Yertle the Squirtle

PARENTAL WARNING: This story should only be read to children who have a 5 O’clock shadow and exhibit symptoms of cantalouping.

***

“Can anyone tell me,” I berated Team Rocket,
“Why your boss hired third-party thugs out-of-pocket?
Are you hiding your numbers? You can’t be this dumb…
After more than a decade, your total is none?”

They looked down at the ground and they shuffled their feet
And they once more recounted their tales of defeat:
It was always the same, the same boy with his hat,
The same shocking conclusion, the same yellow rat.

I’ve never quite seen such an unbroken streak
Of magnificent failure! What horrid technique!
So I preached them the merits of switching careers
As we sat by the lake and it filled with their tears.
“Your problem’s in planning, you must keep things plain—
Why not sneak up at night and just bash Ash’s brain?”

My advice became shouts and I yelled until purple—
And that’s when we noticed an everyday turtle.
Just an everyday turtle who shouted its name
As it waddled past quickly, along the marsh grain.
It sat down and relaxed by the edge of the shore
And ignored us quite well as it started to snore.

I slapped my fat forehead as if sprayed by bear mace:
“Can’t you see with your eyes what’s in front of your face?
Can’t you see that that turtle that lays on those rocks
With his unfettered spirit and striped purple socks
Is the prey you’ve pursued far and wide yet not near
For lo! this last decade, plus three extra years?
They say you’re the worst, so prove you’re the best!
Are you honcho or hoodwink of Pokémon theft?”

The three smiled with hands wrung together like chains
As they thought up a plan, and they went to great pains
To construct a machine of Rube Goldberg descent
To capture this creature beneath a great tent.

Now, the tent was substandard and the clunky machine
Was so gaudily painted I thought it obscene.
The pistons were wooden, the girders were bent
And a family of opossums was lodged in the vent.
But the fools were just sure it would capture their pet—
Though I’d’ve just scooped the thing up in a net.
They flipped a blue lever. The machine hissed and swayed
And the turtle woke up and it wandered away.

The tent fell to the ground with a slip and a tumble
And the creaky contraption collapsed into rubble.
And the turtle was laughing! It laughed from the lake!
It laughed at my students! My pride was at stake!
Without thought to the law or with thought of myself
I hurled myself skyward toward the sea shelf.
With Jessie in one hand and James by the foot
And Meowth on my coattails we crashed the sea roof.

We needed no catch-phrase to swat out that bug.
No nonsense of starflight, nor scorning of love.
We beat-boxed that turtle, it took seven hours—
But after we caught him, we’d harness those powers.
Those powers that fought us to the edge of the brink…
Until mid-morning’s generous armistice drink.
We ceased our attacks and retracted our blades
And for forty-four minutes no battle-hymns played.
But on the forty-fifth minute I broke off the deal—
And I broke more than that with my boots, shod in steel!

With a final sick wheeze, it gave up the ghost
And the turtle’s shell crumbled like overdone toast.
We captured it quickly and contained it by purse
Until it could be tended by a pink-headed nurse.

Soon the turtle’s shell shone— it was healed and grew finer,
And they auctioned it off and bought South Carolina.
But when Jessie and James sealed the state’s borders,
Their boss caught wind and summoned his lawyers.
Thanks to twelve briefs in a rude contretemps,
Jessie and James now collect workman’s comp.

And what of the turtle that caused this dispute?
As far as I care, it’s been turned into soup.
My contract is up, so it’s time now, it seems,
To unfurl our sails and drift into our dreams.

Good night.

♪ Get Out of Raft with Taft ♫

This post is brought to you by The Government.

***

“Washington declined a third term. Grant was denied a third term. Roosevelt demanded a third term.”

“So don’t I deserve a second term?” Boomed history’s heaviest U.S. President, William Howard Taft.

Pulled from primeval 1912 to the present day, he took up two seats and destroyed our mileage.

“Is he going to complain about Teddy Roosevelt the whole ride?” Travis asked under his breath, shooting me daggers.

“Teddy!” wailed Taft.

“Now we’re going to have to stop for chocolate. Thanks, Travis.” I folded my arms. My prison guard uniform chaffed.

“Why is he here anyway? We don’t need him…”

That’s a little like asking Picasso why the Mona Lisa only has one ear.

“SUBMITTED,” I began, “that our most honorable mission is to mount a Skrull jailbreak from Raft, the prison for superhumans. Taft knows more about breaking out of Raft than anyone — his campaign slogan was ‘Get out of Raft with Taft.’”

“Actually,” Taft twirled his out-of-date moustache, “it was ‘get in a raft with Taft.’”

“That’s the easy part.” I pressed the camouflage button on the hovercraft’s dashboard. Immediately, our vehicle morphed into an exact replica of the prison transport we’d run off that bridge five miles back.

“Taft?” Travis looked back, “This is your last chance to back out.”

His rubicund face contorted thus: “Perish the thought! Teddy’s not the only one as strong as a bull moose! I can handle any burden.” He flexed, and the buttons held.

The prison rose as the temperature fell. Though it was midday, searchlights shone upon the perimeter, illuminating God only knows what. Desperation, fear and a touch of madness emanated psychically over the reinforced walls and turrets. A thousand and one deadly traps lay waiting in the foliage, and the air smelt of decay. Above, the sky was an ugly inky black, and the clouds twisted meanly.

We pulled to a stop. Travis spritzed himself with prison-grade cologne and I rehearsed my lines again, as the drawbridge crashed down over a glowing purple moat. We could not cross, as Travis’s MERE PRESENCE would set off the hypnosis alarm. Guards armed to the teeth with riot gear spilled out, ready for a prisoner transfer.

I climbed out and shook hands with the warden (I assumed he was the warden, he wore only the finest purple linens and silks), clasping his wrist firmly.

“I’m master bounty hunter Mongrel Jones, and this is special agent Perry Nöel.”

“Bonjour,” Travis waved.

“We’re here to conduct the peaceable transfer of one, W. H. Taft, to the prison Raft.” I stifled a chuckle at the rhyming goodness.

The warden frowned at his clipboard. “There are 20 prisoners scheduled for today, but none of them are named—”

“This is the prisoner you’re scheduled for,” Travis declared, briefly flashing a whistling hypnotic spiral with Obi-Wan-like ease. The guards stumbled, almost falling over from the sheer power.

“Is it?” The warden mumbled. The mind-veil had taken! Travis’s aim was improving; the last time this feat had been attempted, there had been no survivors.

