst of all we wouldn't be able to do anything about it because we'd never even know that time was changed at all. How could we?"
"Are you seriously proposing that the Russians might be building a time machine of their own?"
"We don't know. That's the scary part. We certainly don't have any defenses against a meddling time traveler, even it be a reluctant one like Marty McFly, so it would be a brilliant thing to do if it can be done. If The Soviets built a time traveling Delorian of their own and sent their own version of a Marty McFly to let's say 1937 to assassinate Reagan on the set of "Love is on the Air" what secret service man could stop him. It's hard to dodge a bullet that was fired fifty years ago. That realization is what bothered the president and that's why I'm here. How vulnerable are we to the Machiavellian tactics of an unethical time traveler?"
"Practically or hypothetically?""Whichever one will allow them to retroactively win The Cold War."
"Hypothetically we're very vulnerable to a breach in the space-time continuum. That is, unless we had a time machine of our own as well. If we had one ourselves we might be able to stop Soviet aggression against causality through a pact of mutually assured destruction. With a DeLorian of our own we could have a deterrent against abusing time travel like we have against full out nuclear war."
"And if we can't produce a DeLorian of our own before they do?"
"Time travel is strictly hypothetical. It can't be done. At least not with a human being. Heck, not even with a dog or the flea biting his neck. Not unless you can go faster than light, which nothing can. The universe seems well adept at preventing time travelers except on the quantum level," suddenly The Scientist realizes something, "Except..."
"Except what?"
"If they could properly manage time dilation."
"Time dilation?"
"Einstein proved that the only constant in the universe is light. That time, like space, varies from place to place, flowing at different rates. If The Soviets could figure out where time was, for lack of a better word, most sensitive to exploitation, perhaps it would be possible to send a time traveler back, one way, provided they survive the journey. However surviving the journey would probably be impossible. It's unlikely that a time traveler would succeed in changing the past to redesign the future."
"So what should I tell President Reagen?"
"General, tell President Mikhail Romanov that if The Japanese were building a time machine we would know about it. He need not worry. The Soviet Oblast of America and the space-time continuum will be fine."
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Egg Whites
Cassidy Rhodes is a reporter for The Colt City Gazette. He was in his boss's office when he made the following request, "I need you to discover why all the egg whites are gone?"
"Excuse me sir.""I was making myself an omelet this morning like I myself an omelet every morning. I reached for three eggs, like I do everyday. I cracked them in the ordinary way but when the egg's contents reached the skillet I found only sizzling yolk. I thought there might have been something wrong with just those three eggs so I went through the rest of the carton. Six eggs later, not bothering to go for nine, with nothing but yolk to show for it I decided to buy another one. Somehow this dozen must have been defective, So I bought another carton at a convenience store. I returned home eager to get started cooking my omelet and lo and behold when I cracked three eggs from the new container there was only yolk in that one too. I figured that the other nine in the carton would probably be the same story so I went back to the car and drove to another store, bought another dozen, and guess what happened?"
"The three eggs in the carton were nothing but egg yolk."
"Exactly," his boss says, "Tragic. I had to settle for a bagel. Do you want to hear something even stranger?"
"What?"
"In keeping with my normal routine I made the usual phone calls and during the chit-chat phase I mentioned the yolk-situation to a few people and they reported experiencing the exact same thing."
"No eggwhites?""The three eggs in the carton were nothing but egg yolk."
"Exactly," his boss says, "Tragic. I had to settle for a bagel. Do you want to hear something even stranger?"
"What?"
"In keeping with my normal routine I made the usual phone calls and during the chit-chat phase I mentioned the yolk-situation to a few people and they reported experiencing the exact same thing."
"Only yolk, yes."
"How does that even happen?""That's what I need you to find out."
"Are you serious?""Very."
"When do you want me to look into it?""Five minutes ago."
"I have other assignments I have to finish."
"They're postponed...indefinitely."
"Until when?""I have other assignments I have to finish."
"They're postponed...indefinitely."
"Until you find out where the egg whites went."
"You want me to stop covering the gubernatorial primary so you can find out why you can't have an omelet in the morning.""Well when you phrase it like that it does make me sound like an irresponsible steward of The Fourth Estate but I believe that this egg-white thing has the greater social consequence then who gets the right to call the national guard from time to time and pardon."
"But they're just egg whites.""Cassidy have you ever had an omelet that was nothing but yolk."
"No sir I can't say that I have.""It's not the worst situation a person can find himself in but it's pretty bad too. I never fought in Vietnam but I imagine the experience to be comparable."
"Vietnam and egg whites?"His boss nods his head. "Fine," Cassidy says, "I'll see when I can find out."
Cassidy called up various bakeries, grocers and restaurants in the tri-county area and talked to their managers. He wanted to find out if they had an egg-white problem. All of them did. While reviewing his notes Cassidy noticed that, in addition to reporting a rapid decline of business during the breakfast hours, all the people he called had purchased eggs that came from the same company. Canta Lopue Poultry and Beef. Cassidy decided to give them a call and see if he can arrange an interview with the owner. The secretary made all the arrangements and was able to pencil Cassidy in for a four o'clock appointment, "just before the boss was set to leave". He was told he would have only ten minutes because the boss is "very busy".
Cassidy arrived at Canta Loupe Poultry and Beef around three thirty. The secretary, who he talked to one the phone, met him and person and offered to give him a tour of the whole facility. Cassidy looking at his watch, noticing it was twenty to four said, "How long will this tour take?"
"About an hour."
"I'll have to take a rain check on the tour."
"Are you sure you wouldn't want to reconsider? It's a wonderful tour."
"I'm sure it is. I'll have to do it some other time."
"Oh," she said, "Come on. It'll only take a couple of minutes."
"You said it would only take an hour. Please tell me where C. Dante Lou Frappe's office is." "Fine." she says after a sigh.
A few minutes later. Ten to four. A tall man, probably six-foot-five approaches Cassidy, who is sitting down on a metal folding chair in a hallway near the secretary's desk, and says, "Mister Frappe is a very busy man as you know. Are you sure you wouldn't consider coming another day? Say a week from now."
"Well I'm here today."
"Yes and we appreciate you making the trip.""However what?"
"Like I said, he's very busy. If you could come back a week from now.""This mister Frappe can't indulge me for a couple of minutes. Ten at the most."
"If Mister Frappe were here right now he'd tell you that he'd rather you come back in two weeks.""You said a week."
