Baron Zemo's Lair. - "Happiness" part one.

Baron Zemo's Lair

"Happiness" part one.
Wednesday, 11-Aug-1999 22:40:23
63.14.30.183 writes:

Previously: Visionary and Fleabot left the Lair Legion to find adventure, but instead find neverending corn. After they had been missing for a while, Lisa sends her lovely, though constantly sad, clone Asil (the creation of Dr. Moo), on a quest to find and return the two lost Legionnaires. Find them she did. As for how they returned, well... that's kind of the point of this story.

"Happiness"
Chapter one

"Well, um…" Visionary noted in his usual intelligent manner. "That's different."

"Yes… I think you're right." Asil observed, although this time the reflex agreement was tinged by a trace of genuine awe at something other than Visionary. Since finally achieving her life's goal and finding 'the great man' (and he was, dammit… no matter what that annoying-little-disease-ridden-robotic-insect insisted), she had been following him blindly through more corn than her cloned mind would have dreamed possible. She would have felt awkward about complaining if Visionary hadn't voiced his stern disapproval of the abundance of it as well. (He did not, as the repugnant little Fleabot put it, 'whine endlessly' about it. Great men don't do such things, something that obviously escaped the microscopic brain of their robotic traveling companion.)

However, though the great man was never wrong, he was certainly more right than usual this time. After what seemed like days of hiking the corn had suddenly come to an abrupt and jarring halt. Within the immense circular clearing that presented itself rose up the most massive machine Asil had ever beheld. (Admittedly, she was less than a month old, but still…). Had her depressing, hardship strewn life inclined her to a poetic mindset, she might have described the scene as an unholy conflagration of steel and ironworks, twisted by the ambitions of an insane inventor into a monument to a mechanical age long since dead. A death, however, that the contraption was desperately trying to escape, clawing it's way from the grave to thrust up towards a heaven that would surely reject such an abomination. Thankfully, though, Visionary had reminded her that brevity is the true soul of wit. It was merely, as he put it, 'different'.

"What the hell…?!" Fleabot exclaimed, nowhere near as elegantly. "That's… but why would… who…" The tiny robot took a deep breath and began again. "What the hell…?"

"It's a machine of some sort" Visionary offered helpfully, since the insect was obviously having trouble grasping the obvious. "A rather large one."

For a great man, Asil noted, he was extremely generous to those not as gifted as himself.

"I can see that!" the ungrateful vermin snapped. "In fact, to be specific, it's a five-story replica of one of NTU-150's inventions!"

"That's odd" Visionary noted correctly. "Why would Enty build something way out here in the corn? Admittedly, there's plenty of room… but still…"

"I sincerely doubt NTU had anything to do with it" Fleabot noted gravely. "Especially considering which invention it is…"

"It kind of looks like the 'nuclear-powered bidet' he built" Visionary answered after carefully pondering the device. "Remember that? It took two hours to pull spiffy's head back out of the bathroom ceiling…"

"Admittedly, a humongous, nuclear-powered bathroom fixture sitting in the middle of an immense field of corn would be disturbing, but this is even worse." The tiny robot answered, biting a microscopic lip. "However, it just may explain why we've been stuck in this never-ending stretch of corn-limbo…"

Magnanimously, Visionary waited, allowing Fleabot to make the dramatic revelation. Yes, Asil thought, a very generous great man indeed.

"Um… well…?" he finally prodded.

"Don't you recognize it?" Fleabot asked, shocked. "I'd think that even you couldn't forget a thing like that…"

Asil stiffled a growl. "Are you *sure* I couldn't just step on him?" she pleaded to Visionary.

Fleabot sighed. "It's the Happy Place Conduit, built on a tremendous scale…" he explained, jumping back to his usual (undeserved) spot on Visionary's shoulder, "… and while I don't know how just yet, I'm betting it means that we're all in serious trouble."

