Subject: Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (1/6)
Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (part 1)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A leafless tree like a fleshless hand
reached from a grave of toxic sand.
In the city with no sun,
rats can grow to half a ton.
Cars were stalled by driver ants
or lost to car-nivorous plants.
PC bees, the toxic mutants,
thrived upon the lush pollutants.
Collapsing dwellings would entomb folks,
Venus Bear Traps would consume folks.
Waste flowed out the sewer mains
like many severed jugular veins.
In the city beneath the city
life for folks was pretty shitty.
* * * * *
Small cracks in the 10-story-high ceiling of The Basement let in
enough light for Charlie to see the blue plastic coffin lying at the curb.
The young blond boy peered down the abandoned boulevard, checking for the
headlights of a street gang's blunderbus.
He scampered around the internally combusted black shells of internal
combustion cars and went to the coffin. On the flimsy box were three white
arrows that formed a circle, the logo verifying that the deceased had been
left for the recycling truck.
Charlie opened the coffin. Around the neck of the green corpse was
the noose of hyperactive purple kudzu vine that had strangled the man in his
sleep. The enclosed heat and CO2 smog of The Basement had created plants with
an attitude.
Charlie deftly ran an old directional compass over the corpse. The
compass needle reacted to a slight magnetism. Charlie counted down five ribs
and started sawing horizontally across the sternum.
Hundreds of nameless sedated yellow eyes watched him through the
broken windows of the crumbling, roofless bronks. The quivering residents
cowered in the corners to escape the threats they couldn't hallucinate away.
Grunting with effort, Charlie pried the ribs apart. He reached into
the multicolored jellies of the corpse and tore a pacemaker from its setting
in the body cavity.
The recycling centers would melt cadavers into their component
chemicals, without retrieving pacemakers, ops, tensor hinges, dbase implants,
or teflon sockets. Since manufactured items no longer made it down to The
Basement, used prostheses could be bartered.
To address overcrowding in The Basement, the housing authority had
declared that cemeteries discriminated against the living. The ruling opened
up cemetery plots to be sold as subterranean apartments, all of which were
quickly bought by the living. The dead would have been folded into the local
landfills, but that property had been sold off in the accumulated-domicile
program, wherein homesteaders were allowed to keep any trash poured on them.
An attempt was then made to cremate the deceased, but their prosthetics and
their diet of food additives, sterno, and hallucinogens would cause the bodies
to go up in fireballs that would decimate a city block. Thus, the recycling
program was initiated.
* * * * *
Grampa Joe adjusted a wire coat hanger, trying to find some local news
on the battery-powered tv he kept on the dashboard of his bus. Tv signals
could barely get through the floor of The Heights and into The Basement.
Eventually he got some legible audio.
"The weather report is brought to you by... Bayer Extra Strength
Colds Formula: If it was any stronger, it would kill you.
"Now, the weather for the southern Sprawl region. In The Heights,
tomorrow will be clear, sunny, and pristine. In The Basement, tomorrow will
feature eternal darkness, with a front of viral plague moving through in the
morning, followed by puffy toxic clouds. The radar shows a nomadic
Amway cult moving in from the north, invading the turf of the sewer mutants
by tomorrow. So, if you go out on Thursday, you'll want to bring your
kevlar...."
The quiet night was interrupted by the rising tone of a nearby car
alarm. Inside a luxurious Bulgarian touring sedan, a man and woman were
clawing at an array of dashboard knobs, trying to stop the alarm. A baby
started to cry in quadrature with the alarm.
Across the bumper-to-bumper quilt of vehicles, Joe saw an unshaven man
in his underwear stagger over and bang pointlessly on the hood of the car.
Other semi-clad people plodded like zombies from their cars and congealed
around the alarm. Some carried tire irons and jacks. They prodded the hood
of the sedan until its latch gave way. They twisted the hood off and began to
pry parts from the exposed auto. The couple inside hid in the back seat as
hands stabbed into the engine. Fistfulls of wires and tubes pouring oil were
thrown in the air lustily. Finally, the alarm desisted. The frenzy ended and
people floated silently back to their cars.
Satisfied that the sounds had not attracted any predatory insects,
Grampa Joe put his feet up on the dashboard of the bus.
Joe had been a bus driver for decades, and each year the downtown
traffic had moved slower and slower. One day, it stopped. Drivers abandoned
their cars, and neighborhood folks had moved into them.
Per union regulations, Joe was technically "en route" as long as his
employer's dashboard sensor confirmed that he had not set foot off his
vehicle. Joe had accumulated alot of overtime in the three years he had sat
behind the wheel.
Charlie skipped along the downtown avenue past the skyscrapers that
ascended through the ceiling of The Basement. Fleshless arms reached out from
the windows of the buildings. The arms' owners had been trapped when concrete
was poured to fill the lower 10 floors. The limbs had provided meals for the
mutated vulture-beetles.
Charlie hopped across the tops of cars to get to Joe's bus. Grampa
Joe swung open the door and greeted Charlie with a pat on the head.
"What have you got in the bag, Charlie?"
"Food! I found something I could trade on the black supermarket."
Charlie waved to the family that lived in the back of the bus.
"Well done, Charlie," the old man beamed. "Was it that nice Mrs.
Grack who was working at the market?"
"No, it was her daughter, Gerta. She's a dog."
"Well, now, that's not a very nice thing to say, Charlie."
"She's a real dog. A French poodle I think. She only had her upper
torso done, though.
Joe shook his head. "When I was a teenager, we didn't use
cosmetigenetics to change even our hair color."
The voices on the tv suddenly became agitated. "Incredible. We have just
been told that candy, drug, and entertainment potentate Willie Wonka will
be offering fabulous prizes to three children. Three lucky kids will find
golden tickets hidden inside three of the billions of Wonka Bars distributed
throughout the greater Sprawl.
"Once a child has pressed his fingers against a golden ticket, the
fingerprints will be recorded, assuring the child of untold riches.
"The prizes include a lifetime supply of Wonka Bars, and a lifetime
pass to all events at Wonka World, including the Wonka VR-Cade."
"But the most astonishing prize of all will be a tour behind the
scenes of Wonka World, escorted by Mr. Willie Wonka himself. The winners
will see Wonka Labs, where he synthesizes the Secret Formula(TM) that makes
Wonka Bars the best. Such sights are unseen for 20 years!" The announcer
passed out from excitement.
Grampa Joe slumped in his chair, pale with astonishment. He looked
through the windshield and far into the past. "I remember the day Wonka fired
every one of his employees and closed off his lab."
"Why did he do that?" Charlie asked, a bit frightened at Grampa Joe's
stunned expression.
"He became fed up with competitors and spies trying to steal his
secrets. But now he's opening it all up. Incredible...."
"It would be great to see inside Wonka World, wouldn't it?" Charlie
urged.
"Wonka World? It would be great just to see The Heights! Oh, Charlie,
up there the sun shines on you like a reactor mishap. Sunsets are glowing red,
like the face of a guy whose choking. The sky is pale blue like the face of a
guy choking to death. And the trees have leaves that are the purest green
like the face of a guy who's choked to death.
"And the mirrored skyscrapers reflect each other infinitely. And the
streets are paved with gold to maintain good contact with the electrodes
underneath the transport pods."
"Wow! Can we go up and see The Heights?"
"Well, no. It's all private property up there, and it's tough to
get a visa."
"Are you ever gonna go up there, Grampa?"
"No."
"Not even when you retire?"
Joe chuckled. "I've saved some money, but not that much. No, for
my retirement, I bought a cemetery plot and added a roof and water-resistant
liner. It's a quiet neighborhood because all the neighbors are dead." He saw
that Charlie wasn't encouraged. "But a bright boy like you might see The
Heights."
"Do you think I'll find a golden ticket?"
"No, but someday you might work for someone who lives up in -"
"It's possible that I could find a ticket, right?"
Joe removed his tiny hat and scratched his head. He gazed at a
bell-shaped, normally distributed, 40-foot-high pile of garbage in the
adjacent lot. What were Charlie's chances of having luck in life? Statistics
dictated that he would end up near the center of the bell, which was just
alot of garbage.
"Charlie, the Wonka Bar you buy has as much chance of being a winner
as any other."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1992 Steven Connelly stevec@bucrf10.bu.edu
Parts will be posted every weekday.
From: stevec@bucrf10.bu.edu (Steve Connelly)
Subject: Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (2/6)
Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (part 2)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Decades ago, nothing had separated The Basement from The Heights.
But the young professionals had always lived and worked in the skyscrapers,
avoiding the dirty, clogged streets of the Sprawl.
At first, walkways were built 10 floors above street level to connect
office buildings. Then elevated tramways joined offices and condos. 10th
floor courtyards were created to remove any view of the streets. City blocks
were soon covered by 10th-floor malls and plazas.
A ritzy urban mesa evolved. The bottom 10 floors of skyscrapers
were filled with concrete to close them off. Every hole in this 10th-floor
shelf was filled in to complete an air-tight barrier that spanned all the way
from Sprawlbany down beyond Sprawlando, home of Wonka World. The entirety of
Wonka's kingdom stood above The Basement, supported on several huge metallic
legs that also sheathed Wonka's power and data lines.
The owners of the condos, coops, and offices in The Heights never went
into The Basement, although they still deposited their sewage, garbage, and
industrial wastes there.
The government had addressed overcrowding in The Basement by killing
people, starting with those who were most harmful to society. Capital
punishment was instituted, wherein criminals were liquidated and their
component chemicals sold to raise capital. Other blemishes on society were
removed, but there were only so many mimes.
Statisticians were called in to measure each person according to his
worth to society. They deduced that homeless bums were of no value. However,
bums required few resources. Rich people used too many resources, but they
could be useful to the society. In the end the statisticians offered no
solution. People realized that the statisticians had commanded large
consulting fees and yet offered no solution, so the statisticians were
liquidated.
* * * * *
Grampa Joe and Charlie were on the bus, listening half-heartedly to
the morning tv in case there was another special bulletin concerning the
three golden tickets hidden inside Wonka Bars. The movie was Edgar Allan
Poe's "The Tell-Tale Pacemaker", wherein a man commits murder and hides the
body under the raised computer room floor; he is undone when his canine-range
audio enhancers force him to hear the periodic control pulses of the victim's
pacemaker.
The show paused for a commercial announcement.
"After decades in prison, he's back on the air. It's a mellower
Manson than you remember, but he still has a few surprises.
