Unpro Duck Tivi Tee

Six months ago, I started this crazy blog with the intention of writing a story that required no preparation, no research, and no forethought, just a bunch of made up nonsense. I have discovered that even this sort of writing is not a walk in the cake, to procure a phrase from the very wise Dikemebe Mutombo. With open-ended nonsense, a writer starts to wonder what the point is and it's easy to give up. Paradoxically, the same thing can happen when a story is too complex or intricate; one just gives up.

Well, I don't know that I've given up, but I do know I have been unproductive on this page lately, in part because I started another novel, one I'm not prepared to share with the general public for free.

I realize my absence disappoints my fans, but hopefully neither of them will take it too hard.

Fifteen: Custody

Agent Tomatilla Bygone decided not to handcuff the suspect because he looked like a nice enough guy. This was the dumbest reason she could ever recall for not handcuffing someone. She also felt safe with Nathanial Wildacre around, even if he was older than her grandfather.

"What's your name?" she asked the man, believing she already knew which of the four he was but wondering if he would tell the truth.

"Jim Misanthrope," he replied. "What's going on here?"

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"I can tell you this whole place is a freak show."

He walked alongside her, as though he considered himself in custody even though she had not put him in handcuffs or charged him with a crime. Her cell phone rang and she plucked the tiny instrument out of a carrying case on her waist and peered at it.

"Oh, lovely," she said, in obvious dismay.

"What's wrong?" Nathanial Wildacre asked.

"The moderates have attacked Tulsa again."

"What did Tulsa ever do to them, I wonder?"

"Well, I'm not sure I'd call it a moderate town," Agent Bygone said.

"Maybe not, but they've got a lovely zoo," said Wildacre, "Cheap, too."

"Pardon me for interjecting, but what exactly is happening?" demanded Jim, who felt he had tolerated enough ordeal and frustration for one day.

Though concealment had become part of the natural order of things for SpyCo employees, Tomatilla Bygone decided to abandon and intrigue for bluntness. Something about the presence of Wildacre emboldened her and she didn't think Jim Misanthrope was connected to any sinister plot.

"Rumor is that this company had developed some type of disposal method for Tangible Hubris. You knew that and we knew you knew. I was sent from Chicago to catch up with you, see what your intentions were. You do realize that whenever someone sets out to accomplish something grandly heroic, lots of people, including our organization, assume you must be driven by an ulterior motive that's sinister."

"Of course," Jim deadpanned, "I keep wondering what our ulterior motive is. I haven't figured that out, but I guess there's no need to now since we've proven so incompetent. Before you ask, I don't know where the others are. They left me here, probably because they thought I was dead. I might forgive them or I might hold a grudge for the rest of my life and die a bitter man."

"I always wanted to try that," said Wildacre, "but I lacked the commitment."

"I'm sure I do as well," said Jim.

Wildacre and Agent Bygone searched the area, finding the unsettling phony corpse and the sign warning off all trespassers. Neither Jim nor Agent Bygone understood how he knew, but they trusted Wildacre when he said the sample piece of Tangible Hubris was real.

"No synthetic approximation has ever been attempted, as far as I know," the old man shrugged. "What would be the point?"

"To scare people off, like they're trying to here?"

"But you can just use the real stuff. There's plenty of it and it's not really dangerous, except that you just can't get rid of it. It doesn't decompose but it isn't toxic."

This, as far as anyone knew, was true. Agent Bygone's next utterance proved inaudible because Nichelle Trudery stormed the room and demanded Jim's release, offering herself in his place. Tottchell Zizzzard stood behind her, looking utterly bewildered.

Fourteen: Compromisation

Nichelle Trudery felt like a complete and utter recreant for abandoning Jim Misanthrope to his fate, whatever that fate might be. Try as she might, she could no longer blame their frantic retreat on Elmer's panic or the bipedal dog's obvious fear of the basement. She and Tott--well, she--should have calmed the others down and ventured into the contaminated cellar to check on Jim. No one knew how far he had fallen nor the nature of the contamination nor even if the sign indicating the danger was still relevant.

"What are we going to do now?" asked Tottchell Zizzzard, who had stretched out his long body in the back seat.

"We get out of here, as I have been saying all along," Elmer insisted.

"No, we have to go back for Jim," said Nichelle, "You guys know that, surely."

They had stopped on the side of the road just outside Goofy Ridge and let the dog out of the car. Unlike most canines, this one seemed not to love riding in the vehicle. In fact, it appeared the creature was carsick. No one spoke for a few moments, as Elmer and Tott absorbed Nichelle's exhortation. They agreed with her, she knew, and must have been riddled with the same guilt that was jolting her. Their silence amounted to consent.