The Diabolical Dr. Moo waited patiently in the receptionist area, sipping from her mug and frowning to herself. The damn secretary always put too much coffee in her cream. Still, it wouldn't hurt to have that extra caffeine jolt this morning… the day promised to be big. She always needed to keep her wits about her when dealing with 'The Worm'. That's how she most often thought of him, and not just as any worm… usually as the most unattractive variety one could find in the waste products of diseased bulls. As an expert in such matters, she usually had a variety of species to choose from. This, at least, left her the slight entertainment of deciding which parasite to compare him to today. She was leaning towards Dictyocaulus Viviparus this morning… the bovine lungworm.

Thankfully, however, the planning stages of this little caper were finished. By eight AM things should go fully operational, and by noon she expected the full involvement of her sister's Lair Legion. At that point it would, of course, be too late for them to do anything. Still, at the very least it should liven things up a bit.

"You can go in now, Miss Moo" the secretary, Janet, informed her in her nasally voice. Moo stifled the urge to shove that 'Miss' back down her pencil-thin throat. She did, however, decide that when this was all over with, Janet's beehive hair-do would make a lovely nest in which Davidowicz could raise a family of little white vermin.

For now, she simply grunted acknowledgment and crossed through the office door. If the secretary was more clichéd than the characters on most sitcoms, it was only because she was trying to please a boss with zero originality himself. The office beyond the reception area was immense, and sparsely decorated in bad Art Deco. Making her way across the polished black marble floor towards the huge desk, Moo decided that she had put up with the annoying little twerp far longer than any sentient being (that would leave out Janet) should have to. In fact, she decided with a grimace, he may hit Sarcocystis Cruzi levels today… or maybe even (Eew) Fasciola Hepatica. Then again, that might just be an insult to the parasites…

She took a seat in one of the purposefully uncomfortable chairs placed before the tremendous (and noticeably elevated) desk. The Worm continued to study reports on his desk (for what purpose, she had no idea. Perhaps he was mesmerized by the pretty pie charts...), but then finally looked up to acknowledge her presence. With his features lit from beneath by blue neon lights, she supposed he thought himself impressive looking. To her, the light shining up his nostrils simply made it clear how rarely the man clipped his nose-hairs.

"So…" he began, apparently wracking his mind for something significant to say. "Today's the day."

"Yep" Moo agreed, absently checking her watch. If The Worm didn't drone on too long, there might be time for a trip to the day spa before all hell broke loose…

"Everything is ready, then?" He asked, leaning back in his chair and absently tapping that asinine hook that he had in place of a right hand on his desk blotter.

"That *is* why 'today's the day', is it not?" Moo pointed out.

He shot her an irritated glance, but ultimately decided to let it pass. "Finally…" he began instead, "the time has come to make my dreams a reality, to change the course of human destiny forever, to become like unto a god to my former colleagues!!!"

The intercom on his desk buzzed. "I have your proctologist on line one, sir…" Janet informed them in her nasally voice. "He says he'll be able to squeeze you in for your check-up at ten A.M…"

Realizing that the moment was gone, The Worm dove for the receiver. "I thought I told you to hold my calls!" he whined. "Well, yes… Does it have to be today? I had plans… No, don't reschedule with Dr. Monroe… the man has hands that could span a tennis racquet. What? I don't think he's married…"

Moo sighed. "Well, you obviously have a big day ahead of you, your godliness." She drained the last of her cream and coffee and rose to leave. "We go operational in under an hour… I'll catch you at the dedication."

"Yes, quite…" he managed before she made it out the door. "You may go. Remember, today's the big…!"

She rolled her eyes as she shut the door behind her, cutting him off. Definitely 'Fasciola Hepatica'.

"Well, that's certainly hideous…" Cheryl observed calmly. "What is it?"