"We would like it if you came back later.""If you didn't want me to come here today why did Mister Frappe's secretary tell me to come."
"She must have made a mistake. She must have thought you were somebody else.""Who?"
"I'm not at liberty to discuss that.""If you were at liberty what would you say?"
"Please leave sir."
"I'd rather not," says Cassidy, "Because when I write up this article about the egg whites, or better put a lack of them, - if I don't talk to Mister Frappe - I'll be forced to write that he refused to be commented. That he instead sent broke his appointment and sent his tallest associate to intimidate me as best he could. Probably with threats of violence or imply as much. I could very easily make Cante Loupe Poultry and Beef look quite sinister; evil, as if hiding something. So if you have nothing to hide, which I don't believe you do, why hide?"
"I'm not the tallest associate Mr. Frappe has. We have a guy who's six-nine. I'm only six-five.""You're still pretty tall. Tall enough to be intimidating without saying a word."
"I wasn't sent to intimidate you."
"If that's true they could have sent someone shorter to give me the 'come back next week' routine. Instead they sent the tallest..."
"...second..."
"...second tallest guy they could find," says Cassidy, "Now I don't want to write an article accusing this company of wrongdoing, perhaps in doing illegal things, but without a comment by Mister Frappe to put this egg white thing into perspective, I really don't have any other choice."
"Fine," says The Tall Man after thinking over Cassidy's threat, "Five minutes."
A few minutes later The Tall Man and Cassidy find themselves in Mister Frappe's office while he's on the phone with a customer, "Yes," he says to the customer, "We're dealing with this irregularity as fast as we can. We're sorry for the inconvenience.......you can rest assured that the rest our meat products and dairy are still of the highest quality.......this egg white problem will quickly be resolved as soon as possible you have my word..." Mister Frappe puts the phone back on the receiver after saying, "have a nice day," but when he says Cassidy in the room he gives The Tall Man a mean look and says, "I thought I told you to tell Mister Rhodes to come back next week."
"He insisted on speaking with you today."
"And I insisted on speaking with him in two weeks."
Cassidy says, "I thought you said a week."
"Mister Rhodes," says Mister Frappe, "Clique as it may sound good help is truly hard to find. You ask them not to let the press in until we have something to tell them, so as not to waste theirs and our time, and they let them in anyway."
"Well seeing how I'm already here why not make the most of it and let me get a quote or two."
"Tenacious, aren't we? Patient you are not it seems."
"I guess so."
"There is no problem that time will not eventually solve."
"Is that your first comment?"
"First and second."
"So this egg white will go away in a couple of days? The egg white problem is being solved as we speak."
"How exactly is the problem being solved? My readers are going to want to know."
"Goodbye Mister Rhodes," then he signals The Tall Man to open the door for Cassidy so he can escort himself out of his office, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." As Cassidy lets himself out of Mister Frappe's office he says, "This isn't over."
"Yes, Mister Rhodes, it is."
Cassidy Rhodes leaves Mister Frappe's Office. He is now alone in the room with The Tall Man. While standing, near his desk draw, he says, "You have disobeyed me."
"I thought..."
"...you do not think. You are not allowed to."
"I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
"I should have never sent an eggplant to do a cantaloupe's job."
"I'm sorry. I won't fail you again."
"I know." Suddenly Mister Frappe reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a gun. Before The Tall Man could possibly react he fires it at The Tall Man killing him instantly. The Tall Man's body falls to the ground and transforms into an eggplant with a hole in it. Mister Frappe's goes to the phone and presses a number on its speed dial. "It's Dante. I have a job for you."
Cassidy Rhodes was in his apartment getting a smoothie ready. He had bananas, carrots, chopped up cantaloupes & watermelon, crushed ice and protein powder. He poured all of them into a blender. He was about to turn it on when his phone rings. He answers it. "Hello. Cassidy Rhodes here."
"They're coming for you. Go out the fire escape now while you still have a chance."
"Excuse me?"
"You haven't much time. You have to get out now."
"I think you have the wrong number, sir." Cassidy hangs up and turns on the blender. It's whirring is loud.
Cassidy watches as solid matter quickly turns into liquid, distracted by what appears to be bananas, melon pieces he cut with a large knife on the counter, and carrots turning into slush for no apparent reason (because the blades are moving too fast to be seen). He washes the knife by pouring faucet water over it and drying it with a paper towel. Now Cassidy's about to turn the blender off when he feels something wrap around his throat and press down on it tightly, painfully. He uses his hands to figure out what the object around his neck is. His fingers tell him its a wire of some kind. Probably piano wire. He uses his hand to try and get the wire off his neck. He's able to wedge his hand under the wire to create a buffer between the sharp piano wire and his throat. However the person holding it is starting to apply more strength to his grip on it. Cassidy knows he has very little time now so he makes a desperate move and head butts his attacker with the back of his head. It works. His attacker is disoriented enough that he loosens his hold on him. Cassidy uses this to his advantage by grabbing the container off the blender's motor base. He smacks his attacker over the head with the dense glass container. Before Cassidy could find out what impact this had on his attacker he rushes over to the counter grabs the knife he used to cut the melons with, and stabs his attacker several times. He falls to the ground while Cassidy hovers him with a knife dripping a strange color. Cassidy notices this and is perplexed by the lack of red that would indicate it was blood. As his attacker is dying Cassidy places part of the knife under his nose and smells it. It doesn't smell like blood but he recognizes the smell. He places the tip of the knife on his tongue. "What are you?" he asks his attacker, not believing he just asked the question in the first place. "I'm a patriot," he answers, "A soldier for a cause worth fighting for."
"What cause is that?"
Instead of answering Cassidy's answer he comments on the leftover melon pieces, carrots and bananas on the counter Cassidy didn't put in the smoothie (that is now on the floor next to the container). "They will be avenged," he says, "Skin for skin. Your skin will be ours."
"What?" The tall attacker loses consciousness.
Suddenly someone taps on Cassidy's window from the fire escape. Cassidy lifts up the knife ready to defend himself from another attacker. However this stranger, noticing this from the window, says, "I come in peace. Can I come in?"
"Who are you first?"
"I'm the man who just called you. I guess I called too late."
"He's dead now so I wouldn't worry about it."
"He's not dead."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because he still looks human."
"Looks human?"
Suddenly, the attacker's large nearly seven foot body transforms into a cantaloupe with multiple wounds to its flesh. Cassidy looks at the man still standing in his fire escape and back to the cantaloupe that only a few seconds earlier was human. "What the hell is going on?"