“Get up, you great lump!” I commanded of the time-marooned president. Taft shambled out of the backseat, his arms and legs shackled together. As the searchlights hit his orange jumpsuit, sweet memories of James & The Giant Peach floated to the forefront of my mind.

“Stop yelling at me!” Taft shielded his eyes, but I could see he loved the attention. Our needlessly complex plan was ONLY one third of the way completed, but the allure of a job well done kept me on the straight and narrow.

“This is… who did you say this was again?” The warden searched his clipboard. Someone should take that away from him.

“Willy Taft,” I clucked, tapping the president’s back with my plastic baton. “Caught just outside the Shire Sunday night. It took more than an outraged band of halflings to take down this blue elephant,” I pointed to his tusk-like moustache, while simultaneously referencing his left-wing and Republican affiliations. “He gored three hobbits and an orc.”

Taft loudly chewed his own cuds while the warden finalized the paperwork. “What powers does the inmate posses?”

Only those delegated by the constitution, I held back. “Laser breath, microwave eyes, etc.”

The guards nodded, “That’s pretty common.”

“Yeah. Garden variety.”

“How pedestrian.”

“I’ve seen bigger.”

“We’ll just be on our way then,” I snapped the completed paperwork from the warden’s still-shaking hands. Travis and I packed back into the camouflaged hovercraft and sped away. Out of the corner of my eye, Taft gave us a covert wink as they slipped a laser-proof drool collar on and led him inside the fortress.

“So what’s the plan now?” Travis asked, clasping his hands tighter to the wheel as we passed safely beyond surveillance range. “Have Taft start a fight while we sneak in through the sewers? Stage a public protest against Taft’s imprisonment and have some incensed hippies tear the walls down? Or do you plan to leave Taft displaced from time in an attempt to ruin Earth’s past to prevent the Skrulls’ arrival?”

I beamed. “The student has become the master. But nay!” I unfolded a map of New York City. “We’re to journey to the Presidential Library of William Howard Taft—”

“B-but there is no Taft presidential library—”

“Bite your tongue, wastrel! The library was constructed in secret almost a century ago — it’s more a vault, really — to house a single envelope which has remained unopened and undisturbed for exactly 96 years tomorrow. Now shut up and FLY!”

Seven hours later, Travis and I returned from the secret vault, having fought past our share of skeletal warriors and solved the riddle of the Spider King. I was exhausted and Travis would soon lose a finger to gangrene, but we recovered the precious envelope. Wars were waged over envelopes such as this. The writing on the front was faded completely, and the stamp had long ago fallen off and withered to dust.

“Mongrel Jones! What a surprise.” The warden didn’t sound surprised, swaggering over as we disembarked from the vehicle. “What brings you back to Raft? Got another inmate for me?”

“We’re here to make a withdrawal, not a deposit,” I spat, using banking jargon to great effect.

“What’s that in your hand?” He half-pointed to the envelope. Couldn’t really be bothered to point fully, huh? Whatever happened to work ethic? Did it just EVAPORATE?

“It’s a blank cheque,” I whipped out my letter opener and broke the ancient wax. “A presidential pardon for William Howard Taft, issued exactly 96 years ago tomorrow — by President William Howard Taft.”

Jaws dropped around the board and the injustice of it all caused more than one guard to exhibit the symptoms of hysterical blindness. When the warden regained his composure the forest was silent for his verdict.

“This is a valid pardon…”

Grown men wept and children danced in the streets at this simple proclamation. Fair maidens hung wreaths around my neck and offered me gumbos and stews laced with the tastiest spices.

Taft rode out the prison gates atop a pygmy blue elephant (tuskless), waving to the masses, and bands played him great fanfare as the timeless president exited to the cheering throngs of humanity.

“Bully for you, I say,” I patted him on the back. “They haven’t yet built a prison — or bathtub — that can hold William Howard Taft!”

Fortunately, they had built a hovercraft which could (hold him). The three of us flew from Raft as if someone had lit a fire under our collective rumps.

“Now…” I slyly slinked as we skinked past the city limits, “Bring them forth!”

As if on cue, Taft shoved his massive arm down his throat. Travis cringed, as with a *GRK*ing sound, the president regurgitated a series of fire-red bricks.

“Are those—”

“Skrulls! Taft’s stomach lining shielded them from the anti-shapeshifting rays.”

With a final jerking, the last Skrull-brick was safely stowed away in the overhead compartment and Taft spent the remainder of the ride recuperating.

As we neared my magical workshop, an errant thought came to Travis. “Why did we go through all that trouble when Taft could have pardoned the Skrulls instead?”

When I was finished flogging him, I answered, “The Democrats were monitoring his ink usage. If he’d signed that many pardons — especially for Skrulls! — he’d’ve been discovered and Wilson would have won a large enough mandate to take out the Kaiser on day one. The Progressive Era was known for its suspicion of the goblin-men.”

“What was done cannot be undone and cannot have been done any other way,” Taft spoke wisely. “Now,” he said as the craft slumped to a bodacious halt, “will you maintain your end of our Faustian bargain?”

Clapping my claws, the window rolled down and a winged cherub burst from my lab, carrying a jewel-covered black box with metal hinges and ornate designs beside the hand-forged handles. Hesitantly I opened it.

“Remember to sign your own pardon on your last day in office or you will rupture the very berry fabric of space/time or maybe you won’t because nobody ever tried doing that so it might work,” I rambled in an off-the-cuff run-on sentence that had no right to exist.

He braced himself. “Anything to return to my family and failing reelection campaign.”

I removed a glowing red crystal from the hauntingly slick box. “Then I release you from this century. Whoooooooooo!”

Taft, smiling, evaporated as the crystal broke in half. 96 years ago tomorrow, William Howard Taft, having already cemented his legacy as a staunch anti-Skrull, reluctantly pardoned his past self in the future.

BUT IN REALITY, stories of Taft’s selflessness spread from the Skrull he had rescued. Upon their return home, Taft’s exploits on their behalf circled the Skrull empire. Boy-Skrull and Girl-Skrull with names like “Willy” and “Howie” were common on the Skrull homeword in the succeeding seasons.

The benevolence of a single human helped bring the Skrull to the negotiating table, and a new peace opened between Earth and the goblin-men.

And somewhen, William Howard Taft, armed with the foreknowledge of supercomputers and helicopter rides, was busy helping others — and hoping that the next leap would be the leap home.