"No," said Elmer, "I don't see that we do. I think it would be a mistake."

Nichelle shot a glare at Elmer, one ablaze with profundity, with reminders of the past, with indicators of his responsibilities toward his friend. Or perhaps the look simply carried disgust. Elmer ignored her. She turned to the backseat, eyeing Tott for signs of resistance. Without even speaking to him, Nichelle knew he would go back for Jim if she pressed hard enough unless Elmer actively recruited him as an ally, which was unlikely. Elmer displayed little but disdain for Tott most of the time; he liked Tott, but rarely showed respect for his feelings or opinions.

She got out of the car to check on the dog, pocketing the keys as she did so, fearing faintly, distantly that Elmer might slide across the seat and take off without her. She did not really think he would attempt this, nor did she imagine even the pliable Tott would permit such an extreme course of action. Still, she was taking no chances.

The strange beast they had found at the Monolithic Chemical Company lifted its weary head when she approached and made a sound, half bark and half moan. Though there were no obvious signs of illness or injury to the alleged dog, the creature was clearly uncomfortable. It occurred to her now what needed to be done, that there were two important things to accomplish, one of which might serve to distract and preoccupy Elmer long enough for her and Tott to return to MCC and locate Jim. Unfortunately, she wasn't certain Elmer could be trusted even with this much less risky assignment. She motioned for the upright-walking dog to accompany her and it grudgingly obeyed.

"Elmer," she said, "I'm not going to try to cajole or guilt you into going back to get Jim."

"Thank you," he muttered, without looking at her.

"Instead, I want you to take this animal to a veterinarian."

"What?" Elmer demanded, as though he had been asked the most confounding trick question possible.

"Will you do this for me? I know you don't want to go back to that contaminated basement, but I have to. Tott can go with whomever he likes, though I suspect I'll need him more than you will. Meanwhile, you can go to the vet and see what you can find out about this... er, dog."

As she spoke, she noticed Tott nod from the back seat, indicating he would go with her.

"That's not a dog, that's an experimental freak," said Elmer. "Besides, who can afford a vet bill? Not me. And this creature doesn't belong to me in the first place."

"Elmer, you're not using your brain. I know you're afraid to under the circumstances, but listen for a minute. Do you think once the vet sees something like this that there will be any demands for money? All you have to do is say what happened and where you found the thing. Like you said, it's not your dog. The vet can do whatever, but my guess is under the circumstances, they'll do everything they can for it because, like us, they want to know what the hell it is."

Elmer's averted eyes and shaking head revealed what his mouth wouldn't say. You're right, Nichelle, you're right and I'll do this so you'll stop thinking I'm a jerk and a coward.

Thirteen: Unlucky Jim

Jim Misanthrope could not believe his misfortune at first, but then he recalculated this assessment and deemed himself lucky to be alive. Then he refigured again and decided it was possible to be lucky and unlucky at the same time. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious when he woke, only that he felt dreadful, dull pain in his head, neck and shoulders.

Nichelle Trudery, Elmer Treedweller, and Totchell Zizzzard were gone now, probably assuming he would be impossible to find or had been killed or captured. The upright-walking dog had also vanished, presumably following the three humans to the car for a long-awaited ride with its head out the window.

Until his eyes adjusted to the overall lack of light, Jim would have sworn he fell through some kind of trap door. In reality, he had fallen because he had come to a staircase on the opposite side of where the steps began and the guardrails were missing. Apparently unable to find him or learn what had occurred in the darkness, the others assumed the worst and made their escape. He could not help but feel a little disappointed by this development, especially considering he would not have left any of them in this building without an exhaustive search. Then again, perhaps something else, a more imminent threat, had prompted their departure.

Jim struggled for several minutes to find a light source, a long chain attached to a bare bulb that burned surreal yellow and revealed nothing in particular. The floors were hardwood and surprisingly clean, the walls recently painted ivory with cobwebs in the corners. This struck Jim as stranger than just about anything he could previously have imagined. Considering the presence of the bizarre dog and the apparent emptiness of the facility and the sinister feel of the whole affair, he would have been less surprised by a chamber of horrors or signals of longer abandonment. Instead, the area was simply a long, open and low-ceilinged basement that looked something like a laboratory, but with no experiments present, only countertops and tables and chairs.

When Jim made his way carefully up the staircase he had used about half of to get down, he could see a few drops of blood and various dings and dents and bruises on the steps, any one of which could have been caused by part of his body. At the top of the stairs, he discovered what, in all likelihood, had impelled his friends to leave the area in the first place. It was a grotesque and horrifying sight, a man of roughly his own age who had apparently coughed up a fatal dose of tangible hubris, a huge blob of grey, rubbery gunk that apparently had poisoned him or choked him to death or damaged his esophagus, or whatever tangible hubris did to kill its victim. There was a handwritten sign attached to the man's corpse, evidently intended for anyone who ventured down the stairs.