"Can I come in?"
"The windows already opened," he says then mumbles, "I guess that's how he came in."
The Man in the fire escape enters his apartment. "I'm George."
"Cassidy."
"Cassidy from The Colt City Gazette."
"How did you know that?"
"You're not surprised that I know your phone number and your address but you're surprised that I know your name."
"How do you know any of them?"
"I've been watching Canta Loupe Poultry and Beef for a long time. I like to listen to their phone chatter, especially C. Dante Lou Frappe's. They're much more candid on the phone."
"So how do you know where I live?"
"He sent this cantaloupe to kill you."
"Why?"
"You were at his office today. You tell me. Did you give him any reason to want to kill you?"
"No I was just asking about the egg whites."
"I guess he didn't like you snooping around."
"That doesn't explain why he'd want to kill me."
"Mister Frappe's a paranoid man and if you knew what I knew about him you'd understand why."
"What do you know about him?"
"I know that Mister Frappe's name is not Mister Frappe."
"What is it then?"
"No human could pronounce it. Even carrots struggle."
"What is Mister Frappe hiding that he doesn't want me to discover?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"I was just attacked by a man who turned into a cantaloupe after I killed him. I think I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."
"Okay," says George, "But this might be a little hard to believe."
"Try me," he says as puts the knife he was holding on the nearby counter, "What's their secret?"
"That they don't come from Earth."
"Where do they come from? Venus?"
"No," George says, "They come from the Planet Melo in the Cucurbit Galaxy, next to Aceae."
"Oh."
"I knew you wouldn't believe me. Most people don't."
"I said I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. So let me hear it all before I don't doubt you."
"So what do they want? Why are they here on Earth?"
"On the Planet Melo there are many forms of life but the two ones that matter are The Grapefruits and The Cantaloupes. They are the movers and shakers of that world. However they've been at war with each other for thousands of years and so the world of Melo found itself in an uneasy peace because of this stalemate. Most of the cantaloupes and grapefruits have abandoned the desire for war but there are some who will do anything to have it return."
"What does this have to do with me and egg whites?"
"The cantaloupes were not able to beat the grapefruits, because overall, they were not strong enough. And neither are the grapefruits strong enough to overcome the cantaloupes. Like I said, 'stalemate'."
"So why are they here on Earth?"
"The war-mongering cantaloupes have been looking for an edge that would allow them victory once and for all. They found it here on Earth. You see they realized that if they could be many times larger and many smarter than the grapefruits they would be able to destroy them easily. On Melo, such a large scale operation as they are attempting here would not go unnoticed and they know it. However since Earth is outside of our jurisdiction, as it were; too far to be monitored properly they've been able to operate with no impunity."
"What are they doing here?"
"The fruit you just killed is an example."
Cassidy looks at the large cantaloupe on the floor who he knows moments earlier tried to strangle him to death with piano wire. "Do you notice anything about the cantaloupe that's a bit strange?"
"Yeah," Cassidy says, "The fact that he tried to strangle me to death is pretty strange."
"Do you notice anything else?"
"He's honeydew?"
"He's much larger than a normal cantaloupe don't you think?"
"I don't know what the size of a walking, talking cantaloupe is supposed to be."
"Well take my word for it. He's at least five times the size of a normal cantaloupe from Melo."
"How can that be?"
"Egg whites."
"Egg whites?"
"Mister Frappe's goons, of which our friend here was the most exceptional specimen, is one of few that are currently active. But there are many pending. You see C. Dante Lou Frappe is breeding an army of superior cantaloupes, and other loyal races of fruit, to wage a final war on The Grapefruits and they will win if we don't stop them."
"Why do they need all the egg whites in the tri-county area?"
"They're starting with the tri-county area. Next they'll take over the whole state, then the whole country and then they'll take the whole world's supply of Egg Whites in order to fuel Mister Frappe's army. In a couple of weeks, if all goes according to plan, no one on Earth will be able to have a decent omelet; pastry or other baked good ever again. Unless we stop them."
"Why egg whites?"
"Because they're an excellent source of protein."
"And how do you plan to stop them?"
"I have a plan."
An hour or so later Cassidy and George get out of George's car. They are less than a mile away from Canta Loupes Poultry and Beef when George pulls to the shoulder and says, "From here on in we're on foot." He gets out of the car after popping the trunk. Cassidy follows him and finds George retrieving strange weapons from it. "What are those?"
"This here is a fruit bomb," he says while putting them into a small bag for himself and later a small bag for Cassidy, "It release an ultra psionic frequency that only fruit can hear. Anything within a hundred yard radius that hears it will become so disoriented that they'll temporarily lose the ability to hold onto human form."
"For how long?"
"Three minutes."
"Are all the guards fruit?"
"Yes. At this hour every last one of them is. Human labor costs too much and Mister Frappe is a
cheapskate." George hands him a small burlap bag filled with fruit bombs. As he grabs the bag from George's hands he says, "So once these fruit bombs go off what then?"
"Step on them. Eat them. Whatever gets the job done."
Before he closes the trunk he retrieves a pair of head phones, thick kinds that construction workers use especially around jack hammers. He puts them on his ear. Cassidy leans over to the look inside trunk. He finds no spare headphones for himself. Cassidy wants to say something but George slams the trunk closed and says, "Let's move out," before he could mumble the words "Are you..." and trail off to nothingness. Suddenly Cassidy's phone rings and goes to answer it. It's his boss. "How's the story coming along? Will I be able to have a decent omlete for breakfast or do I hope in vain?"
"I wasn't sent to intimidate you."
"If that's true they could have sent someone shorter to give me the 'come back next week' routine. Instead they sent the tallest..."
"...second..."
"...second tallest guy they could find," says Cassidy, "Now I don't want to write an article accusing this company of wrongdoing, perhaps in doing illegal things, but without a comment by Mister Frappe to put this egg white thing into perspective, I really don't have any other choice."
"Fine," says The Tall Man after thinking over Cassidy's threat, "Five minutes."
A few minutes later The Tall Man and Cassidy find themselves in Mister Frappe's office while he's on the phone with a customer, "Yes," he says to the customer, "We're dealing with this irregularity as fast as we can. We're sorry for the inconvenience.......you can rest assured that the rest our meat products and dairy are still of the highest quality.......this egg white problem will quickly be resolved as soon as possible you have my word..." Mister Frappe puts the phone back on the receiver after saying, "have a nice day," but when he says Cassidy in the room he gives The Tall Man a mean look and says, "I thought I told you to tell Mister Rhodes to come back next week."