A Primer In Management Efficiency

As a pretend efficiency consultant, I’m often asked how to make fast, powerful decisions. I typically take four or five minutes to form a response, thereby discouraging future questions of that nature. Still, I’m now releasing this post, containing a brief example of my style. Take my words to heart, and you too can be recognized — and rewarded — for smart thinking by the highest echelons!

***

Wafting down from Heaven, delicate flakes of snow built up around my boots as I took another swing with my axe. Wiping sweat and condensation from my reddened cheeks, I stepped back and took a few deep breaths as the sinews holding the bark together gave way.

With a shout of “TIMBER!” the few birds who thought it safe to remain within the doomed branches took flight; the venerable pine bent as if in pain, the icy coating on its bristles biting it from above while I attacked from below.

*THWACK*

A final, merciful blow from my axe made short work of the majestic tree.

After the inevitable ground-shaking crash, the forest was silent. I surveyed the trunk from this new, unnatural perpendicular angle: there was enough lumber here to build a small house.

Mopping the sap up with handfuls of snow, I tried tallying up the rings but called it quits after around 200, when I noticed that I’d missed about 50 or so very thin rings that weren’t really visible at the edge I’d been counting. There must’ve been a drought those years.

There’s enough firewood here to heat a castle, I thought as a shiver ran down my spine.

Sighing contentedly, I buried my axe in the still-oozing trunk. “That was relaxing.”

I rubbed my hands together and opened the studio’s back door, where a blast of heat from the diesel-powered furnace instantly brought the feeling back to my face. The coat rack groaned as I unloaded my heavy winter overcoat and pinned my mittens to the zipper. All interested parties in the room turned to puzzle at my strange ways as I dropped to the ground and writhed to my waiting chair using only my belly for transportation.

“Did you get me the box of toothpicks I asked for?” Travis grizzled, his fingers crudely trying to dislodge a grizzly fragment of pork wedged between his back left molars.

I cringed.

Ripples of laughter broke out within the pool of applicants; my facial expressions are hilariously risqué. So much so that photographs of my head — in both digital and analog formats — do not, and will not, develop. The only person to peruse such a boondoggle was Edgar Allan Poe, who attempted to create an amateur daguerreotype on the 2^nd of October, 1849. No further attempts have been made.

“Some assembly may be required,” I aimed my eyebrows out the frost-caked window at the felled pine. Snow blanketed it like dirt on a casket.

Travis cut me off. “I think we should let the Questionable Mark into the league. This résumé—”

“DENIED. I could not possibly disagree more with your decision than I did 0.059 seconds ago. My anger is waning, hence the incremental drop in RAGE.”

Wee ha ha! In reality, I had no strong opinion whatsoever on the matter. However — there being only two of us to judge these miscreants — taking the contrarian position would force us to settle on a process for resolving what purists call “ties.”

Some jurists would call my method “collusion” and refuse to issue a decision. Overruled, yo!

“I never imagined I would miss Codex so much,” the hypnotist huffed, unpocketing a photo of the three of us taken just two weeks ago. It was hard to believe Yellow Fever acted so quickly. “He was the voice of sanity.”

“Sanity? He murdered his family and sold their teeth.”

“No he didn’t.”

“He routinely adopted stray cats and dogs and performed gruesome experiments on them while in med school.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“He used his impressive knowledge of ancient languages to forge a Syriac bible and tried to convince the pope to issue a papal bull stating that Jesus stuttered and that his eyes were two different colors.”

“No he didn’t!”

“He purchased a two-minute commercial during the Super Bowl, misleading viewers into thinking that two bottles of colloidal silver every day could reverse hair loss. Colloidal silver causes argyria, a condition that turns skin bluish-gray. He said he did it to pay homage to the Blue Man Group.”

“He had one of their CDs!”

“He ran an investment firm for charities and spent 20 years pocketing his clients’ money and giving them bogus numbers. $30 billion evaporated overnight, and he was busted by federal agents trying to charter a private jet to Ecuador. What little he actually invested went into ant farms.”

Travis drummed his fingers on the oaken table and checked his watch. “No.”

“Can we move this along, seriously?” the Questionable Mark interjected, leaning over on his uncomfortable wooden stool. “My wife is seriously very ill, seriously.”

“Your wife is two dwarves in a trenchcoat with a bad wig and a good story!” I shouted, barely cognizant of the lowlife’s desire for an expedited submission. Darn fool talked funny.

Crumbs from a thousand possible sources rolled down my seams as I rose. There was a bit of sadness to my swagger, my trademark jolliness tempered by the recent loss of my dear friend Codex. But thanks to a brilliant Santa Barbara taxidermist, I would see him every morning and night on my way to the bathroom.

“Where are we going?” Travis Read — you forgot his last name, didn’t you? Admit it. — begged as I towed him towards the exit, padlock and chain in hand.

The villainous… well, villains… were already cranky and overheated. Factor in their violent natures and superpowers, and you’ve got a powderkeg waiting to go off. Now, *licks lips* if I’ve learned one thing from my last job vetting cabinet appointees for Barack Obama, there’s only one tried and true way to whittle down a list of applicants.

“Hey, everyone!” I shouted, hurling Travis out the steel door into a growing snowbank while using my other hand to toss a symbolic gauntlet on the studio floor, “Last one left alive gets the job!”

Three or four laser beams singed the door as I quickly slammed it shut and chained it. As I helped Travis up (a debt he could never repay), bestial wailing and screams of terror, warcries and unheeded pleas for mercy, flooded the restrictive air.

I opened the bags of cocoa mix as Travis unlocked the hovercraft’s front door and set up the portable hotplate. We scooped up two cups of snow and put it on; we’d need to continuously add to it as the snow melted. It would take a while, so we set off in the opposite direction to build a snowman.

Smiling contentedly, the two of us were patting down the snowman’s midsection when a human head smashed through the studio’s bulletproof glass window and landed right where we were going to put the snowman’s head!

“Can you say ‘serendipity?’” Travis joked. “Who do you think will end up on top? Smart money’s on Questionable Mark. Or maybe Overkill.”

I ignored him and straightened an old felt top hat on the head while slipping lumps of coal into the vacant eye sockets. “Go check to see if the water is boiling yet. I don’t want any bacteria in my cocoa,” I bade him, burying two arm-like branches in the snowman.

Ah, how relaxing. Nothing could ruin this perfect day — except a stampede of rhinoceroses. But that was just impossible. For one thing, rhinoceroses don’t live in this part of the world. They also could not exist in this climate, and certainly couldn’t stampede in such a thick forest.

Rhinoceroses are basically fat unicorns.

Hollyballoo

“‘Let me be frank with you’… that might offend people named Frank.”

