🚀 go-pugleaf

(concluded from part two...)

                                   ==(.*.)==

     Mayor Susan Rucknall felt the rumbling several seconds before the
screen dissolved into snow.  Gritting her teeth, she turned to look out the
window of her office at the Daily Planted building, which was in the
process of collapsing.
     It took all of her self-control not to turn to her desk and start
beating her forehead against her Spoonman paperweight repeatedly.  She had
just finished the budgeting process for the third quarter, and the damage
she had just witnessed blew that work all to pieces.
     What was worse, she couldn't get the Captain and Tenille song out of
her head.  For that, she decided, the staff of the Daily Planted would be
made to suffer.
     As the last of the Planted building settled into rubble, she turned
away, calling up the budgeting spreadsheets on her PC.  A movement caught
her eye.  She turned back just in time to see a heroic, oddly glistening
form leap from the rubble and soar skyward.

                                   ==(.*.)==

     Commander Frank released the chunk of art deco heliumite at the very
outer limit of Earth's atmosphere, the force and accuracy of his throw
sufficient to send it on a path towards the sun.  Upon his descent, he
reflected on the condition of those he had left behind, the many pitfalls
inherent in the labeling arts, and the fact he probably could have just
chucked the damn rock in a volcano and nobody would have known the
difference.
     The Planted building was in rubble when he landed in the street.  Most
of the studio crew had gotten out in time, and the rest of the building had
been empty, as it always was during one of Kent's shows.  Percy Grey was
being loaded into an ambulance and was screaming loudly, partly due to the
injuries he had sustained, but mostly because Timmy 'lucky bastard'
O'Larson, who had survived the complete collapse of a building he was on
the 43rd floor of, was loudly insisting on accompanying him to the
emergency room.  Flores Lame, no longer in her Legs Luther costume, was
being attended by paramedics, and looked to be covered with greyish slime.
Frank surmised she had survived by landing on a mass of cultists, and that
Timmy had survived by landing on her.
     Kent Clark was standing near the curb, next to a crusty newspaper
seller, looking vaguely dazed.  Commander Frank landed in front of them,
eliciting a reaction from at least one of them.
     "Hey," the newspaper seller said, crustily.  "Kent here's a bit out of
it, following all that noise and shaking.  Wanna help me snap him out of
it?"
     "Certainly, Mr..."
     "Mulroney.  Bob Mulroney.  And if you call me Mulroney Bob Mulroney,
I'll have to get especially sardonic on your ass."
     "Er, right."
     "Now, repeat after me," Mulroney told him.  "Only you speak louder,
seein' as you got better pipes than I do."
     "I'm ready."
     "Hey, Kent, cartoons."
     "Hey, Kent, cartoons!"
     "I'm awake!" Kent shouted, pulverizing the building across the street.
"I... oh!  What happened...?  I remember playing the piano...."
     "Trust me," Frank said, "you don't want to remember."
     Kent looked around at the wreckage.
     "Hmmm," he mused.  "Looks like we brought down the house!"
     "I was hoping you wouldn't say that," Mulroney told him, crustily.
     At that moment, a Volvo tore out of what had once been an alley and
headed north on the wrong side of the street.  Frank watched it
suspiciously, noting that it had an unusual number of arms, legs, and other
body parts randomly stuffed into it.
     "Well, there goes SNUCCI," Mulroney said.  "Why don'tcha go chase
'em?"
     "They have suffered enough for one day," Frank replied.  "As it is, I
feel I must be getting back to Los Angeles, so I can continue my battle
against Don Lasorda's dieting conspiracy."
     "Yes, continue your good work!" Kent told him, shaking his hand and
wrenching his arm off.  He saw this and sheepishly offered it back; Frank
reattached it grumpily.  "Until the next time, my friend!"
     "Sure," Frank sighed, taking to the skies.  As he left Megapolis, it
occurred to him that he'd neglected to account for the whereabouts of one
of the players.  No matter, he thought.  Even Mighty Guy couldn't miss
seeing a guy that size, no matter how bizarre he was.