"He insisted on speaking with you today."
"And I insisted on speaking with him in two weeks."
Cassidy says, "I thought you said a week."
"Mister Rhodes," says Mister Frappe, "Clique as it may sound good help is truly hard to find. You ask them not to let the press in until we have something to tell them, so as not to waste theirs and our time, and they let them in anyway."
"Well seeing how I'm already here why not make the most of it and let me get a quote or two."
"Tenacious, aren't we? Patient you are not it seems."
"I guess so."
"There is no problem that time will not eventually solve."
"Is that your first comment?"
"First and second."
"So this egg white will go away in a couple of days? The egg white problem is being solved as we speak."
"How exactly is the problem being solved? My readers are going to want to know."
"Goodbye Mister Rhodes," then he signals The Tall Man to open the door for Cassidy so he can escort himself out of his office, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." As Cassidy lets himself out of Mister Frappe's office he says, "This isn't over."
"Yes, Mister Rhodes, it is."
Cassidy Rhodes leaves Mister Frappe's Office. He is now alone in the room with The Tall Man. While standing, near his desk draw, he says, "You have disobeyed me."
"I thought..."
"...you do not think. You are not allowed to."
"I'm sorry. I won't do it again."
"I should have never sent an eggplant to do a cantaloupe's job."
"I'm sorry. I won't fail you again."
"I know." Suddenly Mister Frappe reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a gun. Before The Tall Man could possibly react he fires it at The Tall Man killing him instantly. The Tall Man's body falls to the ground and transforms into an eggplant with a hole in it. Mister Frappe's goes to the phone and presses a number on its speed dial. "It's Dante. I have a job for you."
Cassidy Rhodes was in his apartment getting a smoothie ready. He had bananas, carrots, chopped up cantaloupes & watermelon, crushed ice and protein powder. He poured all of them into a blender. He was about to turn it on when his phone rings. He answers it. "Hello. Cassidy Rhodes here."
"They're coming for you. Go out the fire escape now while you still have a chance."
"Excuse me?"
"You haven't much time. You have to get out now."
"I think you have the wrong number, sir." Cassidy hangs up and turns on the blender. It's whirring is loud.
Cassidy watches as solid matter quickly turns into liquid, distracted by what appears to be bananas, melon pieces he cut with a large knife on the counter, and carrots turning into slush for no apparent reason (because the blades are moving too fast to be seen). He washes the knife by pouring faucet water over it and drying it with a paper towel. Now Cassidy's about to turn the blender off when he feels something wrap around his throat and press down on it tightly, painfully. He uses his hands to figure out what the object around his neck is. His fingers tell him its a wire of some kind. Probably piano wire. He uses his hand to try and get the wire off his neck. He's able to wedge his hand under the wire to create a buffer between the sharp piano wire and his throat. However the person holding it is starting to apply more strength to his grip on it. Cassidy knows he has very little time now so he makes a desperate move and head butts his attacker with the back of his head. It works. His attacker is disoriented enough that he loosens his hold on him. Cassidy uses this to his advantage by grabbing the container off the blender's motor base. He smacks his attacker over the head with the dense glass container. Before Cassidy could find out what impact this had on his attacker he rushes over to the counter grabs the knife he used to cut the melons with, and stabs his attacker several times. He falls to the ground while Cassidy hovers him with a knife dripping a strange color. Cassidy notices this and is perplexed by the lack of red that would indicate it was blood. As his attacker is dying Cassidy places part of the knife under his nose and smells it. It doesn't smell like blood but he recognizes the smell. He places the tip of the knife on his tongue. "What are you?" he asks his attacker, not believing he just asked the question in the first place. "I'm a patriot," he answers, "A soldier for a cause worth fighting for."
"What cause is that?"
Instead of answering Cassidy's answer he comments on the leftover melon pieces, carrots and bananas on the counter Cassidy didn't put in the smoothie (that is now on the floor next to the container). "They will be avenged," he says, "Skin for skin. Your skin will be ours."
"What?" The tall attacker loses consciousness.
Suddenly someone taps on Cassidy's window from the fire escape. Cassidy lifts up the knife ready to defend himself from another attacker. However this stranger, noticing this from the window, says, "I come in peace. Can I come in?"
"Who are you first?"
"I'm the man who just called you. I guess I called too late."
"He's dead now so I wouldn't worry about it."
"He's not dead."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because he still looks human."
"Looks human?"
Suddenly, the attacker's large nearly seven foot body transforms into a cantaloupe with multiple wounds to its flesh. Cassidy looks at the man still standing in his fire escape and back to the cantaloupe that only a few seconds earlier was human. "What the hell is going on?"
"Can I come in?"
"The windows already opened," he says then mumbles, "I guess that's how he came in."
The Man in the fire escape enters his apartment. "I'm George."
"Cassidy."
"Cassidy from The Colt City Gazette."
"How did you know that?"
"You're not surprised that I know your phone number and your address but you're surprised that I know your name."
"How do you know any of them?"
"I've been watching Canta Loupe Poultry and Beef for a long time. I like to listen to their phone chatter, especially C. Dante Lou Frappe's. They're much more candid on the phone."
"So how do you know where I live?"
"He sent this cantaloupe to kill you."
"Why?"
"You were at his office today. You tell me. Did you give him any reason to want to kill you?"
"No I was just asking about the egg whites."
"I guess he didn't like you snooping around."
"That doesn't explain why he'd want to kill me."
"Mister Frappe's a paranoid man and if you knew what I knew about him you'd understand why."
"What do you know about him?"
"I know that Mister Frappe's name is not Mister Frappe."
"What is it then?"
"No human could pronounce it. Even carrots struggle."
"What is Mister Frappe hiding that he doesn't want me to discover?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"I was just attacked by a man who turned into a cantaloupe after I killed him. I think I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."
"Okay," says George, "But this might be a little hard to believe."
"Try me," he says as puts the knife he was holding on the nearby counter, "What's their secret?"
"That they don't come from Earth."
"Where do they come from? Venus?"
"No," George says, "They come from the Planet Melo in the Cucurbit Galaxy, next to Aceae."
"Oh."
"I knew you wouldn't believe me. Most people don't."
"I said I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. So let me hear it all before I don't doubt you."
"So what do they want? Why are they here on Earth?"