*Tap tap tap*

I scratched the word off the draft very slowly; my fingers were half locked in place by the cold. Taking a break from my labors, I tucked my left hand under my right armpit. My right hand and left armpit reluctantly reciprocated.

Sitting upright, I was quite a sight to behold. To blend in with the movie folk we would be “replacing” (as per our latest mission briefing), my crack team of hypno-cryptographers had hit the costume shop pretty hard.

Travis was at the hovercraft’s wheel, wearing an all-purpose security uniform. He was “officially” a new hire, who would escort Codex and myself through the crowded set to deliver a prop to the new Nick Fury film set. We would then sabotage the set. This would be exceedingly difficult, as Codex had passed away earlier in the week.

Alas! Following our last mission, Codex succumbed to Yellow Fever!

“Oh, woe!” I sobbed, “Oh, to be able to commune again with our dear Codex! Yet I do not weep. No, sir! For he’s in a much better place. You’ve got the whole back seat to yourself, don’t you?”

I reached back and adjusted the tie on Codex’s body. We hadn’t had time to bury it, what with Travis having purchased a DVD box set for each season of Babylon 5.

However, we did manage to spray him with disinfectant and get him into a fancy-pants suit.

“Don’t bother trying to get civility from him,” Travis chuckled, “he stiffed me on the tip!”

“Ha ha! Codex, he’s got you dead to rights on that one!”

“We’re here,” Travis grinned as the hovercraft came to a steady halt.

Still grinning, albeit forcefully, Travis came around to the backseat and whistled away at the passersby as I hauled Codex’s carcass out of that clown car and toward the studio. To the average schmo, a security guard was escorting an unshaven man with a heavy overcoat on a hot spring day toting a dead body face-down on a homemade, ramshackle sled.

Human chameleons.

“We’re being followed,” Travis whispered as we passed four little people dressed as babies with cigars in their mouths.

Sure enough, a cadre of cadets kept close behind us, watching our every move. The studio’s biometric database (merged into my main doohickey) scanned their faces into lines — then scanned the lines into points, then scanned the points into grids, and then — and only then — did I remember I saw those same guards on the studio’s web site. What a colossal waste of time!

One of the guards waved us over. “Freeze, hotshots! Lemme see yer studio passes.”

It would take more than my silver tongue to get us out of this kerfuffle!

“It’s all right, Frank,” Travis smiled, reading the fellow’s name tag. “I can see you’re new here. This is legendary propmaster Fabián Bullflux.”

I gave them a half-hearted salute and winked at them repeatedly. “Surely you’ve heard of my work. I turn uninspired lumps of clay into actors. Have your ever heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger? Taught him to whistle. But that was twenty years ago.” I slapped Codex’s limp arm. “Now I’m all about making dead bodies out of recyclable materials.”

Those simpletons — unqualified to do their own jobs, let alone mine — examined the body before bowing to my professional competence.

“Which studio is this…” he paused for a moment, choked up in tears over how life-like the corpse was. “What movie is this for?”

“Aye, that’s what we were wondering,” Travis fumbled, “could you point us to the new Nick Fury set?” He said all this with his eyes wide open and unblinking, a surefire means of gaining these bumpkins’ trust.

“What are you trying to pull?”

My hands shook! They were onto us somehow!

“You think we’re idiots?” Frank pulled out a metallic nightstick. The others did likewise. “You don’t work here; all new hires go through introductory training where they meet every single other guard.” He tapped Codex with the baton. “And that’s no prop. I was in the army for fifteen years, I know the difference between a prop and a real body.”

This was certainly a stunning reversal of fortune. Sweet Bat-man of Goth-am! This was harder than breaking into the Death Star!

“He said he’d kill me if I told anyone!” I shouted, jumping behind Frank, shaking my fist at a bewildered Travis. “I was abducted from my home — he’s a madman! Step on him!”

The guards descended on Travis like locusts on dust-bowl wheat.

It was a rotten thing to do to a friend and coworker. But as henchmen, there’s one rule we all live by: we’re all expendable. The minute we pledged ourselves to the cause of evil and donned our matching jumpsuits and ate the free cookies we were marked men. I thought gleefully of the media frenzy that might — would — complete our mission by burying this accursed movie-picture under bad publicity as I prepared to unpin the stink-grenades!!!

No actor, grip, key grip, gaffer or guppy would work on a set that smelled like a gym locker!

“What the #@$&! do you think you’re doing?!”

Clenching the still-pinned grenades betwixt my startled digits, Christian Bale (once again) swooped in to save my life and improve its quality.

“Mister Bale, these—”

“What are you doing, man?! What are you, an amateur?! I’m #@$&! rehearsing my Nick Fury lines all day, waiting for Fabián #@$&! Bullflux to build a #@$&! set worthy of Christian Bale…”

This is why you’ve gotta call ahead.

“You’re right to be upset,” I egged him on. “They’re wailin’ on m’roadie, and now the corpse is dusty. Dagnabbit.”

The veins in his neck danced like worms on a fish hook. “You’re done professionally! I want you off the set!”

In a fight between Christian Bale and Chuck Norris, Mr. T would be the only qualified referee. The appropriate attire for such an occasion would be tuxedos.

*Chortle!* As Bale blithely berated the bewildered guards with his bellicose ballyhoo, Travis and I tag-teamed to tug our teammate’s tepid torso toward the tiled Tuscan toilet. There, we washed Codex’s wilted whiskers, wisecracking wittily as we whipped his weathered wisps into worldly whorls.

Travis tended to his bloodied eyebrow, inured during the melee. A hypnotist with bruised eyebrows is like an airplane pilot with narcolepsy. Incidentally, Colonel Chickenpox, a diagnosed narcoleptic, would frequently commandeer aircraft for personal use, God rest his salty soul.

“Get ready for phase ‘Dine & Dash.’” I cheerily checked the timer on Codex’s stomach.

When the counter reached zero, the Yellow Fever spores ripening within his carapace would reach maturity and emerge from his gills. I had been planning something similar with a bee hive, but Codex’s untimely death had been an all-around boon.

“Do you think this is respectful?” Travis asked as we locked the body in the handicapped stall.

“What else could we do? He’s too big to flush. TELEPORT NOW!”

It takes two weeks to charge my teleporter enough for two people (especially since I use an iPod charger), but getting out of Hollywood alive was a worthwhile use of the coveted technology.

My only regret of the whole hullabaloo was that the ripening process prevented Codex from being zombified or vampirated. A loss for doomsday fanatics everywhere.