"Sure, they hair is gray, but the eyes are as engaging as ever.
"He's intense. He's wacky. He's incorrigible!
"Manson in the Morning. Starting December 3rd. Catch him on -"
Grampa Joe turned the channel.
"- Turner Broadcasting is proud to present 'Citizen Kane', now
colorized all the way out to the ultraviolet and xray bands -"
Joe changed the channel.
"- and with Players' Club, you get up to 60% off on rooms, shows,
hype, joybuzz, whores, psychoslam -"
Joe changed the channel and found the morning sermon of Reverend
Ralston. The tv evangelist broadcast from his home in The Heights, which was
a replica of the Sistine Chapel except that the ceiling depicted Adam giving
cash unto God.
"He spoke of eternal life," preached the Reverend. "He offered
eternal life to all who believed. Then, three days after He died, He rose
again and lives for all eternity. You ask yourself, How the fuck did
Juh-HEE-zis do it?
"The answer is very simple, brethren. Preservatives. Jesus
discovered food additives and preservatives and devoured them religiously.
You are what you eat, and Jesus ate enough preservatives to have a half-life
of ten thousand years.
"And then He offered this gift to His followers. At the Last Supper,
He said, Eat, this is my body. He said, Drink, this is my blood. The dry
and the wet. These are the Twin Keys of eternal life, my friends. And if you
order now, I will give to you the Twin Keys, conveniently packaged in
cream-filled yellow sponge cakes that will enter and become part of your body,
yet last forever.
"And now, a hymn, to be sung by my daughter Purina, who at age twelve
is still a virgin."
Purina Ralston swept her puffy white gown onto the stage and was
greeted by the fanatical studio audience while Reverend Ralston made his way
to the wings.
The Reverend went to his dressing room, where two young suits were
waiting. One of them said, "The Quail would like to speak to you."
"I can't go now," said Ralston, "My show is still on the air."
The young men moved toward Ralston in a way that indicated to him
there was nothing to discuss. There never was. The Quail was too powerful.
* * * * *
Supposedly, he was named the Quail because that is the form he took
when flying through cyberspace. Ralston wasn't sure about that, but he
was sure that the Quail's mind was complex and strange. He gave Ralston the
creeps.
The drawing room of the Quail's mansion featured a 20-foot-tall
aquarium. Colorful exotic fish meandered serenely around the tank,
occasionally nipping at the pale, astonished faces of former enemies of the
Quail who were now wearing cement golf cleets.
"How are you today, Reverend?" The big leather chair turned from the
window to reveal the Quail, calmly petting a white cat.
"I'm fine, sir." Ralston sat. The Quail was just as he remembered:
The impeccable hair, the bright but vacant eyes. The hair was a flawless
immovable homage to Wonka Styling Mousse.
"And how is your daughter?"
"Still a virgin." said the Reverend.
"That's fine."
"Yes. It is."
"I was a child myself once."
"Yes, sir."
"But that was at a previous point in my life."
"Yes, sir." Ralston squirmed in his seat. He felt as if the Quail's
mind was somewhere else. Most network moguls created a synthetic facade for
cyberspace; the Quail seemed to also have a plastic facade for the real world.
"Reverend, we make food preservatives. Business is very good. Your
help in encouraging people to use preservatives is greatly appreciated."
"Thank you, sir."
"Like Ben Franklin said at Gettysburg, we must preserve the union, and
this means preserving the people, by the people, for the people, that they
shall not perish, until their expiration date...."
Ralston nodded meekly. Maybe the Quail was multiplexing his mind,
spreading himself so broadly across cyberspace that too little was left
for coherent conversation. Whatever was happening, Ralston was sure the Quail
was not all there.
"....preservatives are good for the nation, and that's why they're
good for you and I. Keith Richards. There's a statement in itself."
"I beg your pardon, sir?" Why is he doing this? he thought. Is he
testing me?
"Keith Richards," the Quail elaborated. "He's been a rock-and-roll
star for decades. How do we explain his longevity? It's all the synthetic
substances he's put in his body."
"Ah. Yes, sir."
"He may be entirely synthetic by now. Keith Richards may actually be
dead, but his components continue to move."
Ralston felt dizzy.
"Reverend, I asked you here to discuss a special mission. If we could
get one of Wonka's golden tickets, we would win a tour of Wonka Labs. Then we
could steal his Secret Formula(TM), use it in our preservatives, and put Wonka
out of business."
"Yes, sir," Ralston concurred, "but Wonka surely won't let anyone near
the formula itself."
"Hmm. I see."
"However, air samples of the lab would contain traces of all the
chemicals Wonka uses. From there, we could deduce the Secret Formula(TM)."
"Excellent. So, that's your mission, Reverend. Get a golden ticket,
get inside Wonka's lab and get samples of the ingredients."
"Sir, there are three tickets and billions of Wonka products," said
Ralston, sensing the loss of the Quail's moment of lucidity.
"Reverend, you are a happy camper, and if you find a golden ticket, a
happy camper you will always be."
What the hell does that mean? thought Ralston. "Sir, what if,
hypothetically, I am unable to find a golden ticket?"
The Quail's plastic smile became a concerned frown. "I must think of
my organization's interests, its vital interests and its interesting vitals,
from its most vital general down to his privates...."
Why is he talking in ludicrous riddles? squirmed Ralston. What is the
symbolism of these words? The Reverend glanced at the aquarium.
"....so if you cannot find a ticket, then I will allow you a fair
defense of your actions. And since, as the Green Bay Packer's immortal Guy
Lombardo said, the best defense is a good offense, so it is true that a fair
defense is a poor offense...."
Ralston's throat squeezed shut as if he was drowning. His feet felt
cold and heavy. I'd rather he just kill me now, thought Ralston, than continue
to toy with my mind. His thoughts are beyond comprehension by mere mortals.
How can anyone know what atrocities the Quail is truly capable of?
* * * * *
The Wonka products with the three golden tickets would leave the Wonka
megacorp in the next 24 hours. Reverend Ralston had to get a ticket, no
matter how scurrilous the means. He headed into The Basement, to the
Chatsubo.
He drove down the spiraling ramp and stopped at the customs inspector.
"Do you have any weapons to declare?"
"None," said the Reverend.
"You mean to tell me you're taking this fancy car into The Basement
and you're not taking weapons?"
"Yes. I'll be returning in just a couple hours."
"...prob'ly won't be returning at all..."
"What did you say?"
"Nothing, sir. Proceed."
The inspector waved Ralston along. On the other side of the ramp
were a few cars being inspected, scanned, processed, and dismantled as they
tried to get clearance to re-enter The Heights.
Darkness crawled over Ralston's car like the closing of a coffin lid.
He turned on his headlights, and their beams reflected off the spilt oil and
cerebrospinal fluid before being eaten by the ambient soot of The Basement.
He pulled his car up to the striped barrier of a shakedown booth.
The toll collector leaned out of the booth, his hair knotted around a
recently acquired human tibia. "Welcome to the turf of the Crips. The
entrance fee is 20 rubles or equivalent in jewelry and drugs. We hope you
enjoy your stay on our turf. However, we do ask that you not wear other
gangs' colors, and that you not hit on our bitches. Now, sir, I must ask,
are you carrying any weapons?"
"None," said the Reverend.
"Don't gimme a hard time, man. I'm just a contract hourly tryin' to
work his way up to grade 2 enforcer -"
"Honest. I have no weapons."
The collector's eyes widened, and then he exploded into a wide
gold-toothed guffaw. Annoyed, Ralston pushed a 20 ruble note into a pocket
on the hysterical, convulsing body.
While swerving around hulks of automobiles, Ralston occasionally
glanced at countless 4-story-high burned-out bronks. Dark purple kudzu grew
over the tops of houses like thin fingers of huge fists that slowly crushed
the buildings like beer cans. On the sidewalk, a headless skeleton held a
can of Raid.
Finally, in the distance he saw the seering illumination of the Power
Strip, the landmark Ralston would use to find the sleaziest of business. The
Strip was directly underneath Wonka World, that veritable goldmine of secret
formulas, fabulous entertainments, and, um, gold. Probably, mused the
Reverend, Wonka has figured out how to distill out the psychotic aftereffects
of concentrated dihexapentyl radicals. Just a few air samples, that's all it
will take to learn the Secret Formula(TM)....
At the Chatsubo, near the Strip, Ralston found a large pothole and hid
his car inside it.
Outside the Chatsubo were two kinky cops. One cop had "assumed the
position", his legs and arms spread, while the other cop frisked him
feverishly from head to toe. The Reverend snuck past the cops and entered
the lobby of the bar. He was stopped by a bouncer whose body was roughly
cube-shaped.
"Would you please check your weapons, sir."
"I have no weapons."
"Right. Everyone's a comedian. Go on in."
"Honest. I don't have any weapons - " The bouncer had turned his
back. Ralston walked into the bar room.
The air was dense with electromagnetic waves, though few in the range
of normal human vision. Ralston could see nothing but small constellations of
red eyes, mirrored eyes, and cat eyes. The skull vibrators from Oto Audio
were oscillating out the latest hit from Neo Sedaka:
Oooh, how I love the acid rain,
Walking glove in glove with the one I love.
Oooh, if the acid gets inside,
It is nullified, with alkalah - ide....
Ralston saw a clearing with no glowing eyes and moved toward the
empty table. The place smelled like cheap French perfume, and death. He
slalomed through the room blindly, locating the patrons by voice:
"My perfume? It's called 'Le Morte'."
"Just because he exploded doesn't
mean the drug is a good high."
"I love your purse. It matches your snake."
"Am I at risk for AIDS if I
decapitate someone and their
blood splatters on me?"
"She used to have her hair professionally
blown out. Now she has it blown up. They
use exploding curlers. It's a wild look."
"I'd like a diet Coke with
lime and pubic hair."
"Now he has his own band? It must be the
amphetamine residue in his system that
keeps his muscle fibers involuntarily
twitching out the classic rock."
Ralston walked gingerly by a white panther. The cat turned discretely
to check out his buns, and then decided to wait and see who else the evening
might bring.
The Reverend fumbled into a chair and let his eyes get used to the
dark. Across the room he noticed a head with strangely reflective hair; the
end of each strand was a tiny glow.