"On the Planet Melo there are many forms of life but the two ones that matter are The Grapefruits and The Cantaloupes. They are the movers and shakers of that world. However they've been at war with each other for thousands of years and so the world of Melo found itself in an uneasy peace because of this stalemate. Most of the cantaloupes and grapefruits have abandoned the desire for war but there are some who will do anything to have it return."
"What does this have to do with me and egg whites?"
"The cantaloupes were not able to beat the grapefruits, because overall, they were not strong enough. And neither are the grapefruits strong enough to overcome the cantaloupes. Like I said, 'stalemate'."
"So why are they here on Earth?"
"The war-mongering cantaloupes have been looking for an edge that would allow them victory once and for all. They found it here on Earth. You see they realized that if they could be many times larger and many smarter than the grapefruits they would be able to destroy them easily. On Melo, such a large scale operation as they are attempting here would not go unnoticed and they know it. However since Earth is outside of our jurisdiction, as it were; too far to be monitored properly they've been able to operate with no impunity."
"What are they doing here?"
"The fruit you just killed is an example."
Cassidy looks at the large cantaloupe on the floor who he knows moments earlier tried to strangle him to death with piano wire. "Do you notice anything about the cantaloupe that's a bit strange?"
"Yeah," Cassidy says, "The fact that he tried to strangle me to death is pretty strange."
"Do you notice anything else?"
"He's honeydew?"
"He's much larger than a normal cantaloupe don't you think?"
"I don't know what the size of a walking, talking cantaloupe is supposed to be."
"Well take my word for it. He's at least five times the size of a normal cantaloupe from Melo."
"How can that be?"
"Egg whites."
"Egg whites?"
"Mister Frappe's goons, of which our friend here was the most exceptional specimen, is one of few that are currently active. But there are many pending. You see C. Dante Lou Frappe is breeding an army of superior cantaloupes, and other loyal races of fruit, to wage a final war on The Grapefruits and they will win if we don't stop them."
"Why do they need all the egg whites in the tri-county area?"
"They're starting with the tri-county area. Next they'll take over the whole state, then the whole country and then they'll take the whole world's supply of Egg Whites in order to fuel Mister Frappe's army. In a couple of weeks, if all goes according to plan, no one on Earth will be able to have a decent omelet; pastry or other baked good ever again. Unless we stop them."
"Why egg whites?"
"Because they're an excellent source of protein."
"And how do you plan to stop them?"
"I have a plan."
An hour or so later Cassidy and George get out of George's car. They are less than a mile away from Canta Loupes Poultry and Beef when George pulls to the shoulder and says, "From here on in we're on foot." He gets out of the car after popping the trunk. Cassidy follows him and finds George retrieving strange weapons from it. "What are those?"
"This here is a fruit bomb," he says while putting them into a small bag for himself and later a small bag for Cassidy, "It release an ultra psionic frequency that only fruit can hear. Anything within a hundred yard radius that hears it will become so disoriented that they'll temporarily lose the ability to hold onto human form."
"For how long?"
"Three minutes."
"Are all the guards fruit?"
"Yes. At this hour every last one of them is. Human labor costs too much and Mister Frappe is a
cheapskate." George hands him a small burlap bag filled with fruit bombs. As he grabs the bag from George's hands he says, "So once these fruit bombs go off what then?"
"Step on them. Eat them. Whatever gets the job done."
Before he closes the trunk he retrieves a pair of head phones, thick kinds that construction workers use especially around jack hammers. He puts them on his ear. Cassidy leans over to the look inside trunk. He finds no spare headphones for himself. Cassidy wants to say something but George slams the trunk closed and says, "Let's move out," before he could mumble the words "Are you..." and trail off to nothingness. Suddenly Cassidy's phone rings and goes to answer it. It's his boss. "How's the story coming along? Will I be able to have a decent omlete for breakfast or do I hope in vain?"
"I'm looking into that has we speak."
"You talked to the folks at Canta Lopue Poultry & Beef."
"Yeah," he said, "I'm about to have another face to face with them very soon."
"Very good. Let me know how it turned out."
"I will. Call me back in about hour."
"Will do."
Cassidy hangs up. George gives him a look as if to say, "Let's move out."
A few minutes later they arrive at Canta Lopue Poultry & Beef at one of the side fences. George sees several guards stationed near the front entrance. Completely diagonal from their current position. He reaches into his burlap bag and pulls out a dumbbell shaped fruit bomb. He twists the top activating green light. Then he throws it like a grenade as far as he can. He ducks but Cassidy doesn't. He didn't realize he had to. A few seconds later a silent, invisible explosion occurs causing all the humanoid guards at the front station to turn into various kinds of vegetables and fruit right before his eyes.
After finishing a mental count of some kind George jumps up in such a way that he immediately lands on the fence after his boost and climbs it very quickly. Cassidy, who is not so acrobatic, climbs up this fence but not as fast George did. Meanwhile George runs to all the guard fruits are currently incapacitated due to disorientation. He grabs a tomato-guard and smashes it between his hands. He rips a celery-guard in half. He steps on a banana-guard after after stepping on a gourd one. Cassidy observes George destroying fruit-guards with tremendous zeal. In a few short seconds he must have taken out at least a dozen.
Suddenly the banana-guard begins to slowly transform back to human form. Whatever spell the fruit-bomb cast was wearing off now. George is to busy destroying the remnant of the fruit-guards to notice that this maimed, though very much alive, banana is turning back into something that could be a threat. When he has a hand again he uses the crude arm he has at moment to try and grab the gun he dropped when he turned back into a banana. This banana-guard aims the gun at the back of George's head. When he knows he has a good shot he pulls the trigger.
The following happened in a matter of seconds. Cassidy notices George standing for a moment. Then George falls to the ground and Cassidy looks around to figure out why. He sees The Banana Guard, currently half-banana, half-man, but quickly becoming the later with every passing second. He is holding a gun that is clearly still pointed in the direction of where George stood. Little bits of smoke is coming out of it. The Banana Guard finally notices Cassidy standing around. The morphing banana guard turns the gun in order to point it at Cassidy. Cassidy notices this reaches into his own burlap bag and retrieve the fruit bomb inside. He grabs it twists the top, causing the light to turn green, and throws it at the Banana Guard who purely reflex catches it. We can tell an "explosion" just occurred because the banana guard turned back into a banana again. Cassidy runs over to the banana picks it up, peels it and eats it. After doing this he rushes over to George's slain body and check his pulse. It's faint...fainter...and faintest till it's completely gone. Cassidy knows George has died because his body transformed back into a grapefruit upon expiration. A minute ago he was standing around squashing his enemies. Now he's a grapefruit standing between the two ears of noise-canceling jack-hammer headphones.