DO NOT ENTER: CONTAMINATED AREA

Perhaps Nichelle, Elmer, and Tott had not known exactly what happened to him and ran across the corpse in their search. Maybe they didn't even see the staircase or the fact that there were no guardrails on the far end. It remained fairly dark, but the light of the still burning bulb downstairs and Jim's well-adjusted eyes rendered things more clear than they would have been to his friends. It occurred to him that he had no idea how long he had been unconscious and, therefore, how long they had been gone. In all likelihood, they had seen the body and panicked, especially Elmer, who feared TH more than anything.

Upon closer examination, the dead body proved fake. He could not verify one way or the other whether the tangible hubris was genuine, but now he felt slightly better. One less victim of the scourge, perhaps a little less threat to his own well-being and, if he was lucky, maybe the others had called for help or were waiting outside.

He tried to work his way back to the corridor they had followed after discovering the very peculiar floor door and the bipedal canine. Finding it turned out to be really easy, what with the footsteps and voices. Two people, a young woman and an old man, burst from the corridor as he approached and the woman shouted at him.

"Hold it right there. Put your hands behind your head!"

And there it was. Jim complied after a brief pause, not certain whether to be grateful or frightened.

Twelve: Diamonds and Gaelic

Goofy Ridge resembled a post card of idyllic, desolate winter wasteland, with the bright sun shimmering off the smooth, white snow and the farmhouses and silos and barns resting silently as though they and the people inside them had not changed one iota since 1952. Norman Rockwell could not have painted it better. Nathanial Wildacre continued to drive with abundant confidence as he made his way toward the corporate office of the Monolithic Chemical Company along the lakeshore.

"The land that time forgot," murmured Agent Bygone.

"Looks that way," concurred Wildacre, "but of course, half these people probably have plasma TVs and Superspeed Internet. Spoils the illusion, I know."

"So what do you know about this place?"

"The town or the company?"

"I meant the company, but if you feel something about the town is relevant, that's fine too."

"First you'll have to explain to me what you're after," said Wildacre, "Or who. I would like to know what sort of work you're doing here."

"Well, as you know, there's a great deal of paranoia about tangible hubris and also a lot of it lying around disrupting every day life. Rumor has it the Monolithic Chemical Company figured out a safe way of disposing of this material."

"But not how to prevent it from happening in the first place."

"Right," said Agent Bygone, "That's not something anyone has figured out yet. Even the name is based on the assumption that it's caused by some combination of egotism and curiosity, of appointing yourself the determiner of what's best for everyone, which is why, it is supposed, so many politicians and reporters were infected with it so badly."

"But you're not investigating MCC, are you?"

"Actually, I am but that's only part of it. Four people from Indianapolis were on their way here as well, may already be here, so I'm supposed to look into their intentions."

"To find out, in effect, if their intentions are noble or illicit?"

"Well, I don't know. SpyCo sees plots everywhere. I think these people may be guilty of the same traits that are meant to have caused the TH outbreak before, but I can't fathom what their illicit intentions might be, can you? If these people have the same information as I have and are interested in disposing of tangible hubris, why assume their intentions are sinister?"

"But that's what power does, doesn't it? If someone catches onto something before they do, or even after they do but before they've chosen to share it with everyone else, they're suspicious, right?"

Tomatilla Bygone did not want to agree, but she heard a lot of truth in what Nathanial Wildacre said. They had now reached the headquarters, a place considerably smaller and not nearly as bustling as Agent Bygone presumed it would be.

"Looks abandoned," she remarked.

"It is, in a way," Wildacre said, "Over the last few years, MCC has been relocating much of its operation overseas, but not to the kind of countries one generally associates with cost-cutting."

"Go on."

"They opened one office in Botswana and one in Ireland."

Agent Bygone looked at the old man in utter puzzlement, wondering both how he knew this and why the Monolithic Chemical Company had selected the nations it had.

"Okay,"she said, "Botswana I can sort of see. I'm guessing land is cheap there and labor costs aren't too high either. I realize it isn't a hotspot like India and Mexico, but I could see some advantages."

"Nothing wrong with your logic, but that's not it. Botswana has very cheap land and reasonably cheap labor, but there's something else it has a lot of, and it's one of the few relatively peaceful countries that has them."

"Diamonds?"

"Diamonds."

"And what do they need diamonds for?"