Lisa checked the invoice, then squinted at the large, mangled chunk of granite. "I think this one's Donar…"

"Really?" the other woman replied, tilting her head to the side and squinting as well. In truth, all of the statues that had been delivered that day for installation in the Lair Legion's courtyard leaned more towards abstract art than towards the heroic figures they were supposed to represent. "I guess I can kind of see it… There's his head, and that would be a shoulder… I *really* hope that's Mjalcom he's gripping…" She shook her head to clear it of undesired imagery, then turned back to Lisa. "The artist you hired certainly has an… unusual style."

The Lawyer-Legionnaire made a face. "Don't pin this on me… CSFB suggested her. Apparently he was under the impression that blind women make the best sculptors. She determined the likenesses entirely by touch."

"Aye" Donar confirmed, carrying another statue that actually had a decent resemblance to the obvious model. Cheryl briefly wondered how Space Ghost had gotten Emmanuelle Lewis to pose as him, but then realized that the child star probably didn't have much else to do with his time these days. With a grunt, the godly Legionnaire set it between the effeminate looking spiffy sculpture (which was already growing a thick coat of ivy) and the overweight likeness of the Dark Knight. "Verily, said woman was quite thorough in her inspection of us models."

"Yeah" Lisa agreed. "Especially for an 82 year old. I guess all that knitting helps to keep the fingers nimble."

Cheryl briefly wondered whether the blind octogenarian's needle work was any more recognizable than her masonry when her cellular phone rang. With a sign, she fished it out of her bag. "We really need to hire a secretary" she noted to Lisa as she raised the phone to her ear. "Hello, Lair Legion Public Relations office… Yes… I see…"

"If this is about the Norweigan bobsled team, the NRA, and the 2000 pounds of tuna salad in the foyer of the Governor's mansion, that was really for the public good…" Lisa began quickly. "Now, as for the sweet gerkins…"

Cheryl put her hand over the receiver. "Was that personal, dear, or Lair Legion business?" she inquired.

Lisa coughed delicately. "Well, I suppose, what with the taxpayers expenses and all, it couldn't be *too* personal…"

"Still, I probably don't want to hear about it" The PR spokesperson chimed in quickly. Making that separation between official team business and the Legionnaires leisure activities had saved her a ton of paperwork. Frankly, they didn't pay her well enough to handle everything. "Besides, this is something else… not bad news at all." She smiled happily. "Is there anybody on the team up for making a public appearance?"

"Wait…" Visionary interrupted. "What was that middle part again?"

Fleabot sighed visibly. "As you know, the Happy Place is another plane of existence… sort of a dimension of pure, unadulterated happiness. Prior to NTU's invention, the only way to get there was to undergo severe emotional distress…"

"Okay" Visionary agreed. That much he did know. It was the next part that kept losing him….

"NTU's conduit offered a space-time link based on the Emil Philbert Heisennocker principle. It put the universe in distress instead, thereby opening a gateway to the Happy Place. Since Enty's machine only employed a modest graviton flux, it warped reality on a much smaller scale… maybe causing an occasional wonky spin to the electrons of nearby atoms, but not much more…"

"Except when Yo was involved." Visionary pointed out. The first time his odd friend had turned on the conduit, things had gotten rather hairy.

"Yo?" Asil asked curiously.

"A pure thought being we're acquainted with." Fleabot provided. "Since thought and reality are merged on a very subtle level, Yo's interaction with NTU's machine had some minor side effects…"

"Minor?" Visionary cried indignantly. "It turned me into a mongoose!"

Fleabot rolled his eyes. "Yes, it made you people fuzzy, and turned you into a weasel…"

"Mongoose" Visionary corrected stubbornly.

"Hey, I read the files… you were a common ground weasel… but that's neither here nor… URk!" the robot let out a tiny grunt as Asil's heel smushed him into the rich soil.

"I believe he said 'Mongoose'" she pointed out coldly.

"Mongoose! Mongoose then!" Fleabot answered in a muffled voice from under her shoe.

"Better" Asil said approvingly. "You may continue."

Fleabot glared at her as she removed her foot. "Are you sure we can't toss her back into the petri dish she was congealed in?" He muttered to Visionary as he brushed himself off.

