Tales of the Parodyverse

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Dancer
Tue Jun 28, 2005 at 08:28:13 am EDT
Subject
Heart of Darkness - Chapter Seven: "He Apparently Has an Unexploded Hand Grenade Lodged in His Bowels"
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[The Scene: It’s the Parodiopolis Town Hall, a modern steel-and-glass structure with the highest insurance rates on the planet. Sat in the City Chief Accountant’s office are a bunch of people in business suits. You might recognise Miss Finstermeyer of Social Services from #2, with her supervisor Mrs Blythely. You’d certainly recognise Lisa Waltz, the amorous advocatrix (if only because of the warning pamphlets) and Sir Mumphrey Wilton, eccentric Englishman. Over in the corner is Commssioner Don Graham. Behind the desk is chief account Mr Lemon, and Legal Advisor Mr Veltiminster. Okay, a big room of suits isn’t exactly a thrilling opening to a story, but at least Lisa’s mini might keep you guys interested.]

Mr Lemon, City Chief Accountant: This informal hearing is to decide where blame lies for the city’s current fiscal deficit, the loss of significant civic infrastructure, and the raft of lawsuits now being filed.

Mrs Blythely, Head of Social Services: Although of course, we aren’t in the business of assigning blame. We’re not at home to Mr Accusation.

Police Commissioner Don Graham: I’m at home to Mr Accusation. I’m where Mr Accusation lives. And if I find that there have been breeches of the penal code Mr Accusation and I will be introducing people to Mr Arrest. Just so you know.

Mrs Blythely: Now really, Mr Graham, we won’t be getting anywhere if you keep bringing the grumps into the room, you know.

Mr Lemon: To be honest Mrs Blythley, I think the grumps are already in the room. The grumps arrived with the damage bills, such as the cost of rebuilding that farm upstate, and the estimate for the fire damage on your social services headquarters.

Miss Finstermeyer, social worker: *Whimpers*

Sir Mumphrey Wilton: Hmph! Some of us are rather busy chaps, you know. Perhaps we could proceed on to the point of this meeting. Mrs Blythley needn’t worry. If we see grumps crawlin’ round the room I’m more than happy to shoot the little buggers.

Lisa Waltz: Yes. We’d like to know why there’s such a fuss over one young girl who’s far from home, a guest in our country. She’s probably a huddled starving mass. Maybe a political refugee. Why all the bother?

Miss Finstermeyer: She’s a spawn of Beelzebub is what she is. An incarnation of the Antichrist.

Mrs Blithely: Now now, Florence, you know we don’t talk about our Dear Little Charges in such ways. It is a joy and a pleasure to help them along the yellow brick road of life.

Miss Finstermeyer: You should be helping Kerry Shepherdson over the yellow brick cliff on to the yellow pointy rocks below!

Miss Waltz: I’m sensing a lack of clinical detachment here. *makes notes as Mr Lemon winces*

Mr Velitminster, the city’s trained attack lawyer: The point is that our Social Services team was not warned that this Kerry Shepherdson person was a metahuman. Had we realised she was a mutate…

Sir Mumphrey: Girl’s not a mutate. And I happen to know you’ve conducted the test on her, without consent of parent of guardian…

Mr Lemon: Yes. Do you know how much replacement mutate detection equipment costs?

Lisa: So now you’re saying that the city treats mutates differently to other people. A very helpful admission, Mr Veltimister.

Mr Veltiminster: That’s not what I…

Lisa: Anyway, for what reason does Miss Shepherdson’s alleged possession of metahuman abilities have to do with you *checks notes* shackling her wrist with dangerous advanced technology.

Miss Finstermeyer: A recycled Technopolis power dampener, Miss Waltz. After that incident at the farm…

Mr Lemon: This would be the lawsuit from Mr and Mrs Clarke?

Miss Finstermeyer, wincing: A lovely old couple. They’ve brought up orphans on their farm before, instilled in them traditional values like hard work and honestly and truth and justice and the American way.

Lisa, checking statements: Not ‘forced their captives to get up before dawn to thresh the cows and stuff, and forbid them basic human rights like MTV and fraternity guests’?