                                   ==(.*.)==

     Percy looked up from his hospital bed to see Flores Lame, Timmy
'medical waste' O'Larson and Phil Donahue enter his room.  The first
visitor he'd been expecting, the second he'd been dreading.  The third was
something of a surprise.
     "Mein herr!" Timmy exclaimed, rushing to the side of the bed as fast
as he could, which wasn't all that fast, considering he was dragging a 1978
Dodge Aspen Station Wagon 5-speed manual transmission (chained to his
wrist) with him.  "Are you well?  Can you speak?  Do you need CPR?"
     "No!" Percy growled, swatting Timmy with his breakfast tray.  "Flores,
thanks for visiting!  How are you and why did you bring this twerp?"
     "Hey," Phil protested.
     "I meant him," Percy said, pointing to Timmy, who was finishing off
Percy's slightly greenish scrambled eggs.
     "I'm doing fine," Flores said, indicating the casts on her right leg
and left arm.  "These'll be coming off in a few weeks.  Phil here...."
     "Yes, Mr. Hue...."
     "Donahue, actually.  'Mr. Hue' was just a cover name."
     "Whatever.  Why are you here?"
     "I'm glad you asked that, Mr. Grey," Phil said, sitting on the edge of
the bed, a smug grin on his face.  "Has Timmy told you the news yet?"
     "News?" Percy asked, feeling a certain dread that could have been
either a foretelling of fate or a late shudder from the sausage-like
objects he had forced himself to consume earlier that morning.
     "We're hugely in debt," Timmy said, "right?"
     "Riiiiight...."
     "So I sold the Daily Planted to SNUCCI."
     Percy was amazed at how calmly he accepted the news.  He marveled at
how clear-minded and rational he felt when he lunged at Timmy, intent on
wrapping his fingers around the lad's neck and strangling him once and for
all.  Unhappily, his right arm was in traction, so all he could do was
flail his left hand at Timmy, who sat just out of reach.
     "We chanced to encounter the boy earlier this week, when you brought
my organization onto the set of Kent's talk show to fix it up," Phil
explained.  "I asked him why he was behaving so lethargically, and he told
me it was because owning the Daily Planted was a deeply unsatisfying
experience, and that he wanted to go back to being a simple cub reporter.
He thought about selling it back to you for pennies, but then realized he'd
simply be visiting the same unhappiness on you."
     "I could have dealt with that," Percy grumbled.  "I guess that
explains why he's dragging the transmission around again."
     "Uh huh!" Timmy replied, nodding.  "Now that I'm a cub reporter again,
I want to be able to contact Mighty Guy whenever I'm in danger!"
     "Anyway, he sold the Planted to us," Phil continued, looking with
slight exasperation at Timmy, "on the condition we let him go back to being
a cub reporter and keep you on as Editor-in-Chief and Publisher.
Ordinarily, a major sale like this would take months to go through the
bureaucracy, but Mayor Rucknall was *very* helpful.  She particularly
insisted that Timmy stay with you during your entire stay here -- said it
was her way of thanking you for giving Kent Clark a show of his own."
     "Speaking of which..." Flores started, ignoring Percy's low groaning.
     "The show is canceled, I'm sorry to say," said Phil, not sounding the
least bit sorry.  "A necessary step to take before declaring Chapter
Eleven, you see.  Given the amazing amount of debt you've managed to run
up, it was really the only option left to us."
     "What do you get out of this?" Percy asked.
     "Us?" Phil asked.  "Well, considering that SNUCCI was all but broke
before this, we had little to lose.  Now we have an asset that, once we're
through bankruptcy court and gain new investors, will be the cornerstone of
our new media empire.
     "And how did you buy this from Timmy when you were near broke?"
     "We promised we'd let him watch us reassemble Ricki Lake."
     Percy turned his head to look at Timmy and grimaced.  "Weirdo."
     "Yes, mein herr!"
     "Stop calling me that!"
     "Anyway, I must be going," Phil said, standing.  "Once you're out of
here, and the Planted is out of Chapter Eleven, we'll be in touch with you
about reshaping the Planted's corporate philosophy.
     "Our corporate philosophy was 'Minimum Bribe Level: $50.'"
     "Yes, well, that part can stay.  I was thinking more along the lines
of editorial spin.  Naturally, as the new corporate owners of your paper,
we'd like your articles to carry a spin that favors our views."
     "A Cthulhoid spin."
     "Exactly.  For instance, your articles on the upcoming presidential
races...."
     "The Planted is a tabloid," Flores pointed out.  "We don't do articles
on politics, unless it involves a sordid scandal."
     "How about photos, then?" Donahue asked.
     "Well," Percy mused, rubbing his stubbly chin.  "We could run front
page photos of the candidates in jogging shorts or short pants."
     "Yes!" agreed Phil.  "Continuous national exposure of the thighs of
Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, F. Ron Trumner and Ross Perot is *certain* to make
the American public more likely to do the bidding of the dread Cthulhu!
Say, you're pretty good at this!"
     "It's a living," Percy grumped.
     "Well, I'd best be off, then," Phil said, heading for the door.  "Hail
Cthu--"  WHOMP!
     "Greetings, friend Percy!" Kent Clark bellowed, sending Percy's bed,
the assorted medical equipment around it, and Timmy and Flores bouncing
around the room.  From behind the door, which was now embedded in the wall,
Phil Donahue groaned to no avail.  "I have come to wish you a speedy
recovery, and to see if there's anything I can do to assist in it!"
     "Yes," Percy wheezed, as he struggled to push the transmission off his
chest and onto Timmy's.  "Go away."
     "Wise advice indeed!" Kent said, nodding, thereby causing the floor to
heave and shift unpredictably.  "I should not be standing about idly when
there are stories happening even now in this most wonderful of cities,
Megapolis!  Now that I am no longer a talk show host, I may dedicate my
full resources to ferreting out news wherever it is occurring!"
     "Speaking of news," Flores said, as she hauled herself to her feet,
"whatever happened to Bizarre Guy?"
     "Phil told me about that earlier," Timmy, who dodged the falling
transmission in time, said, cheerfully.  "SNUCCI had actually made a clone
of the original Bizarre Guy, but could only give him enough energy to live
for a day.  Phil thinks he reached his twenty-four hours just as the
building collapsed and decomposed on the spot."
     "I'm an expert on that," a voice gurgled from behind the door.
     "That is no doubt his fate!" Kent declared.  "My reporter's instincts
tell me unerringly this is so!"
     "Can you... take your... reporter's instincts... elsewhere?" Percy,
who had been knocked by that last declaration into the adjoining lavatory,
asked.
     "Of course!" Kent replied.  "I was just on my way to discuss last
Friday's events in an exclusive interview with...."
     "Mighty Guy?" Percy, Flores and Timmy asked in unison.
     "Why, yes!  How'd you know?"
     "It was an inspired guess," Percy groaned.  "Ow."