The muscled silhouette of a waiter appeared next to him. Through
a thick Austrian accent he said, "Today's specials are chicken parmigiana,
veal parmigiana, and beef parmigiana. If it bleeds, we can parmigiana it."
Just then, the door to the bar room was blown open and the glow from
the lobby spilled in to backlight a huge terrible figure. The warrior's
silhouette was formed from the sharp angles of his dented metallic body armor.
"My name's Penis," he bellowed. "Phillip K. Penis. Anybody got a
problem with that? Anybody think that's a funny name? Huh?" Ralston slid
down in his seat till his chin rested on the table. The other patrons turned
from the warrior meekly.
A petite figure rose from her seat. The room was deathly silent,
except for the challenger's skin-tight red leather jumpsuit squealing like a
herd of lemmings that had changed their minds in mid-fall. Her hair was a
bundle of fiberoptic threads shaped into a shark's dorsal fin. She wore dark
sunglasses and her bare shoulder revealed a masterpiece of raster-farian art:
an animated tatoo of the dragon slaying St. George, displayed on a paper-thin
video panel embedded under the skin. She stood ten paces in front of the
warrior, and drew dual ninja yo-yo's from belt packs. With ease she spun the
yo-yo's on their monofilament diamond strings. The other patrons were
impressed.
"Look, she's walking the dog."
"She can do cat's cradle."
"Now she's doing the sleeper."
The warrior grinned triple rows of canines. "That's child's play."
>From holsters he drew two gas-powered egg beaters and fired them up. The
speeding razor-sharp blades screamed like a person being garroted by egg
beaters. The combatants approached each other, and tables were tossed aside
to clear a path.
The razorgirl tossed a yo-yo toward the head of her opponent, but
the larger man yielded only a gravel-throated laugh. He revved up the egg
beaters, but noticed that his left side was feeling analytical and symbolic
while his right side was feeling artistic and holistic. The yo-yo string had
cut through the mid-line of his skull, severing the corpus callosum. The man
dropped the egg beaters and pressed the halves of his head together, looking
like the kid in the movie "Home Alone". Yelping, he ran out of the bar.
The victor spun her yo-yo's back into their holsters and walked back to
her seat, the bar room silent except for the click of her stilleto heels.
After a moment, the other patrons came out from under cover, murmuring.
Reverend Ralston clambered eagerly to the victor. She was just the
ruthless, street-wise, prostheticized, omnisexual, can-do type that he was
looking for.
"I'm Reverend Ralston. I have a job for you, if you're interested."
The warrior's hair style curved to lean toward him. "My name's
D'Aynjre. What are you offering?"
"Money is no object." Ralston leaned closer and whispered, "I need to
get one of Wonka's golden tickets."
"No problem."
"How will you get it?"
"Enough Wonka toot is smuggled into The Basement. A ticket is bound to
end up down here. I'll get it from whoever finds the ticket."
"If you buy it from him, I'll need a receipt and two forms of -"
"I said I'll get it. Meet me here tomorrow. With cash. Rubles, not
dollars." She removed her sunglasses, revealing eye sockets filled with
glowing fiberoptic bundles which, like her movable hairstyle, were feeding
signals to her visual cortex from every direction.
Ralston fell against the back of his chair. "God, fighting you must
surely be suicide."
"Worse. It's reputatiocide." She picked up her drink. "Here's
blood in your eye."
* * * * *
Vgrind and Skinbag were tearing open all the Wonka Bars they had
stashed into their hovel in The Basement. As usual, they tossed the candy
into a beaker to be used in freebasing Wonka's Secret Formula(TM).
The heist had been a routine job. On the Power Strip, a smuggler
had been loading boxes of Wonka Bars into his van when Vgrind and Skinbag
skateboarded up. They kicked out their boards, whose razor edges neatly cut
the smuggler off at the ankles. The boys grabbed a couple boxes and skated
away.
Vgrind tried to tear another wrapper, but something was resisting.
He peeled the glossy paper away and was confused. He had never seen pure
anything, much less pure gold. The ticket was the size of a license plate.
It was perfectly smooth but soft, and seemed to give off a light of its own
except in the indentations that spelled out "Grand Prize."
Skinbag looked at Vgrind and his ticket like he was looking at aliens
from another planet, which was ironic considering that it was Skinbag who was
intrinsically odd looking. He said, "You're a winner, man! Press your
fingerprints onto the ticket, and you get untold riches."
"What's 'untold riches'?"
"What the guy on tv said."
Satisfied, Vgrind flattened the ticket in front of himself
ceremoniously and hunched over to position his fingertips like Vincent Price
about to attack a haunted house pipe organ. Then he fell over forward upon
being hit in the back of the head by Skinbag, who deftly swiped the ticket
before the stunned body collapsed on it.
Skinbag jogged into the soot-covered alley and toward the Power Strip,
where anything could be sp;d or bartered. He figured that some rich suit
from The Heights would shell out alot of rubles for untold riches from Wonka.
He rounded the corner. The flash of steel tore the dark. Polished
metal flew, drawing white crescents like devilish grins. Skinbag was
surrounded by the sparkling kaleidoscope of cutlery that was the ruthless
Asian gang, the Ginsu's.
Their leader said, "Our knives are made of the finest stainless
estonium carbide. We can remove your heart, stir fry it in light oil, and
serve it to you before you die. What would you pay to avoid this fate?"
"I don't have any -"
"But wait! There's more. With these special attachments, we can
turn your pancreas into julienne fries. Now what would you pay?"
Skinbag threw the golden ticket high in the air. It glittered
entrancingly against the gray-brown of The Basement, allowing Skinbag
to escape. The Ginsu leader caught the ticket and realized its importance.
He barked in Japanese a staccato of orders to his subordinates, his head
bouncing like a telegraph key. The gang re-sheathed their weapons in
imitation redwood knife holders/sharpeners which were available at no extra
cost, and trotted in formation toward the Power Strip to pursue the black
market deal of their lives.
They rounded the corner and bumped into the sideways figure-eights
tattooed onto the chests of a notorious gang, the Existentialists. Acid
smoldered from the portable batteries on the muscled back of their leather-clad
leader, Kill Kigard. He said, "Renounce your material possessions, placing
them on the ground before you."
The Ginsu leader drew his knife. "This product has a lifetime
guarantee. My lifetime, not yours. How can we say this? Because of the
exquisite quality and craftsmanship. Watch it cut through flesh like it's
cutting through butter."
Kill Kigard said, "Life is an illusion, friend, a dream that can
vaporize like your brain at 7000 Kelvin." He drew his turbo-charged hair
dryer and fired a breath of intrasolar heat. The Ginsu leader burst into
flame and thrashed around spasmodically in a manner that never ceased to amuse
the Existentialists no matter how many times they saw it. Kill Kigard said,
"Death is a part of life, friends. The last part. But don't think of our
blowing your heads off as an ending, think of it as a new beginning."
A Ginsu screamed a ritual kamikaze ki'ai and attacked. An
Existentialist calmly fired two emergency room defibrillator pads, which hit
flat on the attacker's chest and launched him backwards onto the ground. The
groaning Ginsu clenched his chest as if his heart had been kicked in its
little gonads.
The Ginsu were descended from an ancient Shinto order that had
survived the centuries because they knew when to run away.
Kill Kigard saw a golden glimmer in the pocket of the burning Ginsu
leader and recognized it as the hottest ticket in town. He nodded
approvingly to his colleagues.
The Existentialists plodded through the broken streets toward
the Strip. A block behind them appeared a disheveled boy named Hassle Blad.
He had been shadowing the street gang, and they had been ignoring him.
Hassle yelled, "You guys found one of Wonka's golden tickets!" His piercing
soprano echoed off the crumbling bronks and the reinforced concrete of
the ceiling. The Existentialists turned to the boy, mortified: Every forward
scout, every tetanus-crazed denizen of the 9-story auto graveyard, every
grizzly rat for blocks around must have heard the kid.
Kill Kigard released a furious growl and started running after the boy.
His gang followed while pull-starting the leaf blowers that would blast flaming
kerosene at the child nuisance.
The boy ran into a dead end alley and the street gang followed while
pouring nails and broken glass into their salad shooters and lengthening the
barbed wire on their weed wackers.
As the gang entered the blocked alley, Hassle Blad scurried behind a
large stack of tiny plastic boxes. The gang slowed to a swagger as they
approached him. They carressed their weapons, smiling broadly.
Blad threw a switch and there was a thunderclap as his array of 2000
well-aimed infrared remotes simultaneously changed the channel.
The brilliant gold of the ticket shone invitingly from among the
street gang's formless piles of ashes. Hassle Blad picked up the ticket and
admired it. He started to walk back to the street and on toward the Power
Strip, but he paused. His renewed confidence made him think that, if he
himself were to get into Wonka Labs, he could steal the Secret Formula(TM).
He flattened the golden ticket on the asphalt and arranged his
fingertips across it. He pressed down hard for a moment and then stepped
back. His tiny fingerprints were engraved on the ticket in shimmering greens
and blues, certifying that the ticket was his alone.
* * * * *
Reverend Ralston tried in vain to look inconspicuous while sitting
in the Chatsubo gnawing on the handle of a cloth valise filled with ruble
notes.
He recognized the squealing of skin-tight leather as D'Aynjre slinked
into the darkened bar room and sat next to Ralston.
The Reverend gasped, "Did you get a golden ticket?"
"Well, it wasn't easy," drawled D'Aynjre calmly, "but I got one." She
unrolled a golden ticket and pushed it in front of Ralston. He scrutinized
it. A little sooty around the edges, but certainly pure gold. Then into his
mind slowly crept the significance of the meandering blue-green pattern of
tiny fingerprints across the ticket. He sputtered, "You imbecile! This
ticket is worthless! The only one who can use this ticket is the one with
those fingerprints!"
Nodding patiently, D'Aynjre tossed onto the table a ziploc bag
filled with ten tiny fingers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1992 Steven Connelly stevec@bucrf10.bu.edu
A new part will be posted every weekday.
Subject: Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (3/6)
Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (part 3)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Count raised the lid of his coffin and arose to greet the setting
sun. He fluffed the day's dirt from his black cape. He dabbed on some more
Wonka Styling Mousse and pressed his hair back to give his doo that polished,
painted-on look. The Count had begun his career in industry with nothing
except a capitalist's killer instinct. Tonight, he would start in motion a
plan whose goal was nothing less than the downfall of the Wonka megacorp.