A few minutes later they arrive at Canta Lopue Poultry & Beef at one of the side fences. George sees several guards stationed near the front entrance. Completely diagonal from their current position. He reaches into his burlap bag and pulls out a dumbbell shaped fruit bomb. He twists the top activating green light. Then he throws it like a grenade as far as he can. He ducks but Cassidy doesn't. He didn't realize he had to. A few seconds later a silent, invisible explosion occurs causing all the humanoid guards at the front station to turn into various kinds of vegetables and fruit right before his eyes.
After finishing a mental count of some kind George jumps up in such a way that he immediately lands on the fence after his boost and climbs it very quickly. Cassidy, who is not so acrobatic, climbs up this fence but not as fast George did. Meanwhile George runs to all the guard fruits are currently incapacitated due to disorientation. He grabs a tomato-guard and smashes it between his hands. He rips a celery-guard in half. He steps on a banana-guard after after stepping on a gourd one. Cassidy observes George destroying fruit-guards with tremendous zeal. In a few short seconds he must have taken out at least a dozen.
Suddenly the banana-guard begins to slowly transform back to human form. Whatever spell the fruit-bomb cast was wearing off now. George is to busy destroying the remnant of the fruit-guards to notice that this maimed, though very much alive, banana is turning back into something that could be a threat. When he has a hand again he uses the crude arm he has at moment to try and grab the gun he dropped when he turned back into a banana. This banana-guard aims the gun at the back of George's head. When he knows he has a good shot he pulls the trigger.
The following happened in a matter of seconds. Cassidy notices George standing for a moment. Then George falls to the ground and Cassidy looks around to figure out why. He sees The Banana Guard, currently half-banana, half-man, but quickly becoming the later with every passing second. He is holding a gun that is clearly still pointed in the direction of where George stood. Little bits of smoke is coming out of it. The Banana Guard finally notices Cassidy standing around. The morphing banana guard turns the gun in order to point it at Cassidy. Cassidy notices this reaches into his own burlap bag and retrieve the fruit bomb inside. He grabs it twists the top, causing the light to turn green, and throws it at the Banana Guard who purely reflex catches it. We can tell an "explosion" just occurred because the banana guard turned back into a banana again. Cassidy runs over to the banana picks it up, peels it and eats it. After doing this he rushes over to George's slain body and check his pulse. It's faint...fainter...and faintest till it's completely gone. Cassidy knows George has died because his body transformed back into a grapefruit upon expiration. A minute ago he was standing around squashing his enemies. Now he's a grapefruit standing between the two ears of noise-canceling jack-hammer headphones.
Cassidy walks over to the grapefruit and the headphones and retrieves the burlap sack that was next to them. Suddenly guns shots are fired and Cassidy ducks. He lifts his head up a little and sees about a twenty guards walking firing their their ammo in his direction. They fire frantically but with amazing accuracy. While on his stomach Cassidy reaches for one of the burlap sacks and fetches one of the fruit bombs from it. Cassidy twists the top activating it and makes a daring move by jumping up while enemy fire surrounds him, and throws the fruit bomb as far as he can, then ducks again. He knows the fruit bomb worked when the gunfire ceases. He looks up and sees fruit everywhere and empty clothes from when they rolled out of them in mid-transformation.
Cassidy runs to the front knowing he only as a couple of minutes to deal with all twenty. He destroys them in a variety of ways. For the softer fruits, such as bananas he just steps on them. For the harder fruits, with tougher skins, he grabs a sidearm that fell from the fruit guards hands when they transformed back into their respective species of fruit. With what's left of the ammo in each of the gun he fires a bullet into the part of the fruit he thinks would best approximate their head. He goes through three handguns before he destroys all twenty fruit-guards that tried to stop him before. When he finishes he returns to the burlap sacks, picks them up and goes to the compound using his memory to find Mister Frappe's targets.
Getting to Mister Frappe's office required Cassidy to run through many hallways and up many stairs. En route he had three confrontations with fruit guards, totaling to an average of fifty with an average of 16 or 17 per confrontation. Each confrontation had, more or less, the same structure. They would approach Cassidy firing their weapons with reckless, though accurate, abandon. He would duck or hide behind a corner, retrieve a fruit bomb from one of the two burlap bags and destroy the enemy fruit when they ceased to look human. Then he would destroy them in a variety of improvised manners including smashing them against a wall, eating a few of the bananas and one apple, ripping them apart or crushing them with his hands (and whatever he could think of at the time).
Cassidy was hovering outside of Mister Frappe's office. Before looked up and noticed a video camera looking down at the entrance to his office. He knew Mister Frappe could have been watching him. That it was possible that there were many video cameras throughout the Canta Lopue Poultry and Beef Adminstrative Compound with cameras he hadn't noticed. Cassidy was making up his mind of how to proceed next. He was holding a fruit bomb in his one of his hands. Does he activate the bomb here and hope the range is enough to take out whoever's on the other side? Does he hope that the door itself wouldn't with it's massive size and thickness somehow diminish the intensity of the frequency that scrambles their hold on human form allowing them to turn back into fruit. The door does look pretty thick. Cassidy thinks this over than makes up his mind. He opens the door but standing from at an obscure angle. When he notices on the wall adjacent to the burly door a huge bullet hole he knows there's someone in the office who doesn't want him to come in.
Cassidy tentatively walks to the door to see if the bit that's already open will allow him to see more of what's happening inside and get a better understanding of the situation inside. He notices Mister Frappe frantically opening the window to escape. He is holding a gun in his right hand and opening the bulky window with his left. He is ready to jump out of the window and take his chances on the ground three stories below. Cassidy, quickly realizing he has very little time, runs to the window to catch up to Mister Frappe. While running he twists the top of fruit bomb, activating it. Mister Frappe halfway out of the window notices him running toward him so he fires the gun he is holding in his right hand. He misses due to the obscurity of his angle and hits a book on his bookcase instead.