"That, I'm afraid, is the extent of my knowledge, " said Nathanial Wildacre. "I could hazard a few guesses about it, but I'm not certain of any of them. You see, I did some security work for MCC after I retired, that's how I know some of what I know. But I never penetrated their inner circle, had no wish to at the time. But with your appearance here, I sort of wish I had."

"Okay, what about Ireland?"

"That's a lot simpler," he said. "An Irish holding company bought 49% interest in MCC six years ago. They were out to become majority owners, but settled for slightly less than half on the condition that MCC brought some jobs to Ireland. So now MCC is still considered an American-owned corporation, even though it now employs fewer Americans than it might have if it had become foreign-owned."

"The global economy is a convoluted mess," exclaimed Tomatilla Bygone.

"You can say that again."

Agent Bygone pondered doing exactly that, just for the fun of it, but by now three people and an apparently two legged dog--no, a four legged dog walking upright on two legs--burst from the MCC corporate office and dashed toward the only other car in the large parking lot, an ancient Buick Electra 225.

Eleven: Where Do We Go From Here?

Though the thought remained unspoken among them, the dog reminded all four of Wile E. Coyote, though it carried a more hunched gait. When the creature crossed the doorway, it let out a single bark that conveyed, most plausibly, a demand to know what these intruders were doing here. Its gaze swept over the room, never quite meeting the eyes of a particular person.

"Jim," said Nichelle, "have you got five dollars?"

"Sorry?" Jim uttered, clearly bewildered by this query.

"You're not suggesting we bribe this--"

"No, Elmer, shut up! Do you have the money, Jim?"

"Sure," he said.

"Take the car and go to a store, any store you can find, and get some... you know, dog treats."

"Uh huh."

"You don't like it?"

"Don't like what?"

"My idea about the dog treats."

"Honestly, I have no idea," Jim stammered. "On one hand, I'm glad somebody thought of something, but it seems like a very peculiar--"

"Well, I don't like it," interrupted Elmer.

"You don't like much of anything these days, do you?" snapped Nichelle.

"What do you think, Tott?" asked Jim, more out of courtesy than curiosity.

"Doesn't matter to me."

The dog waved one of its forelegs and barked again, perhaps as though indicating something. Upon close examination, the animal did not appear especially unpleasant. Besides walking on its rear legs, nothing seemed wrong with it. It was clearly some sort of mixed breed, perhaps part retriever and part terrier. And part human, some might have said.

"We don't actually seem to be under threat here, do we?" Jim asked.

"Not really," agreed Nichelle.

Suddenly, Tott clapped his hands and called the dog. The dog heeded in a machine-like manner, without resentment or alacrity, lowering its head as Tott patted it gently.

"I say we take the dog, go through the door, and see what's there. Otherwise, what's the point of making the trip? Anyone disagree?"

"Yes and no," said Elmer, cautiously. "I know I've been oppositional here, but it's... you know."

They did know. Maybe Tott hadn't made the connection, but the others had. Of the four, Elmer had choked up the most tangible hubris during the initial outbreak and, as a former member of the media, felt the most anxiety about investigating anything. There was no definite proof that a correlation existed between inquisitiveness and tangible hubris, no clear proof that hubris as a trait led directly to hubris as a periodically fatal condition, but there was circumstantial evidence. Nichelle and Jim realized this, but their difficulty with the ailment had been minimal; Elmer, however, had become very gun shy. Jim had as well, but only for a while. Nichelle's motivation seemed to snap him out of his complacency.

"Look, never mind," Elmer said, "We can't stay this way all our lives and we can't live forever, can we? Let's do it."

"Well said, Elmer," commended Jim.

They moved toward the door and the dog barked. When they stopped, it sauntered in front of them, not to prevent their entry, but to lead.

"So no dog treats?"

"No dog treats, Tott," said Nichelle.

Ten: The Right Car Comes Along

Agent Tomatilla Bygone ran along the shoulder of an unknown road just outside Goofy Ridge, Illinois. Her legs burned at first, then they went numb, but she kept moving as fast she could to generate as much heat as possible.

She had never before questioned Rapunzel Archback's judgment, but this seemed to her a hare-brained notion, one with unclear objectives and puzzling contingencies. Missions like this were typical of government work, of any kind of work, but Chief Archback had heretofore brought a kind of ruthless, narrow efficiency to espionage. Now she was pursuing the nebulous, the hypothetical. Granted, the case offered intrigue but Agent Bygone had never known intrigue alone to hook someone as cold and clinical as her superior. Perhaps Rapunzel Archback had grown sentimental, or maybe she didn't want to uncover too much, think too much, for fear of falling victim to TH. Agent Bygone also worried about tangible hubris, especially since she seemed to be investigating a disposal method for TH, but such risks came with the territory.