***

IN the immediate aftermath of what became known as “Bale Plague”, Hollywood was placed under quarantine by the CDC. All items from the set, including clothes, were burned. The cast and crew from the Nick Fury movie were forced to live nude in a subterranean dome for six months.

And legendary prop designer Fabián Bullflux was declared dead and commemorated on a set of coins available for purchase for $29.99. They say his restless spirit wanders the streets at night, looking for innocent victims to apply prosthetic alien ears to.

But we modern folk know better.

Lex Luthor’s Pants Fall Down!

“Rupert, Bill, why don’t you two welcome ‘the professor’ to Nutwood?”

Taking my cue despite the obscure reference, Travis and Codex stepped in to deal with The Questionable Mark — another punctuation-based villain. Related pests include the Hyphenated Horror, Backslasher, Gamma Guillemet and Interpunk.

Now, I’m not above the occasional bribe, but dressing up like the Riddler doesn’t entitle you to the lifestyle. Villainy is a lot more than a pithy nickname and gimmick; where’s the back-story? Where’s the tragic figure who was given lemons, and squirted those lemons right back in the world’s eyes? The kind of super villain whose psyche is complex enough to warrant a super hero?

This is the continental divide which separates the crème de la crème from the du jour antagonists (wheat, meet chaff).

Plus, I had to weed out the shrubs so the trees could get a better view of the mountain; there would be a very special VIP tonight.

“I love my job,” Travis smiled, wringing the ooze from his fingers with a rather expensive handkerchief. “We saw some Matrix-type guys roughing up the back of the line. Should we…?”

“Don’t get involved,” I ordered, straightening his tie. It didn’t need to be straitened, but I felt it added to the drama.

“There seem to be a lot of ‘building inspectors’ around,” cajoled Codex. Travis and I both turned around to men and women with backstage passes, civilian clothes — and identical radio-squawkboxes. All purported to be “building inspectors,” but I knew this to be subterfuge.

“Well, the Legion of Doom has always had issues with the building codes…”

“They’re all armed.”

Aha ho! Now that the cat was out of the bottle, I might as well tell them!

“Them be agents, arrrrr…” Still stuck in pirate mode! *click*

“Agents of the Apocalypse?”

“Agents of change.” They still didn’t get it. “Those are secret service agents. The VIP is…”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States, Barack Obama,” a stocky announcer declared over the woefully out-of-code stereo system. Rushing to the entrance, I was trounced back by the staff. A bouncer gets no respect, I tell you, no respect.

Travis pulled me aside. “Is this another prank?” He remembered all too well his “special birthday dinner with Richard Dean Anderson” had in fact been history’s most coordinated Rickroll.

“I kidd you knot,” I chortled, handing him a balloon twisted into a goat-like shape. “The Legion received $80 billion last year in bailout funds. Congress wants oversight—”

“Why would the government bail out the Legion of Doom?” Travis pondered, and rightly so!

“Why? WHY?!” The green screen behind me morphed into a pleasing river beside a towering forest. “Because for over fifty years, the Legion of Doom has fueled America’s unprecedented economic growth.”

I walked through a high-tech laboratory, stopping at a table where a Rhesus monkey with exposed brain tissue was strapped under a gargantuan, ominous optical device.

“The Legion of Doom (LD LTD.) innovates — the deadly engines of destruction today become the linchpins of tomorrow’s economy. Remember, the humble spoon began as a portable eye-gouger.”

Three clips lit up the screen behind me, arranged so my head occupied the fourth space in a nicely-cropped grid. The first depicted molten steel being poured into a cast, the second showed dozens of workers at sewing machines, and the last one showed a college professor calling on a student whose hand was up.

“From the ray-gun foundries to uniform manufacturers, America’s henchmen are the best in the world — thanks to their LD-funded, top-of-the-line equipment and training. Through their union, all LD henchmen have the equivalent of a GI bill. Counting the people on our payroll directly, companies we have contracts with, and excluding aliases, LD keeps over four million people employed.”

*whistles abound*

“That’s more than the auto industry,” stammered Travis. “I had no idea!”

“It’s a pretty open secret that the media is biased against businesses owned by evildoers,” I agreed. “Yet 100% of all companies owned by evil persons have weathered these tough times swimmingly. Nothing guarantees long-term growth and accountability better than a quasi-religious drive to kill Superman.”

Codex nodded in stunned silence, while Travis scratched his nose thoughtfully. I could see the wheels turning in his head: he planned to use his terrible powers of hypnosis against the new president!

“Quit that thoughtline, man!” I sneered. “Obama is immune to hypnosis—”

“I was planning no such thing!” Travis shouted, taken aback. Maybe I can’t read people all that well after all…

“Good. We can’t afford any bad press,” an anonymous wallflower chimed in. For a second I couldn’t recognize her; but as soon as I completed my diagnostic cycle, my biometric scanner registered her as my temporary boss.

“Ah, Madame X,” I smiled, taking her hand. “These are my goons, Aubert Tinklebottom and Crackerbarrel Smith. You can call them Tink and Barley.”

Madame X shook hands with Travis and Codex. “Must be thrilling to meet the president, huh?”

Travis shrugged. “I’m not a US citizen.”

“And I didn’t have time to vote,” Codex butted in. “I work for a living.”

“Well, I voted for Obama,” I started, “but I legally adopted John McCain. He’s my son. I love him.”

The four of us chatted for about ten minutes as the secret service took over our jobs as bouncers. Madame X is a hoot! She’s worked for the Legion for twenty years, so you can imagine the kind of under-the-rug scuttlebutt that crosses her desk.

“We don’t strictly need the money,” she admitted in reference to the bailout funds. “We’ve been using the last installment to finance a vast army of robot warriors.”

“Ford did that ten years ago.”

“Yeah, but the super-pets wiped out the production center. They haven’t been a problem of late.”

Suddenly the pieces slid together like an ethereal jigsaw puzzle in my mind: a global government conspiracy to use the market collapse as a cover for launching a large-scale galactic invasion, powered by the next generation of super-weaponry tested on actual animals.

Diabolical.

“Is our hour up?” I yawned. While the prospect of meeting Barack Obama and confirming whether or not he could in fact grow facial hair was tempting, we had fulfilled our obligation to the Legion.

“But we just met Madame X,” Codex whined. I’d have to put him in the brig for the evening; there was definitely a tantrum brewing.

“I can’t stay all night. I promised John McCain I’d read him a bed time story and he can’t sleep unless it’s narrated just right,” I needled. “I bring a certain buoyancy to the table.”