Cassidy reaches the window but Mister Frappe was able to jump out of it in time. Cassidy decides not to go jump out of it himself but elects to throw the fruit bomb instead. He knows it worked when in mid-air Mister Frappe transformed into a cantalopue in midflight and then a few seconds later hit tarmac of the parking lot below him and splattered into many gooey pieces of former fruit CEO. He walks out of Mister Frappe's office into the hallway. He has no fruit bombs on him because he left the burlap sacks at the front of the door. He goes to retrieve them when he hears a voice call out to him. "You're never going to stop us..." he says. Cassidy turns to see that at the other end of the long hallway, guarding the door out of here, is a badly bruised, to the point of looking like a mutant, guard pointing a gun at him. Cassidy says, "You can walk away from this. I'm only here because Mister Frappe sent someone to kill me. Since Mister Frappe is gone I have no cause against you or anyone here. You can walk away from this."
"There's no walking away from this. Planet Melo must be freed from the mongrel race of grapefruits. From all abonimations of citrus. You may have stopped our army today but you can't stop us forever. We will perservere forever. May a million years of cantalopue supremacy reign on Melo. May we reign forever." Suddenly, Cassidy's phone rings and continues ringing. The ringtone causes the mutant guard to become distracted on account of him using his mind and eyes to figure out where the ringings's coming from. This fortunate turn of events for Cassidy gives him enough time to duck to the ground, grab a fruit bomb and twist its top. "No!" yells the guard just before he turned back into a banana. "NO!"
Cassidy walks over to the guard in banana form and steps on him. Cassidy's phone is still ringing when he does this. He grabs the gun, the guard was holding while he still looked human. He waits a few seconds after grabbing the discarded sidearm, ready to fire it if necessary. When he realizes no one will probably run up the stairs to confront him. He drops the gun on the floor and reaches into his pocket to answer the phone. He sees a message on the panel reading: 1 MISSED CALL, and checks to see who called him. He recongizes the number so he calls him. "It's Cassidy. Thanks for calling me....yeah there was no interview...yeah, no interview...I don't know all the details yet but it seems that the owner of Canta Lopue Poultry and Beef and his private security force have fled town for some reason."
"Fled town? Why would they leave town?"
"I'm personally curious to find that out myself."
"How will this affect the egg whites?"
"There'll probably be a couple of days for things to get back to normal. If you can manage cereal until then I'm sure you'll be able able to have all the omletes you want next week."
"That's good news. I look forward to reading your article."
Cassidy says, "So do I", and hangs up. He looks at the smooshed banana guard on the floor and says to it, "I can't tell him the truth. I can't tell anyone it. Who'd believe me? They'd put me in a padded till the end of my days. So you know what I'll tell every one? I'll tell them whatever I think they'll believe. Corruption at Canta Lopue Poultry and Beef. What kind of corruption?" he says to the smooshed banana, "Does it matter? As long as they have their omletes next week do you really think they'll care what you folks here were really doing. Not a chance. They just want their egg whites."
Monday, November 22, 2010
Why Y is a Vowel and a Consonant
I will answer for you this evening one of the greatest riddles ever given to man by pomp and circumstance. The next few paraphrases shall reveal why the letter Y is considered both a consonant and a vowel. But first things first, the future, or present depending on your point of view.
When people learn to read they’re told that every word consists of vowels and consonants. That no word in the English language is nothing but vowels and no word is only consonants. Eventually we figure out the exception to the rule. Usually in Gym glass. We bring this fact to the attention of our teacher who reminds us that the word is actually an abbreviation for the word gymnasium “which we can both tell has not only one vowel but three: ‘A’, ‘I’, ‘U’,” then he or she proceeds to remind you that abbreviations are not words which is why you can’t use them in Scrabble. You try to remind me of the time they used the word scuba in a Scrabble game because this teacher happens to be a family friend and on one occasion you played Scrabble against them. “Scuba’s an acronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus”. Aren’t acronyms abbreviations and if Scrabble recognizes scuba as a word why not gym. And if gym is recognized as a word in of itself wouldn’t that mean there’re words without vowels.”
“Well that’s a very good question.” Suddenly he or she jumps up from their chair and tells you there phone rang even though you didn’t hear anything. “Trust me it went off,” and then they leave the room. Oftentimes enough you don’t need to go into the scuba/scrabble example. The word gym being short for gymnasium is more than enough. Your faith in the linguistic dogma of vowels and consonants is once again restored (in fact one could argue it is a little stronger because it survived scrutiny). You go about the rest of the day until you come across another problem with “the dogma”. Usually in music class. While you’re pretending to play the trumpet and resist the urge to tell the tuba player that the tuba is the cymbal of The Brass World, as that is in the percussion, you realize that there is another word without a vowel. But unlike gym it doesn’t come with an easy way out for the teacher. You return to the teacher during his lunch break and ask him, while he’s eating fast food, “What about the word rhythm? It’s got no vowels.” The teacher might answer, “The word rhythm is Greek and short for rythmos, which contains one vowel: an O. Man you’re pretty smart. Have you considered talking to the principal to see if you can skip a grade?”
“No, I haven’t,” you say and just after you decide to leave you realize something while casually glancing at him eating a part of his meal. “What about the word Fry? There’s no vowels there.”
“Yes but ‘fry’ is short for frying.”
“Doesn’t an ‘ing’ at the end of a word only mean it’s the present participle. Wouldn’t that mean that the word the actual word is fry and not just a longer word built from F-R-Y.”
“That is a very intelligent question but my phone is ringing. I must see to it before I can see to you.”
“I see it on the desk, charging. It’s not doing anything…but charging, I guess.”
“So it is,” he says, “Very perspective of you to notice that. Like I was saying if you should talk to the principal I could put in a very good letter of recommendation. In fact if we talk to the principal or the superintendent today I’m sure we could get you into the fourth grade first thing in the morning.”
“Today’s Friday. That would make tomorrow Saturday. Wouldn’t school be closed?”
“You know how they say there’s time better than now. Well I happen to think that starting tomorrow is highly underated.”
The kid, realizing something right there and then says, “Are you just saying this stuff tom avoid answering my questions?”
“Avoid your question? I would never dream of it. So how about we talk to the principal about getting in the fourth grade right nowish.”
“Yeah we can but can we just answer my question.”
“Fine,” he says while chewing on a fry and sipping his soda, “I’ll answer your question. Sometimes Y can be a vowel to.”
“But what about the word ‘you’. If ‘Y’s’ a vowel that means that with the word ‘you’ is a word that has no consents and I learned in class that every word has a consonant in it too.”
“Well in the case of ‘you’ and words like it y is a consonant too. In fact it’s more a vowel than a consonant than a vowel but it’s a both regardless.”
“Why?”