The Count stood at a window of his penthouse towering above The
Heights, bidding goodbye to the irritating sun. He had once hoped that enough
smog would accumulate and block out the sun, but the atmosphere of The Heights
was clean. That's something he liked about The Basement: There was no
sunlight. But what he liked most about the city below was that anyone could
be purchased on the Power Strip and, if a nameless body was found with, say,
all of its blood drained, it was no big deal. The Count became giddy thinking
about The Basement, and its countless walking sacks of skin filled to brimming
with blood, leaking blood wherever you bit them. It was like having blood
on tap.
However, the Count's particular dietary needs were still frowned upon
by the upper class that he hoped to join. In the Count's mind, it was simple:
If you want to be like livestock, drink the blood of livestock; if you want to
be like a human, drink human blood. But the nouveau riche would not listen to
reason.
The Greenwar environmental movement considered some humans to be
worthy only as fertilizer for plants. The Count noted that these plants would
make use of the fertilizer, and then they would be harvested and eaten. He
was merely suggesting that the horticultural middle-man be removed and the
humans ingested directly.
What was a heart transplant except cannibalism without using your
mouth? The Count had tried to explain, but the country club set would
hear none of it.
Personally, the idea of eating outside of his own species turned the
Count's stomach.
However, if the Count had Wonka's Secret Formula(TM), he could make
candy as popular as Wonka's. Except the Count would modify the formula so that
it remained in the bloodstream without decaying. Then blood itself would
become as tasty as a Wonka Bar. And the upper class could never pass up a new
treat. Drinking blood would become chic.
The Count hooked himself up to his cyberdeck and jacked into the
cyberspace. His virtual likeness was that of a huge vampire bat. He flew
past his conglomerate's schematics, marketing plans, and manufacturing
schedules, and flapped out into the dataspace.
To implement his new plan he would need the aid of the cyberconstruct
known only as Judy, the Operator of Time and Life. She manifested as various
humble incarnations of a young woman sitting eternally at a keyboard and
wearing an audio headset. But this facade masked a wetware/netware hybrid so
intimately connected that her brain could no longer be distinguished from the
dendrites of the holographic patch panel through which she contacted her
ubiquitous sensors and informants. Since her consciousness had evolved into a
trance-like state of total awareness, she was available 24 hours a day. Her
ability to acquire any data and do so without latency let her operate freely
throughout the time-life continuum.
The Count arrived at Judy's non-intrusion field. He presented his
most impressive access codes, and to his glee a connection opened up before
him. He entered and saw an attractive incarnation of Judy sitting at a
virtual keyboard. He spread his wings to strike an impressive pose.
She said, "Please hold."
The Count found himself standing in front of many balding band members
all dressed in lime-green polyester tuxedos. Next to him and leading the band
was Lawrence Welk. The Count's enormous vampire body was also wearing a
lime-green tux. He tried to escape, but he couldn't move. Involuntarily, his
fanged mouthparts crooned into the microphone, "Havin' my baby / What a lovely
way to say how much you love me...."
The Count hated being put on hold.
Finally, the band disappeared and Judy sat before him, smiling. "What
can I do for you, sir?"
The Count boldly stated his ambition. "I require vahn of Vonka's
golden teeckets."
Judy tapped indifferently on her keyboard. "And how will you be paying
for this task?"
"I vill pay in future earnings. A golden teecket will get me into
Vonka Labs. Zen I vill steal Vonka's Secret Formula(TM)."
"Surely Mr. Wonka won't let anyone near the Secret Formula(TM)."
"Zertainly. But once inside Vonka Labs, I will launch miniature
robotic bats. My ro-bats vill transmit spectrograms of every chemical in
hiss basement.
Judy tapped on her keyboard. "I must have your plan approved by our
credit bureau. Please hold."
"....nothing more than feelings, trying to forget my, feelings of -"
"Sir, your credit has been approved. We shall supply you with a
golden ticket."
Judy started parsing for keywords across millions of sensors, data
links, and wires from reporters in the field....
* * * * *
A fly was attracted by the smell of brazed dolphin filet. The insect
hummed through the entrance of Chez Heights, following the gourmet aroma.
Discretely placed sensors triangulated the fly's position and vaporized it
with a femtosecond laser pulse.
Successful sarariman Pyur Dum Luk was greeted by the maitre d' Chez
Heights. The maitre d' passed a reader wand over the businessman's card,
which offered among other information a CAT scan of the diner's
craniomaxillofacial structure, which was transmitted to the concierge so that
he could forge prescription silverware fitted to the diner's mouth.
Pyur Dum Luk was escorted into the small dining room, which was lit by
shimmering chandeliers of Moldovian emerald lace, the world's most exquisite.
Around the perimeter were living busts of Napoleon and Caesar. A living
rendition of the Venus de Milo swayed her limbless torso to the harpsichord's
ambience.
Jee I. Jo saw his employer approaching his table. Mr. Jo gestured to
a human napkin, who trotted over to the guest. Jo wiped his hands on the
napkin, who then backed away respectfully.
Jee I. Jo exchanged bows and handshakes with Pyur Dum Luk. He
addressed Luk eagerly. "Sir, a plan to acquire for you a golden ticket has
been finalized. Waiting in a suite at the Prosthetic Arms are both the finest
remote scanner man and the greatest data fusion analyst. All shipments of
Wonka Bars leaving the factory will be covertly scanned until a golden ticket
is found, at which point it will be tracked by stealth reconnaissance
drone...."
The bust of Caesar tilted his head to beckon the human napkin. The
napkin meandered over to him. "I'm gettin' tired of people wiping their grimy
hands on my nice white linen outfit."
"Quit complainin'," scolded Caesar. "If we didn't take these jobs,
we'd never have gotten out of The Basement. Look at me. I ain't beefin', but
if I have an itch, I can't scratch till I get off duty and into some limbs."
"Yeah. I could have it worse. I could be the human toilet paper."
"But things are looking up," said Caesar. "I been listening to these
sararimen. They have an iron-clad plan to get a golden ticket. Call Judy the
Time-Life Operator. She's got an 800 number. Ask her what she'll pay for
this information...."
* * * * *
The plump, pale data fusion analyst sat in a room at the Prosthetic
Arms. The sensor man peered out the window. He said to the data analyst,
"I'm locking video on the target, focussed at 100 meters, static launch."
The data analyst slipped a video jack into a small hole in the top of
his skull. "Single-channel input is being received."
The sensor man said, "Now I'm collimating the reference beam for the
secondary channel."
The analyst slipped a crystalline linear waveguide into his skull,
which locked into place with a damp sucking sound. "Dioptic fusion is
completed."
"Now I'm registering the hemovibration scan."
The analyst slotted a small wafer into his skull. "The target is
reconstructed to 2.83 dimensions."
"Now I'm - wait, she's pulled the shower curtain closed. Switching
to infrared."
"Compensating. All inputs nominal. Reconstruction resuming. Her
surface topography is very nice."
"Now I'm rectifying the neutronium cloud outside her apartment."
The analyst fitted another coprocessor implant into the appropriate
lobe interface. "Graviton perturbations are being fused into the
reconstruction. Very nice indeed."
"Now I'm launching the flux modulation transducer, tuning the thermal
intake converter foil, perambulating the parallax condenser beam...."
The analyst tossed implants at his skull, trying to keep up. He soon
looked like Carmen Miranda, his head bristling with adaptor boards, backplanes,
and ribbon cables.
"....rerouting the vergence stabilizer, companding the field
amplitude - what's the problem?"
"I can't make up my mind. Some of the pieces are missing. Did I give
you a piece of my mind?"
"No, you didn't. I wish you had made up your mind beforehand."
"When starting a new project, I like to keep an open mind - wait, my
skull is too heavy. Help - " The analyst began to lean precariously while
his tiny arms vainly tried to balance himself. The sensor man sighed, then
came over and straightened the analyst rudely.
The analyst whined, "I think that you could treat a man of my talents
with greater diligence and respect. I could have suffered severe brain
damage."
"Hah! You're brains are in your ass."
"Yes, half of them are. I won't put all my eggs in one cranium."
"Are there any brains in your skull that will help us find a golden
ticket?"
"Why, I have half a mind to do just that."
The telephone rang. The analyst tried to pivot his head. "What's that
noise? I hear a noise."
"Shut up." The sensor man answered the phone. "Hello?"
Judy the Time-Life Operator said, "I will pay you triple what you have
been offered to deliver to me one of Wonka's golden tickets."
The sensor man chuckled. "Lady, even if I knew what you were talking
about, I wouldn't do biz with you."
Judy said, "If you don't take my offer in the next five seconds, a
missile-born magnesium thermite bomb locked onto your retina pattern will
arrive."
The sensor man went pale. "Well, um, my partner and I do seem to be
spiraling in on a concensus. Um, yes, we accept your offer...."
* * * * * *
The Count's industrial career began back in 1992. The Eastern
European nations were developing market economies and, as a result, the
Count's castle in Transylvania was opened to tourists for the first time.
One day, an American tourist wanted a souvenir, so he pulled the
wooden stake from the heart of an ancient, decomposed body he found lying in a
coffin. The Count awoke from a century of death, and his breath was so bad
it killed the tourist. The Count drank the American's cholesterol-laden
blood and prepared for a really, really big comeback.
The economies of the western world had shifted from manufacturing to
information services. The newborn economies of the old Soviet bloc could not
compete in high tech, so they filled the new void in manufacturing.
The westerners' shift away from manufacturing had been so complete
that they could no longer build anything at all. Quickly, all aspects of
material life were controlled by eastern magacorps, none more influential than
the Count's Transylvania-America Corporation. The Count's gift for
persuasion, in addition to the timely disappearance of his competitors,
guaranteed him financial success. His enterprises included Transylvanian
World Airlines (TWA), and production of the TransAm, a powerful autotransport
with a noble vampire bat painted on the hood.
Success gave the Count great influence in all arenas. He accumulated
privileges in the global information network second only to a handful of
cyberspace moguls. He had moved his operations to America and built the
TransAmerica building in the center of The Heights. He chose its pyramid
shape because he thought it the grandest architecture for tombs. The Count
also influenced social policy; he arranged for the sale of cemetery graves as
residences, an idea that suited his own domestic taste.
Via video-equipped ro-bat, the Count was skimming over Wonka World,
whose wealth even Trans-America couldn't approach. The Count grimaced at the
thriving factories. He scowled at the flourishing theme park. He cringed at
the VR-Cade arena which, despite its enormity, was crowded with game players.