We left the party then and there. Travis tried to run back, but six agents with cattle prods derailed his windmill-tilting. Privy as I was to the designs and mechanisms of good and evil, I surmised the true purpose of the ball.

“Somewhere in that building,” I confided in Codex as we hauled Travis into the trunk, “Lex Luthor is being asked to head the Commerce Department.”

***

The day after this article was published, Lex Luthor was confirmed as Secretary of Commerce by an 85-12 vote in the United States Senate. His pants fell down during the confirmation hearing.

KNOW HISTORY:The Robot-Pirate War for Super Island

WARNING: you are about to embark on a journey through layers of unadulterated corruption and unabashed drama. The story that is about to unfold requires a sturdy constitution and I ask that the weaker readers refrain from continuing.

Ding.

The latest telegram! Anxiously, I crowded around the operator, pushing my fellow henchmen aside to get the first glance at the message as it was transcribed. Dot-dot-dot… dash…

“There was a downed communiqué-cable — a communi-cable — but we’ve got the gist,” Army Amanda (Colonel Chickenpox’s attaché) explained.

Pirates were always cutting the cables on us; we refuse to pay tribute. And yet the Spanish armada refuses to harry the scalawags from our waters, despite our redresses to the Colonel. Colonel Chickenpox was (in my opinion) the bravest shoehorn I ever met, but his administrative skills were stumblingly sub-par.

“Your task is to… ‘prevent the super-pets from reproducing’ using any means.”

I stoked my firebeard. “Travis. Have you ever seen one of these so-called super-pets?”

“Can’t rightly say I have,” said Travis. We both knew he was lying. He pulled a map out and laid it on the war room table. “But I’ve heard many legends during my time in Piratetown.”

“Tell us again how you escaped the infamous Captain Carrow?” Codex asked, barely looking up from the mangled telegram. I plopped down in the Colonel’s armchair, eager for a thumping good story.

“It was Tuesday,” he began. “The Colonel asked me to empty the tar traps. Not thinking much of it, I packed the canisters on a handtruck and wheeled them to the local disposary.”

Amanda disconnected the ringer and pulled up a chair. This story got better with every telling.

“I saw my friend Jack Robbins on the way downtown. ‘Mornin’, Travis!’ he yelled, ’cause I didn’t see him. ‘You’re off in a hurry.’ So I showed him the handtruck and explained about the tar traps. He said he knew a shortcut…”

“Aw, this is the good part,” I whispered.

“So Jack, my best friend since third grade, took me down a shady alleyway. ‘Jack,’ I said, ‘this doesn’t seem like a good neighbo-’”

SLAM! Travis pounded the sandpapered chestnut wall. Sawdust sparked off his fist.

“My good friend hi-Jack-ed me; knocked me out cold, and the next thing I knew, I was in irons in the belly of the Sea Kettle.”

He held his arms above his head. “I was a captive of none other than Captain Carrow, that crafty Caribbean cur! He’d built quite a reputation in the south as a hardboiled swordsman, willing to slit throats on a whim and strand his own men on deserted islands to settle bets.”

Lighting a hand-rolled Havana on my firebeard, Travis pursed, pensive.

“By capturing me, Jack had bought his own freedom. My hypnotic repertoire is legendary; Carrow gave Jack a motorized rowboat and a month’s supply of taffy and cut him loose. I haven’t heard from him since, but make no mistake—” he unsheathed his scabbard and waved it menacingly, “—if I ever see Jack Robbins again, he’s getting a permanent haircut.”

“So you were aboard Captain Carrow’s ship, the Sea Kettle? What was it like?”

“Smelly. Crowded. Disease spread rapidly. Society had broken down. Then we set sail from Los Angeles and conditions improved.”

Leaning back on his stool, Travis’ eyes jolted. He was nearing the crux of the story.

“Carrow threatened me with painful torture if I refused to teach his crew to resist hypnosis. Colonel Chickenpox says to hold out against torture for 24 hours, and I did — and all it bought me was a day in the shark tank.”

Travis rolled up his sleeve to show off the bite marks. “Was the Colonel asleep at the switch?” He snapped at Amanda. That was unfair of him, she had no control over the Colonel’s narcolepsy.

“…So I had a hammerhead under one arm while I fought off the Great White with my legs, kicking its stomach as it gnawed my free arm. Sharks are naturally immune to hypnosis, so it was an uphill climb.” He flexed ardently. “I sent ’em packin’ in tuna cans. But then Carrow sent in the dolphins.”

We all shuddered. Dolphins are the mortal enemies of hypnotists.

“Thursday was indoctrination day. I personally administered the oath of office to every member of the crew, Westminster style, and the training began.” He sighed.

It was one thing to use hypnosis for evil and personal gain. But to be used like a tool — like a 32b-bit adaptive coil handler — was plain humiliating.

“We landed at Piratetown after two weeks of hypnotherapy. We were stocking up on provisions for an antarctic voyage to parts unknown. Or at least, unknown to me.” He took a sip of water before continuing (even though there was iced tea right there), “Carrow wanted me at his side at all times, to counter any would-be hypnotic assassins. With his enemies and diet, it’s surprising he wasn’t already long-dead.”

I visualized the gritty scene in my mind: a dingy den of deceit, monkeybirds chained to their masters’ arms, gold-laden lamps caging blue-hot flames. An endless sea of graft, despair and opportunity. It was a place to which I could easily relate.

Because I was there.

“You were there!”

The room turned to face me. I arched my left eyebrow in mock shock. “Sí, yo estuve allí. Piratetown is one of the many places I frequent. There’s no law against piracy, is there?” I asked defiantly.

“Uh…” Codex shook his head. “What does any of this have to do with the super-pets? We’re supposed to-”

“You’re supposed to speak when spoken to, ingrate!”

I belted him in the face with my knuckle dusters on. He went down, and I kicked him in the gut. Then I apologized and we became the best of friends. I helped him move the following week, and we had iced cream and mine fell off the cone but he bought me another. But that was next week; this week we were at war.

“Colonel Chickenpox had just ordered a general holiday so he could have some free time to burn incriminating evidence regarding his purchase of a United States Senate seat. See, Jefferson Smith — the longest serving senator in history, and record-holder for the longest filibuster — had just kicked the bucket after serving for 79 years in the Senate. The Colonel wanted to get someone into office who was sympathetic to his pet cause: BANANA EXTINCTION.”

“So he concocted a scheme,” Travis added. “He sent this clown to Piratetown to rustle up some votes; pirates vote in a bloc, and most are fans of the banana anyway.”