                                   ==(.*.)==

     "Are this really for best?" Bizarre Guy asked as he stepped up into
the back of the freight truck, careful not to crush the produce-filled
crates as he moved.
     "Yeah, I'm sure," his benefactor replied.  "You'd be recognized here.
Well, tell the truth, you'd be recognized anywhere.  But here especially.
An' that's not good, seein' as you're supposed to be dead and all."
     "I supposes," the Man of Warped Wood said, a bit dejectedly.  "You
says you friends will be help me when I gets to Milwaukees?"
     "You bet," came the reply.  "Ever heard of Big M Trucking School?
Best in the country.  That's where you're going."
     "Hmmm, trucking," Bizarre Guy mused.  "Will I able be to be watchs
PBS while I is truck?"
     "Sure, kid, sure.  Just be glad that art deco heliumite stabilized
your physical system when it temporarily changed you -- otherwise we
wouldn't be having this little conversation."
     "Indeeds!"  From the front of the truck came the sound of the horn.
His benefactor pointed to the strap that was connected to the roll-down
back door of the truck; Bizarre Guy grasped it and pulled it down.  "Thanks
you again!  I shall always be remember your helps!"  The benefactor nodded
again, and the Addled Arse finished closing the door.  Soon, the vehicle
was pulling out onto the highway.  Shortly it would connect with the
expressway, taking its cargo ever closer to its ultimate destination.
     "Take care, kid," Bob Mulroney said, crustily, as it slipped out of
sight.  He looked eastward at the towers of downtown Megapolis, took the
cigarette out of his mouth, dropped it to the asphalt and stepped on it.
As he walked back to his van, he started quietly whistling the "Kent!"
theme for no particular reason.

WHY DID BOB MULRONEY HELP BIZARRE GUY?
WILL BIZARRE GUY GRADUATE FROM TRUCK DRIVING SCHOOL?
WILL THE DAILY PLANTED PROSPER UNDER SNUCCI'S CORPORATE CONTROL?
WILL COMMANDER FRANK CHANGE HIS PHONE NUMBER SO MIGHTY GUY CAN'T CALL HIM
     AGAIN?
HOW MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF HELIUMITE ARE THERE?
WHAT NEXT?

Vote SUPERGUY in '96!
--
Copyright (c) 1996 by Gary W. Olson, All Rights Reserved.  Mighty Guy,
Kent Clark, Flores Lame, Percy Grey, Timmy O'Larson, Megapolis,
Heliumite, the Daily Planted, Trudy Galloway, Unorthodox Girl, Unorthodox
Lass, JOEL, and the Adjusted League Unimpeachable were created by and are
trademarks of Eric Alfred Burns, and are used with permission.  SNUCCI
was created by and is a trademark of William R. Dickson.
--
Gary W. Olson    swede@shell.sojourn.com    swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
                      http://www.sojourn.com/~swede