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?"

"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?"

"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'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.

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."