He cursed at the elated mob waiting to buy Wonka Bars. Soon, he would be
given a golden ticket that would let him steal the Secret Formula(TM) and then
steal Wonka's infuriating success. Somehow, the Count figured, Wonka's
formula must contain a narcotic octomine compound that had no lethal side
effects; a few hours of remote espionage would tell the Count all he needed
to know.
But he would require the services of a child, since Wonka's winners
had to be children. He needed a child that looked innocent but would
nevertheless assist him in sabotaging Wonka.
A young boy left the arcade arena after obliterating the 12-foot-tall
commie electro-mantis storm troopers and delivering the maidens from the ice
planet's astrobrothel. The Count had his video ro-bat follow.
The boy was a bit chubby, and he had a red crewcut and freckles. He
was neatly dressed in suit and tie. The Count grew pessimistic. This boy
probably still played with Kernighan and Ritchie action figures.
The ro-bat followed the boy among the 50-story shining crystal
stalagmites of the cityscape and into one of the many condominium high-rises
that were scattered across The Heights.
The boy rang a door bell, and a sweet elderly woman answered. The
condo had antiques, including a workstation with sliding glass windows and
a live mouse.
"Hello, sonny."
"Are you Mrs. Berry?" the boy monotoned.
"Yes. Who are you?"
"Are you aware that you have missed payments on your new dentures?"
"Yes, but that's because my husband needed a new - "
"I'll need your teeth, ma'm."
"Beg your pardon?"
"I'm the repo boy. I'm here to repossess your teeth."
The old lady made a break for it, but the boy's tranquilizer dart found
her ample derriere. The lady stumbled for a moment, and fell against the
kitchen counter before rolling onto the floor. The boy walked into the
condo and confirmed that the target was down.
The husband came at the boy, but the boy had time to lasso the man's
ankles inside a Mobius shackle. The man tried to pivot his body to wiggle
out of the shackle. He did a half-twist and found himself prone on the floor.
He did another half-twist and was standing on his head. The old man was
unable to orient himself.
The repo boy pulled out an oxygen mask with vacuum suction attached.
He put the mask over the lady's mouth and flipped a switch. The vacuum
growled until the dentures came free with a soggy ripping sound and rattled
around inside the mask. The repo boy put them in a ziploc bag and departed.
The Count said, "This boy is perfect."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1992 Steven Connelly stevec@bucrf10.bu.edu
The next part will appear tomorrow.
Subject: Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (4/6)
Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (part 4)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charlie's limbs were being constructed incrementally and transparently
to him, allowing him constant usage of the appendages without downtime. The
limb material was accreted via conversion of external nutrient according to
compact genetic instructions bundled into him at initialization time, in the
same manner as most all other humans.
Charlie was wandering the dark streets, hoping to find a way to buy a
Wonka Bar. He circuited aimlessly around neighborhoods where the only law
was the second of thermodynamics, but it was enforced everywhere and with
fascist diligence.
Charlie saw a lone light bulb on the ground. A dim glow came from
within the bulb. Holding it in front of him, he paced forward, drawn by the
distant radiance that tumbled over the tops of each dark overcrowded bronk.
His light bulb grew stronger as he neared the ambient electric flux of the
Power Strip. Turning the corner, he was nearly knocked over by the raging
waves of photons. He could see it all with his eyes closed.
The supporting legs that held Wonka World aloft were huge cylinders
of flawless ukrainium alloy. One line of these stancheons also sheathed the
power cables from the HydroWonka dynamos that traveled underground and finally
up into Wonka World. They carried such an energy that, above ground, their
ambient magnetic field was palpable. Merchants had congealed like iron
filings around this free, non-stop electricity.
Charlie saw the gang headquarters and psychoslam clubs where
hoodlums feasted. The walls were plastered with centerfolds from Playbot
magazine. A gang member cleaned out a skull, making a jack-o-lantern to go
with his fred-o-lantern and ralph-o-lantern. Microwave ovens cooked
constantly until they melted themselves. Blenders twirled in a fevered dance
of strawberry daiquiri mix until they flew into pieces. An upright vacuum
cleaner had scampered across the Strip until it hit a stancheon; it's beater
bar continued to spin against the dirt, eagerly digging its own grave.
Powered by a field of ambient greed, the black market on the Strip was a
perpetual motion device running at breakneck speed.
Charlie put his blazing light bulb down on the base of a huge
ukrainium support. His dental fillings tingled. An old hag approached and
asked if he wanted his fortune told; her hair was a floating four-foot sphere
styled by static electricity. Charlie hurried down the Strip and saw another
gypsy twirling a long glowing fluorescent bulb. The gypsy broke the end of
the bulb, inhaled the gas inside, and blew iridescent smoke rings at the
ceiling.
A fat man in a suit of glowing neon stripes barked promises of
pleasure. "Screaming fist! Rent a screaming fist from me, no questions
asked!" His promises were vouched for by the likenesses of himself
simultaneously broadcast on a cathedral of 100 stacked televisions; their word
was good for as long as it took a video phosphor to reset. The fat pimp was
drumming up interest in a screaming fist, male masturbation using a young
boy or girl instead of one's fist. The hundred oily heads looked at Charlie.
"Hey, kid, you want a screaming fist for the night? Grrha ha ha ha...."
Charlie scurried along the Strip. He came to a large open igloo of
cardboard boxes illuminated like an operating room from steaming overhead
lights. On the front counter, a box of vibrators bumped and grinded
epileptically.
Charlie pressed a button on the counter and heard a distant
high-pitched rasp. A bare wire was hooked to the tail of a cat that screamed
wildly whenever the button closed the circuit.
The scream summoned a toothless man from behind the boxes, his bald
head blistering under the lights.
"Whaddya want, kid?" The man sprinkled some tobacco onto a nicotine
transdermal patch, rolled the patch into a cylinder, and lit one end.
Charlie chirped, "Do you have Wonka Bars?"
"Yeah. Brand new today. You got rubles?"
The boy shook his head.
"You got anything for barter?"
Charlie scrounged in his pocket for his directional compass. He
reached up and gave it to the man, who frowned at the scratched little device.
He studied it for a moment with a jeweler's loupe. "The needle inside looks
like latvium crystal. I might give you a Wonka Bar for it."
Charlie smiled and nodded encouragingly. The black marketeer tossed
a Wonka Bar out from one of the boxes.
Charlie admired the candy bar's wrapper. He smelled the chocolate
and giggled at the lavender top hat that was Wonka's trademark. Then he ran
off the Power Strip as fast as he could.
He trotted into an alley. His eyes weren't yet used to the dark, and
he felt his way along slowly.
Something grabbed his arm and pulled him down. Holding him was a thin
armature of a man whose mouth and stomach were growling angrily. The man saw
the Wonka Bar. He grabbed it and shoved it, wrapper and all, into his mouth.
While he chewed, Charlie slunk back to the wall of the alley. The thin man
moaned with pleasure as the Secret Formula(TM) flowed into his anemic tissues.
He cleared his throat, and then he coughed violently. He gagged, and then
grabbed his throat as if he was strangling himself. His face glowed red as he
writhed about the alley wrestling with himself. The man's face began to turn
sky blue. He tried feverishly to stuff his own hand into his mouth, but it
wouldn't fit. He fell flat onto his back.
Charlie approached cautiously. The body was completely motionless and
the eyes were closed.
He put a hand against the man's wrist and felt a weak pulse. He
decided it would be rude not to wait till the man was at least on the greenish
side of blue before removing any prosthetics.
He pulled the large bony hand from the man's mouth to assess his
dentistry. There were no negotiables in the teeth, though there was something
shiny in the back of the throat. Charlie reached his tiny hand into the mouth
and after some effort pulled out a small but heavy plug. With a
roar that startled the boy, the man phlegmatically inhaled.
Though covered with sputum, the item from the man's throat seemed
to almost radiate an amber light. Charlie unfolded the shimmering item and
wiped it clean with a furry dead rat.
* * * *
Grampa Joe had seen a smile as big as Charlie's only on Leary krishnas
that communed for too long with the LSDeity.
Without a word, Charlie gave Joe the ticket. One at a time, Joe's
eyes widened. He started five questions at once and the waveforms canceled
into spluttering silence. He scrutinized the opalescent ticket. He scratched
it with his pocket knife. He poured a drop of a popular soft drink on it, but
no hole was made. Stunned, he stared at the lucky boy.
Charlie said, "Now I'll meet Willie Wonka, right?"
"What? Don't be stupid. You can't live on free Wonka Bars and arcade
games. Take this ticket to Mrs. Grack at the black supermarket. She knows a
broker who'll barter it for years of soy packets."
Charlie looked down, nodding silently.
Joe sighed. The kid looked like he was getting enough food. Maybe
the best thing now would be a vacuum-packed, freeze-dried,
polysorbate-preserved, tempested foil packet of hope concentrate.
Joe flattened the golden ticket on the dashboard. "But, if you
have your heart set on it, then go ahead."
Charlie's face lit up like a rear-ended Pinto. He held his breath
and pressed his fingers on the ticket. His prints shimmered in surreal
swimming blues and greens.
Charlie asked, "Will you go to Wonka World with me?"
Joe frowned. He would get paid time-and-a-half if he worked on
December 25th, Retail Day, and double time a week later, on Accident Night.
But if he left the bus, the company would surely lay him off, citing declining
ridership and the collapse of civilization.
With a sigh, Joe carefully put on his tiny hat and buttoned his
jacket. Groaning, he stood up, his bones snapping, crackling, and popping like
the popular flammable breakfast cereal. The family that lived in the back of
the bus saw for the first time that Joe was not factory-installed. Leaning on
Charlie, Joe stepped off his bus. "One small step for man, one giant leap for
my aching butt. Come along, Charlie. We'll catch a sewer ferry to the
customs station. Don't want to keep Willie Wonka waiting."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1992 Steven Connelly stevec@bucrf10.bu.edu
The next part will appear on Monday.
Subject: Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (5/6)
Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (part 5)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A chain of open-topped lavender and gold Rolls-Russians purred past
the cheering crowds that lined Main Street. The motorcade stopped at a
lavender gazebo at the center of Wonka World. Hovering video microzeppelins
from the major networks vied for position as tuxedos escorted the holders of
the golden tickets from their cars and into the gazebo. Fans at home shared
the kids' excitement as color commentators telestrated live-action positron
emission scans of the childrens' brains.