“But the pirates were too riled up to think about politics,” I broke in, “because of those lousy super pets.”

“Then you’ve encountered the super-pets before?” Codex asked. “And where was I this whole time?”

“I don’t know… probably playing your Gameboy deluxe, advance, whatever the kids are — pocket — whatever they’re calling them today. And yeah, the super-twerps were part of the problem. Those do-gooders raided the raiders, throwing pirates in prison with their bare paws.”

“So, with my hypnotic prowess, I helped Captain Carrow and the other pirate lords and ladies broker a deal with the colonel’s proxy,” he gestured to me. “And thus the joint Pirate-Banana lobby was born.”

“The Banana-Pirate lobby. This was all before you were hired,” I told Amanda. “It also explains why we can’t go after the super-pets…”

“Dead. All of them.” Travis was, as usual, brutally blunt. “Colonel Chickenpox funneled experimental ‘toys’ to Piratetown through his cronies in the Pentagon. Those four lieutenants who got discharged after testifying before Congress last year? Patsies. Scapegoats. The DOD wanted that equipment tested under real world conditions, and if it meant turning over the top-secret location of the Island of the Super-Pets…”

“The whole island was torched,” I replied equally bluntly. “We watched from the captain’s lounge. Hypnotically-controlled androids bounded through the napalm, pre-programmed to kill. Pirates in Haz-mat suits sliced their quarry with Kryptonite blades.” I crunched the numbers. “And not one person lost a contact lens amid the horror. It was beautiful.”

“That was the end of the super-pets,” Travis said as he enjoyed a ripe Cavendish banana, thanks to the Colonel’s preservation efforts.

“All thanks to Mr. Jack Robbins,” accidentally burst past my lips as I took a sip of the iced tea Travis had coldly refused. Boy, did I have some explaining to do!

Travis blanched. “Wh-what?”

“Jack was a plant, yo! You were set up. Colonel Chickenpox played Carrow like a fiddle, and you were the bow!” I took pleasure in knowing I facilitated this realization. “One of Bush’s last official acts was to give Jack the presidential medal of freedom, which he wears quite well.”

SNAP! Travis was about to blow a gasket!

“I… fought sharks…”

“For your country.”

“Those animals…”

“Vigilantes unaffiliated with any nation.”

Travis slumped down. “WHAT WAS THE POINT?!”

I was perplexed by his reaction. “Why, to test Earth’s finest hypnotic weaponry against a genuine alien presence! The only issue in Washington that has real bipartisan support is intergalactic conquest. And, apparently, saving the banana from extinction.”

As Travis knelt and wept for the super-pets, brave soldiers with human names like “Lyndon” and “Mahathanashi” from places like “Pensitucky” and “Khorma” were already setting foot on Tau Ceti, armed to the teeth with hypno-beams, ready like all-get-out to unleash their fury on the murderous slugfolk.

And over the fray, despite the lack of atmosphere, their battle hymn carried all the way back home.

And those who remained on that rock died proudly, with their bananas in their hands.

Splitting Heirs

“I’m ready!” I shouted, kicking the door open with a brush in one hand and a bottle of conditioner in the other. “We’re gonna take such good care of Doom’s hair—”

“Heir. Not hair, his heir. His protégé,” Codex whipped. He was at the far corner of the study, staggering studiously over a stuffy scroll. Good thing for him, I’d’ve cold-clocked him for that. He really dodged a bullet there.

Travis was busy making small talk with the lad. First time I’d seen a baby with a 5 o’clock shadow. All those growth hormones in the milk, I say!

I’d hoped to make up for being four hours late by dazzling the good doctor with my fascinatingly, titillatingly scintillating hair ministrations. But now I was apparently charged with cutting his heir’s hair.

That’s when I noticed a familiar glimmer in the boy’s upper left eye.

“Hold him still, but quick,” I ordered solemnly, pulling out my portable guillotine. “I have a barber-ous reputation to maintain.”

The baby giggled. Travis, on the other hand, freaked out. “Give me that!”

“You’ve never given a baby a haircut before, have you?” Codex clucked. Finally! Someone who could understand my predicament.

“Listen to me!” Travis and I both looked sideways. I pulled up his already comically high collar. “I didn’t want you to find out this way, since you’ve already bonded with the child, but…”

He looked down at Baby Doom. Although the child was kicking around some building blocks, the stubble and occasional lapses in demeanor cracked (what to me was) an obvious facade.

“Travis, the child is possessed.”

“What?! Preposterous! You nonsensical coxcomb, if you lay one misbegotten finger on that child’s head—”

I slapped him. “Are you that easy to brainwash? What happened to the master hypnotist, wanted worldwide, from the sultans of Microstan to the Haraguaian junta?” I pulled up my shirt — Travis had hypnotized me into making a relief carving of his GENERIC hometown on my own metallic torso. “What about the people of Anytown, USA? If they could see you now. Tut tut.”

Collapsing in a heap, Travis recited the Hypnotist’s Credo, as all hypnotists do when questioning their own sanity:

“I am not a chicken, I am not a chicken, I am not a chicken…”

“And not a peep out of you,” I scowled at the baby what caused this situation. He grinned evilly, or perhaps gasilly, and drooled like an infant. “I’m onto your game, kid.”

Codex put down his engrossing scroll and glossed over to us, agitatedly. “Could you two keep it down? Doctor Doom has some amazing ancient texts that can help prove my thesis.”

“I thought you forswore writing your thesis until you solved your parents’ murder?”

He stared at me blankly. Some day I would trick him into revealing his past. It was more fun than a thousand Googles.

Travis composed himself enough to ask a thunderously idiotic question. “Can anything be done to save this wretch?”

“Not only can something be done, but in the future it has already been done! Hold the child close to you — we’re going to conduct a highly unorthodox exorcism.”

Travis cringed. “How will it differ from an orthodox exorcism?”

“I was taught the ‘traditional’ exorcism by a heretical bishop, but he had a stroke halfway through. So I added in all his spasms and whatnot, and I’ve been doing it that way ever since. Now…” I kicked off my shoes. “Make sure to hold his mouth open the whole time; if you don’t, the pressure imbalance will cause immediate organ collapse.”

“Should we not, good sir, ask the child’s legal guardian before performing a religious ceremony on him?”

“Sure. And maybe I should bring all the children of the world PRESENTS every year on Christmas eve, flying through the sky on a SLED pulled by gravity-defying reindeer. Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.”