This was an answer the teacher did not have for the pupil. But I do. Now we travel to the past, or the future, depending on your point of view, to find the answer. In the year 2067 a series of government documents were declassified. This in itself would not be particularly important if not for one little fact. Unfortunately copies of these declassified documents found there ways into the hands of a very clever Elf named Randy who used his magical powers to break into one of the leading archives in this future word, which to him is the present and then used his power to send himself several decades into the past. He gave these documents to several of his contacts in the past, bloggers mostly. One blogger named Opium Android posted the following paraphrase of the documents contents. Because of the actions of one renegade elf from the future with way too many powers and the assistance of his associates we can finally know why Y is both a vowel and a consonant. Here is the story:
It happened sometime in the 1950s. A teacher was teaching her students about vowels. On the previous day a student was eating French fries during lunch, trying to ignore a stomach cramp while playing the saxophone in 6th period and visiting his grandparent’s grave after school, where the groundskeeper of the cemetery, a stranger to this kid, for no apparent reason says to him, while he's mourning, “It should have been you.” This student’s mother tries to assault him with her purse but the groundskeeper is able to run away as fast as his feet will carry him. It was while recollecting these otherwise obscure events of yesterday when he realized something. “FRY. RHYTHM. CRYPT. These words don’t have vowels in them.” He raises his hand and when the teacher calls on him she soon regrets her decision when her student says, “Umm. What about the words fry, rhythm and crypt. They don’t have any vowels in them. They’re all consonants.”
On the spot she improvises an explanation that the whole class quickly realizes is false and something made up on the spot. When five consecutive students each ask her progressively harder questions for her to answer she uses her mouth to fake the sound of an alarm going off and says, “Well that’s the bell. You better get to your next class.” One of the students reminds her that “we still have twenty-seven minutes left”. Suddenly the teacher says, “Oh my god. It’s a fire alarm. We better go outside because this might not be a drill.” She quickly runs out of the classroom and towards the faculty room to hide. She hides there for a moment, assuming she’s alone, until a few of the teachers call out, “Mrs. Walter. What are you doing?”“Hiding.”
“From what? Why would you be hiding?”
“One of the students asked me about the grammatical rule of words always containing vowels and consnants. He brought up the words Fry, Rhythm and Crypt.”
“My lord,” one of the teachers said, “Well it was wise for you to leave the students alone and come here without saying a word. That was thinking.”
“Actually I did say something.”
“What? The fire alarm business, right.”
“Before then.”
“What could you have possibly said before then?”
“I said the whole vowel, consonant thing was because of something Aristotle said.”
“Something Aristotle said. You foolish strumpet do you know what you’ve done. You’ve just opened a modern day’s Pandora’s box but unlike that one ours doesn’t contain hope. We are done for. The very fabric of our reality shall now come undone when it was locked into irreconcilable paradox and causality contradicts reality so much that it negates it. You have doomed us all.”
“In my defense, what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say?"”
“You were supposed to give them all detention and perpetuate the myth of a permanent record should inquire any further into a question you cannot answer. Of course you don’t tell them the part about not being able to answer their question but you still threaten them with reprimand none-the-less. Now in your sloppy discipline you have doomed us all,” then he monologues, “You foolish, foolish girl straight out of university. It was certainly a dangerous thing for the superintendent to believe that maybe women could teach English to students instead of just home economics and art with a component of crafts. This is what happens when school districts elect eye candy for teachers over educators. If this vowel business is brought up at the next PTA meeting we are done for”
Another teacher cries out in despair, “What will we do? I don’t want the universe to unravel. I like the universe. It’s where I keep all my stuff.”
A different teacher says, “I don’t think reality itself will come undone but certainly the education system, through endless reforms that will take the soul out of its body and reduce its limbs to hunks of liability, will. In addition to demanding our resurrections they will probably ask us to die in the manner of Bushido, or perhaps we may spare ourselves of this and allow us to elect to drink Hemlock instead. That is if we found ourselves among a compassionate jury of course,” he turns to the woman teacher and says, “Aristotle, really? What were you thinking?”
The last teacher of the bunch to reveal their opinion says, “I recommend we find new professions before all of this hits the fan. I myself have always secretly desired to become a long shoresman working in Alaska or perhaps I could just as easily relocate myself to Massachusetts and Maine and become a sailor there just as easily there as in Juneau or Seattle."
“Our hope is lost,” said the first teacher to be upset, “We will soon be seen as disposable and possibly replaced by a computer one day. You may laugh now but one day we will be replaced by machines. Machines that are capable of teaching our children about consonants and vowels and punctuation; the functions of conjunctions and all manner of grammatical relevance. I feel that all hope must now be abandoned at the entrance of our own inferno, Dante style, in the most unfunny comedy ever written.”
“Perhaps all is not lost,” one of them says, “I have a friend who has connections to powerful people. Connections so close to the president that they could scratch his nose for him. I will give him a call.”.
“Pray that he answers or else may God have mercy on us all.”
Later that day the teacher called his friend in Washington. The friend in Washington ran from one end of The White House to the other until he found his way in The Oval Office while President Eisenhower was meeting with a trusted advisor for a daily brief. The President noticed this man’s apparent shortness of breath and asked him about it. This was the answer he gave, “Mister President I have news for you that is of the utmost importance.”
“Does it have something to do with the commies.”
“It’s bigger than that, sir.”
“What could be bigger than that?”
He explains the situation to President Eisenhower, who after his jaw drops in disbelief says, “My god. I’ll put my best men on it. We will not let any resource this country has at its disposal go unused. If we must incur Armageddon just to discover a solution to this problem than I would say that Armageddon under such circumstances would be most welcome.”
A few days later after the President consulted his top advisers including a new one named Randy who was “vertically challenged” and had pointy ears. It was he, the time traveling elf who released declassified documents from the future into a time when they were still classified who recommended the following solution. “They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You know what I say: Why have one cook when you can have two? If you got two cakes there’re no problems with having or eating. You can do both. I say we do that for the letter Y. I say we call it both a vowel and a consonant. Problem solved.”
One of the president’s advisors says, “He might be short and possibly evil, imbued with Satanic powers, but he does have a very good suggestion.”
“So it’s settled,” President Eisenhower, “From here on in Y is both a vowel and a consonant. This way all problems are resolved. Get the news out through the usual channels. Let this news leak like no news has ever leaked before.”
“Yes, Mister President,” said Randy the Elf, “we’ll get right on it.” Then he walked out of The Oval Office, into the hallway and teleported himself into the future to give a series of declassified documents to a blogger named Opium Android.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)