With each child and their accompanying adult seated, the gazebo slowly
rose above the throng. Hexiglass membranes slid closed for the comfort of the
passengers. Millions of tiny mechanical wings buzzed underneath the
hummercraft as it lifted away from the crowds and the media.
The perky stewardesses pointed down at the unorail bullet train where
it threaded through the planned communities of Wonka Meadows and the gleaming
Wonkaminium highrises. They could see the mirrored geodesic arenas of the
VR-Cade. Charlie and Purina Ralston drooled at the sight of the chocolate
filtering plant; Reverend Ralston and The Count drooled at Wonka's net worth.
The repo boy drooled, wondering if, in the event of a water landing, he could
use the stewardess as flotation device.
Purina Ralston asked, "What's that long building with the line of
cars? It looks like a car wash."
The stewardess said, "The cars are waiting to be M&M'd."
"M&M'd?" Purina asked concisely.
"Sure. Willie Wonka can put a hard candy coating on just about
anything. But that's not the only reason he's called the Candy Man....
"Who can take a pentane /
Insert it in a gene /
Making mono hexa deka tetra octomine /
The Candy Man can.
"Who can take your wishes /
Add geometries /
Cyber-customizing virtu-al realities /
The Candy Man can."
The hummercraft landed on the fairway of a golf course. A man in
cleets, knickers, and a ridiculous lavender top hat was lining up a shot off
a tee. He wound up and swung clumsily. His ball hooked left and pinballed
around a copse of trees before landing hopelessly in tall grass.
The caddie asked, "Shall that be a hole-in-one, sir?"
"Yes," replied Willie Wonka. "That would be a nice place to have the
green." He put on a garish overcoat, straightened his top hat upon his
confused curls, and came toward the gazebo. Where the errant golf ball
had landed, a hard-hatted man with a walkie-talkie was igniting signal flairs.
Willie Wonka stepped into the gazebo. "My honored guests,
congratulations, and forgive me for keeping you. I promise that, for the rest
of this day, I, and in fact all of Wonka World, will be at your disposal."
He stepped over to Repo. "Congratulations, young knight, on finding a golden
ticket. And what a fine, strapping - "
"Take that noise and binhex stuffit," said Repo. "We're here to
scope your tech."
"And scope you shall, I assure you," Wonka said with a smile. He
turned to the man in the black cape and enormous face-hugging sunglasses.
"And here we have the Count, CEO of Transylvania-America. You must be very
proud of your boy. Um, are you uncomfortable? You look a bit pale."
"Zee sunlight," said the Count, rubbing on sunblock. "It
aggravates a condition I haf."
"When we get inside, remind me to tint down the hexiglass reflectors
in the domes."
Helicopters were dragging a 100-foot-tall double-bladed razor, which
felled trees along the path to Wonka's golf ball. Using Wonka's patented
lumbering technique, the first blade would bend a tree down and the second
would cut its trunk so that the remaining stump was actually under the ground.
Wonka stepped over and greeted the Ralstons with a big smile. His
eyes were wild, and placed not quite symetrically about his face. Purina
Ralston clung tightly to her father.
"You're Reverend Ralston, correct?. I know of your tv show."
"Oh, do you watch the show?"
"I know of it. And this is your daughter?"
"My daughter, Purina. She's still a virgin."
Wonka frowned. He fetched a tricorder from his overcoat and passed
it over Purina's pelvis. He read the results off the strip chart. "Son of
a bitch. She really is."
A 5-ton rotary electric razor hovered above Wonka's golf ball. The
long grass whipped into whorls under the wash of the razor's circulating
blades. The razor was piloted slowly to the ground where it mowed the grass
down to 7/16th's inch. Then VTOL support jets in formation swept a 20-foot
diameter ice cream scoop near the green, cutting a shallow trough that was
then filled with white sand.
"I'm Charlie, and this is Grampa Joe." The thrilled boy shook Willie
Wonka's hand into early bursitis.
Wonka settled on one knee next to Charlie. "Congratulations on
finding a golden ticket."
"Thanks. I was real lucky. I had to get a Wonka Bar at the Power
Strip, even though Grampa Joe told me not to go there."
Wonka said, "You should always do what your grampa tells you, Charlie."
"But I do mosta the time. Grampa told me not to remove pacemakers
from living people. I never do."
Reverend Ralston interrupted. "Am I to understand that you found a
golden ticket in the first Wonka Bar you ever acquired? The chances of
winning with a single bar are near impossibility."
"On the other hand," murmured Wonka, "chances are pretty good that
something nearly impossible will happen to somebody somewhere." A proton in
Wonka's corneal fluid spontaneously decayed into four photons, causing his eye
to twinkle.
The man with the walkie-talkie drilled a small hole around Wonka's
golf ball, and the ball dropped into the cup. The man removed the golf ball
and put a tall orange flag in the cup.
Grampa Joe cleared his throat. "Mr. Wonka, sir, could I ask what's
happened to the trees and grass out there?"
"Oh, yes, I'm building a golf course. I'm having it built around
my own shots. It's my course, so I might was well hold the course record,
right?"
* * * * *
Willie Wonka was proudly showing his private collection to his guests.
"This wooden bas relief depicts Plato contemplating lunch. I decided
it should be executed as a termite sculpture.
"I began by spreading a layer of termites on a flat panel of soft wood.
With a deft hand on the water pic, I was able to rinse away each termite when
it had eaten its way to a depth appropriate with its point in the picture."
His guests nodded silently.
"And on this wall hangs a self-portrait. How do you like it?"
With the diplomacy of a slave found by Genghis Khan while hiding
naked and erect in Mrs. Khan's closet, Grampa Joe said, "Your style is, er,
unique. Was this done in oils or acrylics?"
"I find paints to be old-fashioned and to weather poorly," said
Wonka, "so I executed this piece in vinyl siding."
The guests nodded. Wonka proceeded on to the next exhibit.
"And over here is my collection of semi-precious gall stones." The
guests peered into the backlit glass cases at the small multi-colored crystals.
"As with emeralds and rubies, the larger gall stones are the more rare,
and hence more valuable. Nevertheless, since people's diets have come to
include such exotic chemicals, the collector can be well-rewarded for his
diligence. Perhaps you recognize the Star of Emulsified Tristearate...."
Repo pulled the Count aside and whispered, "This guy could make me
puke on the ceiling. When are we gonna make our move? We should steal the
Secret Formula(TM), snuff Wonka, torch the -"
"Patience, young man. Vhen vee get to Vonka Labs, vee will acquire
the formula vit no effort at all." They again attended to Wonka.
"...MSG doesn't form crystals in nature. Only the miraculous gall
bladder can accrete a gem of the quality you see here. And now, if you'll
follow me, we'll partake of the VR-Cade...." Wonka led the way out of the
gallery.
Charlie asked, "What's a virgin?"
Repo replied, "More than you can afford."
The vaulted geodesic arena of the VR-Cade had been emptied of
gameplayers. Each arcade game boasted of itself in noise and neon. His arms
outstretched, Wonka spun in a circle. "The virtual worlds are yours," Wonka
proclaimed, "today, and for the rest of your life. All you need now is this."
>From up his sleeve he produced a liquid data line, two thin tubes joined along
their length. At one end of the tubes were small needles. Wonka gave the
data line to Repo, who happily pressed the needles into the back of his head.
The boy then trotted giddily up and down the endless aisles of sensory arcade
games.
Wonka handed data lines to the other guests. "Plug the needles into
your head and the other ends into the front panel of any arcade game. One
tube feeds data fluid into the brain and the other drains the excess. After
parameterizing the sensory lobes to create a brain map, the fluid creates a
resonance of structured standing turbulence that chemically supplies the
audiovisuotactogustolfactory stimulation to the brain."
Reluctantly, Charlie and Grampa Joe inserted the needles of their
data lines.
"Oooh, look," said Purina. "It's called 'The Enchanted Forest'. I
wonder how it works."
"The only way to find out is to try it," Wonka said as he strode up to
the unit proudly. He helped Purina into the booth, and she reclined on the
DataLounger.
"The Enchanted Forest is a magical place," enthused Wonka. "You never
know when a pink bunny rabbit will invite you to a party with the Ewoks, or
when a chipmunk will climb on your shoulder and tell you how to get to the
Gingerbread Castle. Who knows? You may even see a hundred and one
dalmatians! And the button on the left fires tracered napalm lances; on the
right, full-field buckshot. And if, say, an orphaned fawn is hiding in the
woods, you can track him on infrared. I hope you find the backsplatter
convincing...."
Unsure of what to do in the VR-Cade, Charlie had stepped into the
simplest looking booth. He plugged himself into the simulation and a filmy
image focussed itself into an utterly featureless room bounded by horizontal
and vertical white lines. From an opening in the lines approached a
life-sized ampersand. He avoided its attack and those of other pugilistic
punctuation. Charlie passed through the opening, where he discovered a room
as boring as the first. A dozen waist-high percent signs came toward him in a
jerking, intermittent fashion.
"Charlie, you don't want to play that game," Wonka interrupted. "It's
just here for some really old guys who are easily amused. Try this game over
here. 'Gratuitous VioSense'. It's one of my favorites."
Charlie plugged himself into the game, and after a moment he saw in
front of him a white-faced street mime. The boy was astonished at the
realism.
"Look at that funny man," gushed Wonka. "He can lean on something,
even though nothing's there. And he can pull on a rope, but there's no rope!
And you can use the joystick to position the crosshairs between his eyes...."
With the dataline hanging from his head, Grampa Joe felt like he
needed a haircut. "What good is a lifetime pass to the VR-Cade," he muttered,
"if you don't live in The Heights? Maybe I can talk Wonka into giving Charlie
a visa...." He approached a booth entitled "What if the Apaches had had
Apache Helicopters?" The day-glo picture on the side of the booth showed
indians strafing Custer. Joe moved along and decided against "Adolescent
Altered Kungfu Tortoises". He wandered into an untitled booth and plugged his
dataline into the Fender DataCaster affixed firmly upon a belt-high stand. A
swimming percept congealed into the image of a large teenage audience looking
up at him. Some of the girls appeared to wear their undergarments on the
outside, but to Joe they did not seem to be embarrassed. Joe strummed once
across the DataCaster's strings, and a thunderous caustic rasp echoed around
the virtual stadium. Joe was sure he had broken the guitar. The virtual
audience cheered. Joe resented their joy at his bad luck.