Miss Finstermeyer: The Clarkes don’t have TV. I’m not sure they have electricity.

Mr Lemon: Then how do you explain their house being destroyed when their generator exploded during what the fire services call ‘a freak tractor malfunction with the corn silo’?

Mr Veltiminster: The Clarkes maintain that Miss Shepherdson was responsible for the conflagration. Since we were the ones that placed the child with them we’ll be in litigation for years avoiding compensation for that one.

Sir Mumphrey: I read the statement. They think she was responsible because ‘she’d just been looking at the tractor kind of funny’. Are Mr and Mrs Clarke brother and sister by any chance?

Mr Lemon: We also have the trouble with miss Shepherdson’s second foster family, the Brannigans. After Mr Brannigan’s hospitalisation and the loss of his valuable collection of survivalist equipment…

Mrs Blithely: That poor man. We’d agreed not to use him again because of his sometimes old-fashioned attitudes to discipline…

Commissioner Graham: And the incident where he and his family holed up in his cabin and shot up the police car that had come to serve them with a warrant about illegal combat weapons.

Miss Finstermeyer: I was becoming apparent that Kerry Shepherdson needed more discipline than the average child in our care.

Lisa: Such as being sent to a family who felt her rightful place was ‘in the cellar with the whuppin’ post’?

Mrs Blithely: The Brannigans didn’t write that on their application form.

Commissioner Graham: That’s probably because they are dirt dumb enough to leave their explosives sweating in their outhouse next to their collection of assault rifles. So much for the Brannigan cabin. Or Brannigan crater as it’s now known.

Sir Mumphrey: I don’t see how you can be blamin’ young Kerry for that one. After all, if she hadn’t saved the family by chaining Mr Branningan to the whuppin’ post so his backside caught most of the flying fragments…

Mr Veltiminster: Mr Brannigan is pressing charges of assault against Miss Shepherdson and filing for damages against the city once again. He apparently has an unexploded hand grenade lodged in his bowels and…

Lisa: Actually, Mr Brannigan met with one of my associates today and has agreed to drop his charges against Kerry. I have the papers in my briefcase, witnessed by Mr Shoggoth. Um, the papers are in a sealed plastic bag because they’re a bit oozy.

Mr Lemon: That still doesn’t explain what happened when this young girl’s third foster family came to collect her at the Social Services offices. The bill from the Parodiopolis Fire Department alone…

Mrs Blithely: Well you see, it was clear that little Kerry was a very disturbed girl.

Lisa: She can be a bit grumpy when people try to chain her to whipping posts, I’ll grant you that.

Mrs Blithely: Er, yes. Anyway, that was when we decided to take up Miss Finstermeyer’s suggestion and borrow a metahuman ability inhibitor from the Safe. Just in case. We did stencil some cheerful pussies and moo cows onto it so it looked nice.

Miss Finstermeyer: That wasn’t my first suggestion. I recommended a sack full of stones and a fast river and we…

Mr Veltiminster, hastily: As I understand it the Social Services Department made special arrangements at some trouble to place Miss Shepherdson with one of the first families of Parodiopolis, in their luxurious residence in Pierce Heights.

Mrs Blythely: Yes. Mr Slaughter has always been a great supporter of our work, and of all civic matters.

Mr Lemon: Mr Slaughter? You let that tearaway menace loose on an important contrib…. citizen like Simonides Slaughter?

Sir Mumphrey: Simonides Slaughter the head of the Heck-Fire Club? Simonides Slaughter the arrant bounder who needs to be horsewhipped from here to John-o-Groats?

Mr Veltiminster: Mr Slaughter is a much respected civic leader. His family have contributed to the city for generations. And yes, he has the honour to be the current chairman of that quaint old club for the city’s elite.

Lisa: Are you a member by any chance, Mr Veltiminster? Or isn’t your tongue long enough yet?

Mr Veltiminster: I don’t see what my membership or my tongue has to do with…

Mrs Blythely: It so happened that dear Simonides actually offered to take the poor troubled girl in, so long as we had previously fitted her with a power inhibitor. Simonides has helped us with difficult cases before, and all of them have happily moved out of state and lived quiet trouble-free lives ever since.