Only four cars had passed her, three of which had been headed in the wrong direction. The fourth blazed by too quickly for her to get in front of. At last, a late model sedan slowed alongside her and an elderly, brown-faced man lowered his window to address her.

"Need a ride, young lady?"

"If you're going to Goofy Ridge, I do."

"Not my final destination, as they say, but I'll be passing through," he said.

"Works for me," she said, abandoning immediately the notion of commandeering this kindly old man's car.

"What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?" he asked Agent Bygone as she climbed into the passenger side.

"It's a long story," she said, "Let's just say I'm in law enforcement."

The old brown man, whose race she could not quite determine, laughed.

"I remember a time when a woman as young and pretty as you couldn't be in law enforcement. More's the pity. We could have used your type as police officers."

Agent Bygone nodded politely. In spite of his age, the man seemed quick of both mind and body. He accelerated the car smoothly and drew up to eighty miles an hour, all the while appearing relaxed and in complete control.

"Were you a police officer?" she asked.

"I was a special investigator for the state of Missouri," he said, proudly, "First one who wasn't white, so they told me, though I never knew if that was officially true."

"Fascinating. When was this?"

"I started in Kansas City doing administration work for the police department. That was 1949, and about seven or eight years later I was doing fraud investigations. I retired in 1990."

"Sounds like a long, illustrious career," said Agent Bygone, and she meant it.

"I did good work," he agreed, "but nothing special or notable, nothing big. I miss it sometimes, cracking the case, you know."

"You said you weren't white, which I could kind of tell. I'm not quite white either, half Puerto Rican. What about you?"

"Oh, where do I start? Father was black and Cherokee, mother was Mexican and Irish and something else, so I guess that makes me a mutt like everyone else. Except in the old days, I wasn't the kind of mutt people wanted to associate with. Ain't so bad anymore, you know."

"No, not like it used to be."

She thought for a moment.

"What's your name, sir?"

"Nathanial Wildacre," he said, softly.

"Well, Mr. Wildacre, your abilities may help me quite a lot, if you're willing to share them. What do you know about the Monolithic Chemical Company?"

The man glanced toward her with a knowing grin and something in his eyes that could only be described as a gleam.

Nine: The Bipedal Canine

Tottchell offered to enter the office building first, although his overall mood toward the proceedings seemed apathetic. Jim and Elmer had convinced themselves they would behold a bloodbath from wild experiments on how to dispose of tangible hubris and Nichelle tacitly confessed this idea had crossed her own mind.

But the building contained no chamber of horrors yet, only an empty and clinical foyer, with white walls and a cream ceiling with a modest skylight. An abstract painting hung above a plain grey desk on which a single black object lay. Nichelle approached the desk as the men spread in different directions throughout the disturbingly innocuous room. The object turned out to be a keyboard unattached to anything resembling a terminal or computer. She slid out the top drawer to find pens and pencils, a nearly spent pad of yellow adhesive notes, and an old fashioned wooden ruler.

"It's like a ghost town," said Tott, his voice echoing.

Jim stood at a wide picture window that offered a panoramic view of the lake. Elmer moped around, hovering near the front door and displaying a reluctance to look at anything.

"There's a door here," observed Tott.

They had all seen it already shortly after entering the room, a standard-sized bright blue door with a knob in the upper middle rather than on one side. It was a peculiar place for a door, a strange color, and a curious knob placement. Nichelle walked toward Tott, who stood nearest the door. As she drew close, she noticed she was striding across a throw rug the same color as the floor, a light brown somewhat reminiscent of hardwood, but without the grain. Instinctively, she stepped off the rug and approached the door from one side. Tott stood on the opposite side while Jim attempted to persuade Elmer to join the other two at the enigmatic blue door.

"What's with the knob?" asked Jim as he drew nearer, with Elmer trailing a step behind him.

Tott shook his head. Nichelle put her fingers on the door, half-expected some kind of booby trap.

"There's no hinges," Tott noted.

Sure enough, there were no hinges on either side of the door. But with the knob in the upper center, where would the hinges go? Everyone looked down to see three fine, small hinges mortised into the door along the bottom. So it opened out and down.

"Kind of awkward, isn't it?" Jim asked.

"It looks it," Nichelle agreed.

Elmer screwed up his face, evidently pained that no one had noticed yet.

"The throw rug," he said, pointing. "Move it out of the way."

Jim kicked the throw rug away from the door and its absence revealed a round hold bored into the floor precisely where the doorknob would land.

"You're a genius, Elmdog," said Tott.

"Please don't say that," he cringed, as though being called a genius frightened him more than death itself.