He clamped his hands on the strings to silence the device, but it
launched another chord that nearly knocked Joe from his feet. He grabbed the
guitar to steady himself and it continued to rip sawtooth gutterals like a
regional war executed in harmony. He tried to unplug himself, but he was
repelled by noises like earth-moving machines inside his head. The crowd
waved their arms and screamed wildly, and Joe was sure they would attack if
he didn't stop the horrific noise. He asked the audience for assistance, but
his voice growled, "Maybe, baby, we rub our bodies together, we start a fire."
His voice had been distorted into the energetic rasp of young man who should
have let his throat heal before he attempted to talk. Joe tried to smother
the noise by bear-hugging the guitar with his legs. Unsure of who was playing
who, he held the guitar neck in both hands, riding the instrument like a
mechanical bull. The audience threw virtual joints and lingerie at him. Joe
told them they were very rude, but his voice rasped, "I wanna juice ya, girl,
squeeze ya till the juice runs down your legs." Joe clapped his hand over his
mouth. The audience began to hold lighters in the air. Fearing they would
burn him at the stake for his outbursts, Joe left his dataline behind and
crawled on all fours out of the arcade booth.
"Yo, Wonka", Repo shouted, "Can we jockey the adult games too?"
Wonka shouted, "Of course!"
It was an agitated Repo who ran into the adult section and plugged his
dataline into a VR booth entitled "The Blue Lagoon". The rest of the group
caught up with him.
"What's the Blue Lagoon?"
Wonka said, "Picture this. A ship is wrecked at sea. Only two
people survive. They swim to a tropical island paradise where life proceeds
without a care. One survivor is Brooke Shields, and the other is you, a
Hollywood producer who can save her from a career of Bob Hope specials. This
game is guaranteed to induce orgasm on your first quarter."
Purina Ralston asked, "What's an orgasm?"
Wonka rubbed his chin. "Well, um, do you remember how, when you
eat candy -"
"Yes?"
"- and you rub your tummy cuz it tastes so good -"
"Yes?"
"- and your limbic system releases dishinibitors that let endorphins
bond to pleasure receptor sites -"
"Huh?"
Wonka scratched his head. "Let me explain it another way. By any
chance, have you ever inhaled a prescription amount of dihexapentyl
octomine?"
"You mean a Malibu Ganglion Spanker? Sure."
"An orgasm is as fun as that, and your brain doesn't leak out your
ears."
Repo was looking into his synthesized image and down at his virtual
groin. "Gosh. Either Brooke has a very small mouth, or I have a very big -"
"Have you seen the Exercise Ball?" Wonka cried suddenly. He shoved
the group over to a 60-foot-diameter trackball embedded almost entirely under
the floor. Under Wonka's insistence, Grampa Joe climbed tenuously to the
middle of a slightly curving surface that was the only part of the huge ball
above ground. Wonka flicked a switch and in front of Joe appeared a hologram
of the notorious sex star, Hia Synth. Her hair was supermoussed into a double
helix that caged a shiny green iguana. Her bust was geometrically perfect
sili-cones, and the pink bolts of her hydraulic pelvic vice swayed
provocatively with her hips.
"You can run on the trackball without actually going anywhere,"
Wonka explained. "It's a progressive resistance exercise: The bait will run
only as fast as you."
Reverend Ralston said, "The carrot and stick, eh, Wonka?"
"Yes. But what an alluring carrot!"
"Sure," said Joe, "but my stick isn't what it used to be."
"Then let's try another variation," Wonka said while flipping buttons.
The sex star disappeared, and behind Joe appeared a bunch of chickens wearing
black shirts and arm bands. "In this scenario, the fascist chickens have
taken over, and you're Frank Perdue." The holofowl drew knives and waddled
righteously toward Joe, who began to run in place atop the trackball.
"Join us when the exercise session is through," said Wonka. "After we
look in on 'Gulliver Does Lilliput', we'll be debauching over at the
programmable Caligulator." The group was rejoined by the flushed face of
Repo, whose droopy dataline was dripping.
Joe jogged atop the huge trackball for a minute before he was
completely winded. He stopped and the chickens caught up with him. The
exercise apparatus discontinued its visuals after briefly holoprojecting
a kangaroo court where the chickens tried Joe without representation and then
sentenced him to the deep fryer.
Regaining his breath, Joe started walking in hopes of finding the rest
of the group. After a few steps, he noticed he was still on the trackball,
which rolled without friction on its quality Wonka bearings. He attempted
tiny steps, but the inertialess kergezium monolayer sphere reacted to his
every action. Unable to go anywhere, Joe laid down.
After a moment, her heard some buttons click. He sat up and saw at
the control panel a 3-foot man with a large metal head, eyes like dinner
plates, and wavy green hair. The small android silently rolled away.
Standing up, Joe realized that the trackball had been locked down.
He walked off the ball and toward the android, but the small man had already
slipped back behind the scenes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1992 Steven Connelly stevec@bucrf10.bu.edu
The final part will show up tomorrow.
Subject: Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (6/6)
Willie Wonka and the Drug Factory (part 6)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Willie Wonka escorted his guests to a slowly opening lavender door
that was as thick as it was wide.
"Finally, we come to Wonka Labs."
Reverend Ralston and the Count didn't try to hold back their squeals
of joy. Research stations of every type were dispersed on either side of the
wide white corridor that lay before them. Delivery drones capped with
rotating red lights followed magnetic floor strips. Overhead conduits guided
pulses of tapioca monoids and sluiced merengue, buffered by Uzbekastannous
flouride to prevent tooth decay. Flavometric prisms refracted across the
spectrum from cherry to lemon to lime to blueberry to grape. A red sign on
the side of a slowly rolling unmanned smart-cart filled with M&M's said,
"WARNING: MICRO-OVOIDS MELT IN MOUTH, NOT IN HANDS."
Wonka led the group to the observation window of a 4-acre
glass-enclosed terrarium.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is Wonkasphere II, an entirely
self-contained habitat and living experiment where eight daring eco-nauts
will cohabit for two years."
Inside the glass dome, a researcher had spotted the visitors. He
waded with effort through a knee-high swamp of fecal material. The wild-eyed
man was wrapped in rags. He wrote on the window with feces, "!TUO EM TEL"
"It seems the waste converter has broken down," Wonka lectured, "and
the mechanic of the group was killed in factional fighting between the upper
bunk oligarchs and the lower bunk insurgents."
The man in rags tried to smash the glass with his head. From behind
an architected waterfall a herd of three researchers crouched stealthily in
close formation. They were covered in domesticated animal hides. One wore a
hollow video terminal as a helmet while another wore the skull of a cow.
They had clipboards and solar panels attached to their torsos as armor.
The man in rags saw his stalkers and slogged desperately away to the
artificial rainforest. The hunting party followed, throwing sharpened radio
antennas, computer disks, and ribbon cable bolos at their prey.
"It seems there is trouble in Eden," mused Wonka to his silent guests.
"But what a fascinating study of our planet in microcosm, don't you think?"
He walked away and, after a moment, the confused guests followed.
Repo whispered to the Count, "High noon. Show time. It's a go.
Take him down. Let's rock. I'll create a diversion by killing everyone, and
then you grab the Secret Formula(T -"
"Patience," urged the Count through clenched fangs. "It iss not zo
zimple. Leafe everyzhing to me."
"Over here we have a different kind of agricultural experiment,"
announced Wonka. He gestured to a couple acres of farmland the group was
walking by. "I'm irrigating this farm with carbonated water so as to grow
fizzy fruit. We've successfully grown seltzer watermelons, but we're having
trouble with the tomatoes exploding."
Purina Ralston pointed out into the acreage and gagged, "What on
earth is that?"
"Oh, that's a patch of sugar cane. If I can grow carbonated sugar
cane, I'll be only a step away from soft drinks - "
"No, I mean that short man with metal skin and green hair." The man's
eyes were ten times bigger than his tiny circle of a mouth.
"Oh, that's an elf, an electronic labor functionary. Androids like
him work with great precision, and they can't be bribed."
"What jobs do they do?"
"All of them. I'm the only human who works here. That's how I keep
the Secret Formula(TM) secret."
The group walked to the carbonated aquarium, where fish swam two
lengths forward and burped one length back.
Grampa Joe glanced around him, and then he snatched an orange from a
bushel basket. He broke the peel with a thumbnail. The fruit fizzed wildly
and he had to hide it under his jacket till the hissing stopped.
"A slice of orange soda, Charlie?" He peeled the orange and gave a
section to the boy.
The tour arrived at a sealed clean room where elves telemanipulated
pipettes over arrays of brightly colored bacteria. "At this station, we
monoclone the flavored fingernail polish and the edible ball point pen caps
that we sell to nervous people. It's a large market segment...."
Reverend Ralston glanced around. He readied the portable compressor
hidden within his robes. He squeezed the trigger and an atmosphere sample was
sucked into a hidden pressurized cannister and liquified. Under his robes,
the Reverend tapdanced with glee.
"And at this installation, we manufacture the potent barbiturate,
C-Spanocyn. It's fatal if taken too often, but that's okay: The drug gives
the user the mental sensation of being dead; if he takes it often, he
presumably likes the sensation. It's sort of a rent-to-own program for death.
Now if you'll follow me, I'll show you the Chocolatron."
Wonka spun the spoked wheel on a water-tight vault door. He heaved
open the heavy door, and the group funneled inside.
Bringing up the rear was the Count, who paused at the door. He
nonchalantly looked around. All the androids were busy buzzing away at their
appointed tasks. From under his cape he shuffled out four dozen miniature
robotic bats, which dispersed toward dark corners above the ceiling lights.
A fanged grin accompanied thoughts of the information about the Secret
Formula(TM) his ro-bats would send him.
The Chocolatron room was windowless and with only the one small
entrance that kept it well separated from the rest of the Labs. At the far
end of the room was an Olympic-sized pool of liquid chocolate. Charlie took a
few steps toward the pool and it appeared to rise up. Another step, and the
pool expanded around and threatened to swallow him. He stood very still,
looking up at the bubbling brown blob that towered over him.
"Careful, my friends," whispered Wonka. "Chocolate curves space."