Commissioner Graham: Happy to hear it. Happier to get their addresses for later.

Miss Finstermeyer: It was when Sir Simonides came to collect that devil child that the trouble began. Nobody in the office even knew that correcting fluid could be used as an accelerant for toner cartridges. Or that Armani suits were so flammable.

Sir Mumphrey: Glad to hear it. Go on.

Mrs Blythely: We don’t know how the elevator was sabotaged either. When poor Simonides fled through the doors the car should really have been there.

Mr Veltiminster: Any evidence of tampering was probably destroyed when the sprinkler system went off.

Lisa: The sprinkler system erased evidence of tampering? I don’t see…

Commissioner Graham: The sprinkler system had somehow been detached from the water mains and connected to the gas mains, Miss Waltz. That was how the fires got out of hand.

Mr Lemon, head in hands: So now we have to work out where the liability lies. We’re ruined, I tell you. Ruined.

Miss Finstermeyer: It lies with that Shepherdson girl! That spawn of the devil! It all lies with her!

Lisa: Does it really? Another associate of mine, Mr Bookman, took the liberty of conducting some research. Apparently your investigation into Kerry began after complaints from one Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, is that correct?

Mrs Blythely: Really that’s confidential information. We don’t let Mr Secrets go wandering around without anybody to hold his hand.

Commissioner Graham, snarling: I’m starting to see mitigating circumstances for the gas main trick.

Lisa: The thing is, there was also a substantial payment from the account of Baroness von Zemo to that of Miss Finstermeyer, through a series of intermediaries. Mr Bookman is very thorough when he undertakes fiscal checks. *stares hard at Mr Lemon* Very, very thorough.

Commissioner Graham: So there’s evidence that personnel within Social Services took bribes to remove a vulnerable young woman from her guardian, to place her with a series of increasingly unsuitable and dangerous foster parents…

Sir Mumphrey: And in a series of dangerous environments, judging by the amount of explosions and holocausts the pool gel had to survive, what?

Miss Finstermeyer: But Kerry Shepherdson is the pro…

Lisa: Is what? You have special information about her? From an informed financial source, perhaps?

Miss Finstermeyer, sobbing: I hate her! Hate her hate her hate her!

Mrs Blithely: Now Florence, you know we’re not at home to Mr Ha…

Miss Finstermeyer: *tackles Mrs Blythely to the floor*

Sir Mumphrey: Good show, that woman!

Lisa: It trust, Mr Veltiminster, that the city will be returning Miss Shepherdson to her original guardian Mr Visionary and that any investigation will be closed forthwith? Or would Mr Lemon like to let me know the official address to which our process servers should present themselves in our ninety million dollar lawsuit for malicious endangerment of a minor?

Commissioner Graham: There’s just the little problem that Visionary’s being investigated for all kinds of misconduct including molestation of minors. Kerry can’t be returned to Visionary until all of that’s cleared up.

Lisa: That sounds like another chapter to me then. But in the meantime, Kerry…

Mr Lemon: Um. Yes. We hadn’t got round to mentioning that, had we?

Sir Mumphrey, darkly: Mentioning what, sirrah?

Mr Veltiminster: The city warned that unless suitable foster parents were found for Miss Shepherdson she would have to be returned to her native Ireland, where custodial facilities had been prepared for her. Since it was no longer possible to find a place to lodge Miss Shepherdson after the, um, explosions at Social Services, we had no alternative but to…

Lisa: You deported Kerry?

Mr Lemon: Um no. We would have, but… she’s gone.

Sir Mumphrey: Gone?

Mrs Blythely, dabbing her bleeding nose: Run away, the poor girl! Absconded. Completely vanished. That poor child.

Miss Finstermeyer, being handcuffed by Don Graham: Probably returned to the abyss now her work here is done.

Comissioner Graham, appaled: You’re saying Kerry Shepherdson is out there? Loose? Angry?

Mr Lemon, sighing: Which brings me to the blast damage to the Sheldon Bay hostel facilities where Miss Shepherdson was being detained…

Continued…



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