Jim gazed at Nichelle, then glanced quickly around at the others.

"Are we going to open the door or aren't we?"

Without awaiting further discussion, Tott grasped the knob and stepped away from the door, allowing it to fall into place. It did so gently and beyond it lay a winding, badly lit corridor. A moment later, all four of them heard the unmistakable sound of a dog barking not so much viciously as ominously. Tott knelt down and lifted the door halfway up and continued to look down the corridor. The others did likewise and they waited to see what would emerge from the dark recesses of the hallway.

The sight that followed might have been comic were it not so grotesque. From around a corner, a two-legged dog walking nearly erect ambled up the hallway. The creature stood perhaps three feet high and moved in a measured, inquisitive manner as though it wished not to mangle or maul but to question, to interrogate.

"Okay," said Jim, not breezily at all but that was how he hoped it would sound, "I'm taking suggestions on what we should do here."

After a long moment that permitted the dog to come within fifteen feet of the door, Nichelle, who after all was the unspoken leader, offered instructions.

"Let's leave it open and just back away from the door, see exactly what we're dealing with here. Does anyone have a weapon?"

"A weapon," cried Elmer, "I'd have brought one if I'd known we'd be going up against bipedal dogs."

Jim brandished a tire iron from the deep pockets of his cargo pants.

"Good man, Jim," Elmer said, "Way to think on your feet."

As a unit, they moved back toward the lone desk and waited for the bizarre, but apparently not bellicose, animal to come through the open doorway.

Eight: Chi-Town Operative

Inside the helicopter, Agent Tomatilla Bygone fiddled with her talking PDA. It made a faint squawking noise then displayed an itemized list of the individuals she had been instructed to follow and, if necessary, apprehend. Rather than refer to them as suspects, SpyCo's database dubbed them "Persons of Interest", since it remained unclear whether Agent Bygone was supposed to approach them as adversaries, friends, or neither. Rapunzel Archback said to keep her informed to determine SpyCo's "disposition."

"Person of Interest One: Trudery, Nichelle Oleanda, 36 years of age, biracial; no criminal history but smarter than her own good.

Person of Interest Two: Treedweller, Elmer Cecil, 41 years of age, Caucasian; one misdemeanor conviction for unauthorized possession of cough medicine, former television personality, moderate risk for TH

Person of Interest Three: Misanthrope, James Aboveboard, 37 years of age, African-American; no criminal convictions, but was once accused of inciting a food fight

Person of Interest Four: Zizzzard, Tottchell Z (initial only), 35 years of age, predominantly Caucasian; one misdemeanor conviction for reckless driving in reverse

This represents all extant information on persons of interest at this time."

Once the laconic female voice ceased, Tomatilla Bygone's PDA beeped soothingly. The helicopter hovered briefly above Peoria as the pilot called out a question, which turned out to involve where one could land a helicopter in the vicinity of Goofy Ridge, Illinois. Agent Bygone had no idea and the two settled on the soybean field nearest the town. But what was she supposed to do then? She called Rapunzel Archback to voice precisely this inquiry.

"Well, I don't know, rent a car," she suggested.

"This hasn't been thought through all the way, has it?" Agent Bygone asked. "You wanted me here as soon as possible, which was understandable, but now I'm stuck."

"Not quite," said Rapunzel Archback, "Just walk to the road and commandeer a car. But make it a nice ride, not some bucket of bolts like the POIs are driving."

"So you're authorizing me to take a car from a random driver like in the movies. I've never done that before. Will SpyCo compensate the motorist for his loss?"

"Of course, we have plenty of money."

"We have?"

"As far as this random motorist knows, sure."

Rapunzel Archback hung up. The pilot found an open field about two miles east of Goofy Ridge and started to descend. Agent Bygone scanned the desolate, snow-leaden terrain and wondered how a land that seemed so dead at the moment could become so fecund only three months from now. Even though she knew it to be true, she would not have believed it possible if this were her first time seeing such a place.

"Are you gonna be warm enough?" shouted the pilot. "I've got an extra coat if you need it."

"No, I think being cold will motivate me to work faster," she said.

"Will it motivate cars that aren't coming to arrive on the scene faster?"

This was such a good question that Agent Bygone refused to dignify it with an answer. She thanked the pilot and waited for contact with the ground. Then she leapt from the helicopter and hit the frozen surface running, loping toward the thoroughfare about two hundred yards away.

Seven: Puzzling Arrival

The elderly Electra had an 8-track tape deck that played at varying speeds, sometimes too fast, other times too slow, occasionally just right. In the morning, as Nichelle started the car to warm it, she noticed one 8-track relic lying on the console and picked it up.