"I like her" he answered enthusiastically, with a wink at the attractive young woman. "Now, what does any of this have to do with us being sentenced to eternal damnation by corn?"

With one last disapproving glance at Asil, he continued. "If that truly is an enlarged Happy Place Conduit, it will likely employ a tremendous graviton flux to distress the surrounding universe. Instead of minor, inconsequential effects, it could conceivably warp time and space significantly!" He paused to see it this was sinking in. "When turned on, that machine could send a wave of energy out, distressing the fabric of the universe. Because of he chaotic nature of the distress, the effects would be random, and spread out through time in the space surrounding the machine. If we got caught in that wave while driving on the highway, we could conceivably be wrenched out of time itself!"

"Um…" Visionary said thoughtfully. "What was that middle part again?"

Fleabot sucked in his breath, but then glanced at Asil's shoe and apparently thought the better of what he was going to say. "We've been stuck in time and space, and that machine is the cause."

"Ah!" answered Visionary. He wondered why the little robot always took such a roundabout route to the real heart of the matter. "So how do we get unstuck?"

"We wait for that machine to turn on." Fleabot answered triumphantly.

Visionary was getting lost again. "But… but… you said we got stuck when it was turned on…"

The miniture robot nodded. "Yes, but the resulting wave traveled in time as well as space. It affected us in the past. Had it reached us in the present, we'd all be reclining in the Happy Place instead of corn hell. Once we catch up to the time when the machine was turned on, then we'll finally make that jump and be out of here once and for all."

Asil nodded. "And when would that be?"

"Well, if I calculate the distance we've traveled correctly, and the time-distortion wave conformed to Milligrant's constant for flux waves through inter-spatial anomalous quantum realities, then I'd say… right when that technician throws the switch." He answered, pointing.

Visionary turned from their spot just inside the corn. Sure enough, a man in a blue jumpsuit and yellow hard hat was watching a time clock near the base of the multi-story machine. When a whistle sounded he reached up with both hands and pulled a huge switch to the 'on' position.

The corn surrounding the construct on all sides rippled, then bent back as though suddenly hit by hurricane force winds. The Universe went fuzzy, and finally, in what was perhaps the most satisfying sight Visionary had every witnessed, the corn faded away. Above him the sky turned the deepest shade of pure blue that only the Happy Place could deliver. The farm air, with it's overpowering tint of corn and manure gave way to the purest, cleanest air imaginable. Lastly, in completing the jump to Happy Place plain of existence, the dusty, cornstalk ridden ground gave way… to the biggest damn expanse of asphalt he had ever seen.

The three of them exchanged questioning glances as they turned to confirm that they were, in fact, standing in the center of what had to be the largest parking lot ever conceived by man.

Asil sighed. "I just *knew* happiness was overrated…"

"Where the hell did I leave that remote control?" He asked himself, searching through the many drawers of his immense, neon accented desk. "That damn cow woman better not have hidden it again… Ah!" He snatched in triumphantly. Quickly, he returned to his overstuffed leather chair so that he could slowly turn it about with dramatic dignity. Once facing opposite his desk he confidently pressed the button on it.

With majestic slowness, the curtains on his office wall drew back to reveal a towering window offering him a view of what he (with a bit of help here and there) had created. He looked out over the shiny new jewel in his financial empire and brought the hook that served as his right hand up to rest beneath his nose in contemplation. He grinned.

Roni Y. Avis, Spammer-extraordinaire and one of the richest men in the world, broke down into a fit of giggles that would have embarrassed a schoolgirl. And why not? Was he not master of all he surveyed? "'Happiest Place on Earth'?…" he spat. "Pfah! In a few short hours, the gates officially open to 'Avisland!, literally the Happiest Place in the Universe!" He burst into another fit of laughter. "I swear…" he said to himself, wiping tears from his eyes with his one good hand, "Micheal Eisner's going to weep his ass off."

Visionary