I squeezed the hairbrush; the bristles instantly perked up, transmogrified to hardened Aluminium™, the wondrous new metal that will change the face of industry by 1960.

Imagine it: a world of sandwiches wrapped in an Aluminium™ foil. Houses constructed with Aluminium™ beams and pipes. Aluminium™ telephone rotors that never rust.

Truly, whichever superpower harnesses the awesome potential of Aluminium™ first will become the defining force of the 20^th century.

The force I now wielded in my right hand.

“Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” We cleared a circle around the accursed heir. I got my groove on. “All right, let’s clean out his spiritual P-trap. Codex! The electric razor! Travis! Forty gallons of mousse, quickly! We’ve not a moment to—”

“I’m home,” a voice echoed just outside the study, smacking of familiarity.

“Okay, if you guys could just unpack the groceries, I’ve got your money— hey! YOU!”

“You’re off your rocker… I’ve never seen you before…” My eyes darted for a blunt object as Doctor Doom advanced on my position in his casual wear.

“You were here months ago with that alpha-flight whatsit.” His nostrils flared. “You broke my time machine! And the second storey of my castle has been completely inaccessible since that time!”

“Serves you right for not using Aluminium™!” Codex piped, engrossed with the scroll and his own arrogance.

I equivocated. “Things were said and done that cannot be undone… but… Travis here has something that will abate your anger and put you in a happy place!”

Taking my lead, Travis Read with rife speed attended my need for a hypnotic deed.

“Watch me watch you watching my watch,” he bobbed, lobbing the slob to the Land of Nod with a flick of his wrist and a twist of his bod.

Incidentally, Doctor Doom soiled himself. I promised myself I wouldn’t tell people, but it’s not only a funny story — it’s historically accurate.

“I’d say we’re pretty much done here,” Travis announced, sidestepping the prostrate form that once threatened to sue me. “Should we make tracks back—”

“Did I die and leave you in command? Because I thought—” I touched my face, “I thought I was very much alive and in charge of this mission. Underling! Minion! Cretin! We’re done upon my assent! Now… being henchmen, it is our sacred duty to commit crimes, of which we have not done enough. So while I pack up my styling supplies, you two grab everything that isn’t bolted down.”

They saluted me (in my mind) and set off to cavort and caper about the castle. I turned my attention downward, curler in hand.

“Now then, you rascally demonspawn… how do you want your bangs?”

Parkside Panda-monium

Slipping in undetected, I tapped the confirmation code on my Morse transmitter. Outside the compound, Travis Read and Codex responded by cutting the power and setting the contents of twelve garbage bins aflame. Next, I—

WHOA! Maybe I should slow down and explain myself.

Hello, all! My name is Gyrobo, a colorful rogue from a far-flung future where time travel is practical but highly unethical. I’ve been to virtually every period of historical importance, hence my many bumper stickers. Due to the bungling of some British interlopers, I’ve lost my ability to navigate the multiverse, becoming trapped in your frame over 80 years ago.

I have now decided to pursue a life of crime, in the service of the inestimable Doctor… well, let’s just say he wouldn’t like me handing out his name to just anyone.

Travis Read is the doctor’s right-hand man, wanted in Canada for his unspeakable hypnotic horrors. A former Black Cheddarist, Travis knows more about hypnotic domination and infiltration than anyone else alive.

As for the other one… nobody knows Codex’s origins for sure. Some say he was the unwanted child of two archaeologists who took it upon himself to continue his parents’ work, regardless of cultural taboos. Others say he came from a good home but had sociopathic tendencies and a penchant for tomb raiding.

One thing everyone agrees on is that he got his nickname translating an unknown Mayan codex he found at a garage sale. They say it predicted future events… and that what he read drove him mad. He occasionally clips articles from newspapers and arranges them in patterns that only he understands.

“Travis,” I tapped onto the pad, “is the Panda cage clear?”

That’s right, the dragon ball the three of us had sworn to retrieve was at the Linkin Park Zoo, deep in the heart of Chicago. We had scoped the park out earlier, tracing the location of the ball to the panda tanks, where those glorified raccoons swung from branches all day (or whatever is is pandas do, I’m not a bionomist).

The one thing I do know about pandas is that they don’t like it when you try to take their eggs. And their eggs look just like — you guessed it — dragon balls.

“All zoo personnel are tied up at the moment,” Travis texted back. Whether this meant they were preoccupied with the fires or physically incapacitated was a question best left to the philosophers.

What followed was a series of digits: the security code to the pandadome. One or more of the guards was clearly under Travis’ hypnotic influence; as with all his victims, they would spend the remainder of their natural-born life thinking they were chicken.

A pretty explicit calling card, to be sure.

With the radar as my guide, I made my way past the Sasquatch pen and the Microstani mini-Hulk display. Squealing in trepidation, I entered the ill-gotten code.

Bracing myself for the stench took a minute. Pandas are among the nation of Earth’s most filthy creatures. Pigs look upon pandas in disgust (at least they did in the future, when pigs were bipedal but still nude).

Kicking open the unlocked door, the interrogation began. “Which one of you has my quarry?!”

The two pandas in the room ignored me, pretending to be asleep. At the far corner of the room was an egg clutch. Jackpot!

Before the pandas could rend me limb from limb (my good friend Benita had been a panda trainer and supporter until one balmy summer day deep in the Amazin’ Rain Forrest, she was eaten by a superpanda), I chloroformed them remotely. Paintball guns have 101 uses — and possibly many more. Paintballing had a place in Mayan culture unparalleled in modern society, Codex says.

Grabbing the dragon ball, I smashed all the eggs out of spite. “That was for Benita!” I screamed at the dripping yolks.

The whole situation had a surreal quality to it: me, in a panda cage, smashing panda eggs while Travis and Codex used hypnosis to transform the Chicago PD into a nonstop party machine à la Jim Carrey in Mask.

“All of my victories seem empty,” I sighed, tucking the dragon ball under my arm and racing to the exit.

Racing to the zoo’s only exit at breakneck speed isn’t something that should be done by amateurs. I’m a trained professional, ma’am.

Codex greeted me at the gate. Travis was at the front of a department-wide conga line and couldn’t be disturbed.

I laughed: “That mad hypnotist!” Operation: Black Cheddar had not only bestowed upon him the godlike powers of hypnotism, but had made him, hands down, the life of the party.

“We should…” Codex quickly checked his palm. There was something written in hieroglyphs. “…return to base. Travis knows the plan.”

“Delightful.”

Simultaneously, we activated our JimmyLegs™ jet packs and took off.

Best. Heist. Ever.