"Goose Creek Symphony," she said aloud, though very quietly, " 'Do Your Thing But Don't Touch Mine'."

She had never heard of this band, but decided to play the tape once everyone was in the car. Elmer had gotten up before her, but Jim and Tott had been difficult to wake. She understood why in Jim's case; he had stayed up with her throughout the drive and always had trouble falling asleep.

"How you feeling, Tott," she asked when he clambered out of the pod.

"Tired," he rasped, "It's skunky cold in there."

Nichelle rolled her eyes and corralled the three men into the immense vehicle. Jim was trying not to be cranky and Elmer was not trying not to harangue him. Nichelle loved Elmer and loved Jim, but they could be impossible together. They had known each other before Nichelle met either of them and she often felt mystified that a relationship so contentious could last as long as it obviously had.

For several years, Elmer and Jim worked at the same local television station. Elmer served as a news anchor and also hosted a high school knowledge competition for local high schools called "The Kumquat Show." Jim had been an all-purpose sort, a writer, production assistant, occasional camera operator. Just before the tangible hubris outbreak, Elmer had been fired and Jim had quit in protest. The latter never made a big deal about this, not even saying at first why he quit. Considering what happened to people associated with news shortly thereafter, it was possible the sacking of Elmer Treedweller had, in fact, saved his life. It was all very difficult for him, the resentment over his dismissal combined with something akin to survivor's guilt.

Since then, Elmer, who denied he was forty which meant he had to be, and Jim, who admitted he was in his late 30s, had reverted to college age mentalities, not quite as obnoxious, but irresponsible, idle, and cavalier. Nichelle knew that most adults, men in particular, still battled daily with an immature lunatic residing behind the facade of propriety, but these two had let the lunatic out. Though slightly younger than both, she had acted as a kind of mother hen and caretaker for some time. Tottchell Zizzzard's story was slightly different, but it always was.

They arrived at Goofy Ridge late in the morning. Though it was late in another desolate Midwestern winter, the town was in quite an attractive and bucolic spot, right off the shores of two sizable lakes. The Monolithic Chemical Company's headquarters sat at the intersection of Goose Lake and Buzzville Roads along Lake Chautauqua. Two smokestacks towered above, though neither of them produced any smoke. Three structures, by all appearances an office, a warehouse, and a cylindrical structure that might have been mistaken for a lighthouse, loomed before them but something didn't seem right. Despite the absence of any obvious disrepair or neglect, the place seemed abandoned, with a lone automobile lurking in a vast parking lot.

As Nichelle and her troop doubled the number of cars in the parking lot, they shared words on how strange the situation appeared to be. It was neither a weekend nor a holiday and there had been no indications the Monolithic Chemical Company had shut its doors.

"I realize there's not much news circulating these days," Nichelle said, "but there's still the Internet and word of mouth."

"Two impeccable sources," sneered Elmer.

"Oh, shut up," she snapped, "There's been nothing about this company at all. Obviously, a rumor mill can produce inaccuracies, but in this instance there's been no information whatsoever."

"So what do we do?" asked Jim, hollowly.

Nichelle shrugged. Tott's face was gaunt and questioning, Elmer's looked defiant, and Jim's eyes withheld a followup question.

"We go inside," she said at last.

Six: SpyCo and Rapunzel Archback

When tangible hubris and other related phenomena began to occur, lots of people suspected some type of government conspiracy. After television news and print media all but collapsed, there was virtually no one left to blame the government, except behind closed doors or in lowered voices. As usual, the chief problem with the government was the inability to get out of its own way. Because people were so inclined to disbelieve, the government benefited greatly from no longer appearing on television to deny conspiracy allegations. The more they denied, the more people assumed they were lying. These days, at the very least it seemed incomplete and oversimplified to assume government alone had caused all the problems.

Just the same, some government agencies carried on the kind of scrutiny and surveillance of which they had frequently been accused. One, however, was not quite a government agency. In Two Thousand Something, the government formed a partnership with a private corporation consisting mostly of former operatives; the venture had been named SpyCo. SpyCo was not altogether evil or wholly good and the organization sometimes worked in the government's interests and sometimes against them. Its newest leader, Rapunzel Archback, seemed as dichotomous as the institution itself.

SpyCo had recently learned of a plan by an Indianapolis woman to find out how to dispose of the world's most recent scourge, tangible hubris and related substances. Unfortunately, a certain level of self-importance was often required for such an undertaking and the personnel at SpyCo surmised this woman would suffer from hubris before stopping it. Rapunzel Archback entered the main conference room for a briefing with the agents who had made the discovery.