Charlie leaned away from the vortex that pulled upon him. He looked
at his fingers, which distended freakishly toward the pool.
"Perhaps you've noticed how people's hands tend to be pulled in the
direction of your candy dish," said Wonka. "Or maybe you've noticed how,
when pedestrians approach a chocolate shop, the sidewalk distorts and the
people are drawn into the shop. Those are subtle manifestations of the same
subjective gravity effects we are now witnessing."
Charlie looked back toward Wonka, who appeared to be hundreds of
yards away. Leaning against the pull of the chocolate, he trudged back toward
the group. Light rays straightened and the pool slowly retreated behind him.
"Unlike objective gravity, the children are more effected than the
heavier adults...."
The group tiptoed gently back through the isolation hatch and away
from the Chocolatron.
"Since Cajun style became so fashionable," Wonka was explaining,
"I've experimented with remaking many foods in that style. Would anyone like
to try some spicy Cajun milk?"
Everyone shook their head with such force that their faces looked like
rocket sled pilots'.
The group proceeded on to a quality control facility. A squadron of
textured robotic tongues swiveled on their 21 hemispherical joints, testing
the durability of lollipops. "These tongues use embedded taste bud matrices
to monitor flavor as a function of radius," Wonka explained. "The linguabots
in the adult arcade had taste buds, but the matrices kept burning out...."
The Reverend's compressor could hold up to 20 pounds of liquified
air samples. He launched another intake burst into the device, but without
his original glee, as none of the stations seemed to pertain to the Secret
Formula(TM).
Wonka led his guests to a humming chrome contraption. An elf stood on
top, pouring a viscous resin into a basin through which opposing arms rotated
like a taffy puller. At the bottom of the contraption, small capsules were
occasionally spit into an output bin. "Here, we are processing the next
generation of styling mousse. The new version is so strong that a single
gram will hold any style you want."
Repo asked, "Will it hold your hair in a stellated dodecahedron?"
"Certainly."
Purina asked, "Will it hold long hair in symmetric load-bearing
cantilevers?"
"Absolutely. In fact, the new mousse is so strong it can prevent
baldness. However, you can't apply it with your fingers without a sort of
rigor mortis occurring. So I've invented Wonka Styling Mousse Pills,
time-release capsules whose ingredients move from the stomach through the
bloodstream to the hair."
"That's nice," Purina cringed, "but styling mousse tastes awful."
Wonka replied with a flourish, "Not if it's my new chocolate mousse!"
He strode triumphantly across the corridor to another station. The group
trailed behind.
Repo asked the Count, "Are you gonna snag the Secret Formula(TM)
or not?"
The Count smirked. "As we zpeak, covert remote zensing devices are
permuting a broad-band zpectrometric zcan to iteratively infer dhe piecewise
component ztructure - "
"Interesting dialect, Transylvanian. In American, we'd say, `No I
don't have the formula, and I'm a schmuck'." Turning his back to the Count,
Repo hissed, "I'm not leaving this place without the formula."
"My customers may become overweight while consuming my products,"
Wonka was reciting. "I have considered their plight and developed what is
perhaps my greatest invention." He held in his palm a small aerosol can.
"One step beyond the liquid diet is this: The vapor diet. Merely inhaling
the advanced drug contained in this wonkodilator will cause you to lose
weight."
"Awesome!", screamed Purina. She grabbed the cannister and sprayed its
contents up her nose.
"I shouldn't have done that if I were you," murmured Wonka blankly.
"The aerosol is to be sprayed into the atmosphere to control weight globally.
I don't know what effect a planet's worth of dosage will have."
Purina hugged the wonkodilator and swayed serenely, her eyes closed.
"Where's the lab that makes the Secret Formula(TM)?" barked Repo.
"That will have to remain secret, but there are so many other - ."
"That does it." Repo threw Purina's gown over her head. "Tell me the
Secret Formula(TM), or I plug the virgin."
"Oh my God," groaned the Reverend. "You can't. She's a national
treasure."
Wonka said, "You're being a naughty little boy. I think you should
take ten deep breaths and relax."
Repo unzipped his fly. "I'll do it! I swear!"
"What's happening to her?" Purina's face was shriveling up.
"I was afraid of that," murmured Wonka. "She's losing all her weight."
Purina's body continued to retract around her skeleton, becoming little
more than a rack of bones with a thin membrane of flesh stretched over it.
Horrified, Repo sifted through his hostage's fluffy gown, no longer able to
find her body. While searching, he came in contact with the latticed particle
beams of the girl's chastity field and was thrown across the corridor.
Repo clambered to his feet and drew a child's pistol, which holds half
as many rounds as the adult version. "Wonka! I want the formula, a
hummercraft, and safe passage outa here."
From the top of the styling mousse machine, the elf heaved a barrel of
supermousse onto Repo. The viscous jelly knocked the boy down. Enraged and
desperate, he stood up and fired at Wonka. The bullet dragged a thin
pseudopod of mousse 30 feet before coming to a stop in mid-air.
When all was quiet, Wonka gestured nonchalantly and androids guiding
electric coaches arrived. "Take the girl and the Reverend to the medical
station. An IV of 100% dextrose should fill her out. And take the Count and
his boy to the showers. A few dozen shampoos should free the kid...."
Wonka stepped into the driver's seat of a small golf cart. Grampa
Joe said, "What do we do now, Mr. Wonka?"
"The tour's over. You can see yourselves out."
Joe took off his hat. "Mr. Wonka, I was wondering, since Charlie
doesn't live in The Heights, maybe you could authorize a visitor's visa -"
"You steal a carbonated orange and then ask me for a favor? You must
have cojones of pure neutronium."
Joe retreated. Charlie chirped, "I'm sorry about the orange. I could
give it back."
"How? You've already eaten it."
Charlie threw up on the hood of Wonka's golf cart.
Wonka stared at him. "You're a born recycler, aren't you, kid?" He
walked over to a clean golf cart. "You're not the only guests who have
insulted me. The Count and that reverend have engaged in blatant espionage.
Looking for the Secret Formula(TM), no doubt."
Charlie trotted after Wonka. "But they won't learn the formula,
will they?"
"No, they won't."
"Because it's not synthesized, is it?"
"What's your point, kid?"
"I know the formula."
Wonka and Grampa Joe chuckled heartily.
Charlie said, "The Secret Formula(TM) isn't an artificial drug. It's
endorphins, the pleasure hormones of the brain."
Grampa Joe chuckled heartily. Wonka picked up Charlie by his lapels.
"Who told you, ya little brat?"
Grampa Joe sweated heartily.
"It's obvious," said Charlie. "The data lines in your arcade games
pump liquid into the brain and they also take liquid out. The output line
must contain some original brain fluid. It only makes sense to distill out
the endorphins."
Grampa Joe wrung his hat. "It's rude to embarrass our host, Charlie."
Especially since now he has to kill us."
"That's right, kid. How do I know you won't sell the secret to
Ralston or the Count?"
"Because I already would have."
Wonka put Charlie down. He started up the golf cart. "Normally, kid,
I could get you a visa so you could visit the VR-Cade, but right now I can't."
"That's okay," Charlie chirped. "I won't need it once Wonka World
moves."
Wonka picked up Charlie by his lapels. "Who told you, ya little brat?"
Grampa Joe murmured parenthetically, "If you're going to kill us, Mr.
Wonka, I'd like to die from exhaustion on an adult arcade game...."
"It's obvious," Charlie said. "Why else would you build Wonka World
independent of The Heights' infrastructure, as a free-standing plane atop
cylindrical stancheons that could serve as pneumatic lift pistons?"
Wonka put Charlie down. "Both of you, get in the cart."
Courier drones made way as Wonka sped the cart through his complex.
"It's funny," Wonka mused. "The only reason I held this contest was
to see who my most dangerous enemies were before I made my next move. I
figured the most powerful players would get the golden tickets. Why you
didn't sell yours, I'll never know...."
The electric cart started up a spiraling ramp.
Joe said, "The Count and Reverend Ralston are your enemies?"
"They were. Since the Count came away with nothing, he'll be weak by
the time he pays off his contacts. And Ralston just runs errands for
the Quail."
"The Quail?" Joe spluttered. "He's about the most powerful man
in the country. He's your enemy?"
"Sort of. He can't have sex unless I allow it."
Joe decided that big business was not among his aptitudes.
"Years ago, the Quail received a gene augmentation that gave him
enough charm to succeed despite his lack of intellect. Since I'm the one who
invented his personality genes, I hold the copyright on his character. The
Quail can't reproduce without my permission. Nor can he retransmit or
rebroadcast his genes without the expressed, written consent of WonkaGen Inc."
The golf cart arrived at a glass observation tower several stories
above Wonka World. Charlie and Grampa Joe looked out over Wonka's glittering
factories, theme parks, and arcades.
"Charlie, I need a bright guy who knows his way around this part of
The Basement. Will you be my right-hand man?"
"Sure! I'll show you the sewer lines best for tapping into your
underground power conduit, and I'll feed the coordinates of PC bee hives into
your solar-reflector death ray."
"Good. Then it's time." Wonka blew the dust off a bronze panel.
The panel read, "Wonkavator, Inc. Load not to exceed 3,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds."
The panel had only two buttons, one labeled 'The H.' and below that
another labeled 'The B.'. Wonka pressed the lower button firmly. "From now
on," he told Charlie, "people who want to play in Wonka World or get Wonka
Bars will have to do business with The Basement."
All along the perimeter of Wonka's property, Charlie could see a dark
sliver of The Basement. The sliver grew as the Wonka landmass smoothly
descended, until he could see across the sooty cityscape underneath.
The mirrored domes of Wonka World shot sunlight through the smog
while the Power Strip, sitting in the footprint of the landmass, only grew
darker.
The pimps and gang lieutenants rushed
to leave before the Strip was crushed.
Guns and drugs and stolen wares
were flattened inside smugglers' lairs.
Fresh air, tumbling down inside,
clearing smog and cyanide,
freed those who were vine-entangled.
Toxin-breathing insects strangled.
Toward the light came coke-head moonies,
rabid prozac-toasted loonies.
Covers flipped from sewer manholes
freeing partly-sentient man-voles.
The predators' complete retreat
let victims now reclaim the street.
Daylight spread to every mile.
Urban renewal, Wonka-style.
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Copyright (c) 1992 Steven Connelly stevec@bucrf10.bu.edu
Comments are welcome.
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