"She and three men are on their way to Goofy Ridge, Illinois to find a disposal method for the tangible hubris muck," said a small blond agent who looked like a little girl and received approximately that level of respect from her colleagues.

"This has been done before," said Rapunzel Archback, "Wasn't it a few years ago that someone tried that?"

"One of our operatives tried it two years ago," said a grey-haired man who had been working for the government in some capacity for his entire adult life.

"And what happened?"

"Never heard from again, presumed dead," intoned the baby-faced blond.

"So not only do we not know if they'll be successful, we don't even know if the answers they need are there."

"That's correct," said the venerable man.

Rapunzel Archback hated it when agents spoke in turns.

"This isn't a bloody movie," she said, "Agent Towers, you talk. "

The venerable man continued and the youthful blond looked chagrined. After a few moments, Archback stopped Towers in mid-sentence.

"I don't want to say this story is uninteresting," she said, "but my main concern here is your recommendation. What do you think we should do about this?"

Agent Towers shrugged.

"And how about you, Ms. Longweed?"

"Clearly, we need this information," she said, tentatively, "but Agent Towers and I torn about this case. What we'd really like to do is beat them to this if there really is anything to be learned at Goofy Ridge. But that appears unlikely as they're so close and we don't have an agent any closer than Chicago. So the dilemma is, do we help them get this essential information, do we hinder them in the hopes of getting it ourselves, or do we do nothing?"

"The last option is out," said Archback. "Get an agent from Chicago to Goofy Ridge as soon as possible. I don't see it as intrinsically harmful if this woman obtains crucial information, but if she does, we need to know too. We'll monitor them for the time being, see what, if anything, we can learn."

It seemed like such a simple and obvious decision to Rapunzel Archback, yet neither Towers nor Longweed seemed confident enough to make it. That must have been why they kept her around.

Five: Pod Stop

The Zizzzard family Electra 225 got abysmal mileage but it did have a massive fuel tank so Nichelle didn't stop at a filling station until just outside Champaign, Illinois. She collected cash from everyone but Tottchell, who could not be awakened and whose wallet could not be located. Nichelle and Jim agreed that Tott and the now awake but slightly groggy Elmer could probably be induced to drive the rest of the way while they took their turn at resting, but Elmer struggled to see after dark and nobody trusted Tott's navigational abilities.

"We may have to settle for a pod somewhere," Nichelle said, "If we can afford four of them."

"Elmer's got money," said Jim. "The trick is to get him to part with it. I've got about seventy dollars myself."

"I think I have a hundred and some. I halfway planned this."

"Four pods should be easy for tonight. We just have to be conscious of the fact that the longer we're gone, the bigger concern money will be."

Pods functioned as low cost alternatives to hotel. They were not particularly warm or comfortable, but for a few dollars an hour, an individual could squeeze into a tube with an air mattress and a plastic cushion and get some much-needed sleep. Customers had to pay upfront to a mechanized cashier, which spat out an access card for the pod.

Early nightfall made it seem later than it was. They had only been on the road four and a half hours, almost half that time spent during the traffic delay that occurred when Tott was driving, but Nichelle felt she had been driving for days. She exited Interstate 74 and made a beeline for Goofy Ridge on Highway 136. There was no point in driving another hour to the oddly monikered hamlet since nothing would be happening there this time of night. She stopped at a unit of pods in Heyworth, another small community on the Illinois prairie. She roused her male companions, including Jim, who had finally succumbed to fatigue a few minutes earlier, and advised them of her plan.

"I hate pods," said Tott, "You guys know that."

"Nobody loves pods," said Elmer, "but it's the cheapest way to get some sleep on the road."

"They're too cold," Tott complained.

"Colder than sleeping in the car?" Nichelle demanded.

Nichelle understood Tott's bad grace and was surprised neither Jim nor Elmer had renewed their own sour spirits. She had been the only one truly interested in undertaking the journey and had coerced the others through obligation and guilt. Still, Jim now appeared engaged in the endeavor and Elmer seemed, at the very least, resigned to it. But unlike Tott, nothing important to them was at stake. The car was an old heap, but it belonged to Tott's father and Nichelle had not considered the sacrifices her friends had to make. She had rationalized this by insisting to herself how important this mission was, a way to dispose of the tangible hubris. Which would result in what? Sure, it would be preferable to seeing the stuff lying around everywhere, but a bigger trick than discarding it was preventing it from killing people in the first place. And that would require far more than a road trip to Goofy Ridge.

All four got out and Jim and Nichelle combined their financial resources to purchase pods for each of them, asking nothing of Elmer or Tott. Elmer, though, would be expected to pony up eventually and in such a way that would probably make him wish he had sprung for the pods.