Muad_Dib

Seal of Approval

Who's Superior?

Is WeaverOne still around then? or is he in hiding?
let him know we are keeping the Space Station running

i did this SF a bit ago with my MM and a full team. We had a team wipe and we got back the room was filled with Coralax.
Luckily, everyone had the rocketpacks still or at least fly itself.
Except me. Everyone just floated in range of the Eye and let loose while I stood on the platform and resummoned the pets.
If you try to ignore the Coralax the Eye goes down pretty quick.
That's my hint, i guess. or experience. or whatever.

in honor of the CoX thread.

Hunks
Cake

*Lord Recluse is reading a Dr. Phil book*
*Sniff* "He is so right. My anger and desire to conquer the world is really my subconcious need for my father to love me again"

joined. dont expect too much from me. why did i join then?
well, the fact that the guy who started it is also an O and A fan might have something to do with it.
O and A party rock!
------> Tedd

yeah. no.
Cimarron is our mascot!
nice pun though.

IDENTITY: Choatic Sound
REAL NAME: Catherine Sine
THREAT LEVEL: Medium to High

HEIGHT: 5'5"
WEIGHT: 115 lbs
HAIR: Red
Eyes: Grey
Distinguishing Charecteristics: Has been known to wear a targeting reticle over the right eye. believed to be just for aesthtics.

Convicted: 7 Sep 1999 for consipiracy to commit murder
Sentenced: 25 years no chance of parole
Citywide APB has been issued after her escape during the Arachnos Breakout. Suspect must be approached with caution.
Known Powers: appears to possess the ability to distort sound waves into offensive or defensive weapons.
Investigative Report: Catherine Sine does not display the stereotypical signs of a criminal. In fact all research shows is that she was a much loved dance music DJ working in Paragon City. Her sets were known to last throughout the hours of the night and leaving the people always wanting more.
It is believed she took the job as DJ to hide her sonic powers she received after handling an unknown artifact at the age of 15 during a vacation with her family.
Files are unconclusive about her life from age 15 to 21, when she came onto the Paragon City dance scene.
It is during this time that the legal trouble began. Her parties were constantly raided on suspected sales of Supadyne, but never substantiated in court. She was taken to court numerous times on small charges, speeding, drunk in public, and running out on a check. None of these compared to the day her apartment was raided in the dead of night and she was charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
She went on trial, a media circus at best, and was found guilty within 20 minutes.
She was currently serving 6 of her 25 year sentence in an isolated soundproof cell when Arachnos opened the Zig for their Arachnos Breakout.
Current whereabouts are unknown.
Current Affliations are unknown
Current Agenda: unknown

**TOP SECRET***
For the eyes of the President of the United States and Head of Federal Bureau of Super Powered Affairs.

This Catherine is becoming a problem. The youth are heeding her musical message of one city, one people. If this keeps up the citizens will start kicking the gangs out of the neighborhoods before they can blink. They would have no need of heroes and we cannnot have that.
Daniel, you will choose a man/woman who we can keep quiet and plant this (attachment 1) in
her house. It is a detailed plan on the assassanation of Senator Thomas Cerasini, plant it and wait till she gets home before calling in the tip. If everything goes as I suspect she will be out of our hair for a good long time.
As a bonus, Daniel, make sure she believes it was Longbow who set her up. It should make for an interesting conflict.

***TOP SECRET***

Awry might use this card.

A little difference in this list. I randomly grapped ten records from my collection of vinyls. All "rave" music.

PF Project feat Ewan McGregor- Choose Life
Space Frog- [x ray] Follow Me 'German Mixes'
Zombie Nation- Kernkraft 400
Art of Trance- Madagaskar 2002
Deepsky- Stargazer
Ascension- Someone
JFK- Good God! (Warp Bros remix)
Lee Haslam- Free
Lectrolux- Baloney
BT- Love, Peace And Grease (Mr Roys Cosmic Monster mix)

yeah i know noone will recognize anything from here. trust me they are all good tracks.

Ha Ha Ha. Innuendo.

Lord Recluse: Soon we will control the Roque Isles and Paragon City. Statesman will bow.....wait what time is it?

Ghost Widow: Um, its 9:05 my lord.

Lord Recluse: Oh my God! I'm missing "The View" *turns on television* Ah, Star Jones, how i love you.

No one did this one yet:
Space Station

Ten more:

Feed Other Countries- Chris Rock
Keep Sending me Black Fireworks- Of Montreal
How's the Music?- Winx
Spiralling- Antony and the Johnsons
Costumed X mas- John Leguzamo
Apollo 1 The Writing Writer- Coheed and Cambria
Beanie Babies- Crank Yankers
Man in the Box- Richard Cheese (lounge cover of Alice in Chains.)
Perfect Wave- Peter Martin/Anthanassia
Ego sonic War Drums- Blackalicious

First Ten Tracks using Shuffle on my Rhapsody library:
Funky Chunky- 12 Moons
My name is Redd- Redd Foxx
Kids saw porn- Crank Yankers, vol 3
Forever Today- Tiesto
Smoking- Bill Hicks
Love List (No Future)- Bill Hicks
Corndog- Bowling for Soup (Wth? when did i get this?)
I'll Fly with you feat Gigi D'Agostino (bla bla bla edit- Chris Cox/Dj Irene
To Hear the Differences- Martin Mull (The Aristrocrats soundtrack)
March in Daylight- Living Things

ok this quick one is based on hearsay of a mission one of the global chat members got.

Wolf Spider Enforcer: Aw, dammmit. Remember that one guy who we owe a favor to cause he didn't tell Ghost Widow about those pictures we took.
Wolf Spider TacOps: Oh yeah, man those were nice.
Wolf Spider Enforcer: Man they sure were.....anyway, my point is that guy called and he needs someone to assist one of the so called "destined ones" in their mission.
Wolf Spider TacOps: Damn. Well I aint going. Who you gonna send?
Wolf Spider Enforcer: I was thinking of Jenkins, that little whiner somehow made it to 19. and all he does is threaten to quit.
Wolf Spider TacOps: Oh man, thats great! He's also managed to piss off every villain group, he's bound to be terminated, if you know what I mean.
Both: Ha Ha Ha Ha
(In mission)
Jenkins: Hey, they send me to meet you and give you a hand.
You: Ummmm. I got an idea you distract them, and i will get away.
Jenkins: How do I do that?
You point to the group of villains heading toward Jenkins with hatred in their eyes
Jenkins: Oh Bloody hell....

Dr. Nefarious! yep, he started it all. he is the one that made me almost choke to death from laughter. I am sorry i did not copy your name as well as your contribution. I still laugh everytime i read:
"there was a pamphlet? My bad. Did it say anything important?"
"The pamphlet entiltled: 'Irreversible Cybernetics and You'?...yeah. It had a few important issues in there."
man we gotta keep this thing going

sorry if i did not get any of yours in my postings, I was pretty sure I got all of them up the Apprentice spoof. I just went page by page and copied what I could before work and my computer conspired against me.

And that unfortunately, is all I had copied down from beta. I tried to get more but real life priorties have a tendency to screw things up. I hope someone has some I do not and I hope the rest of you add to the conspiracy.
I would still love to see that "Two Weeks Notice" badge.

The APPRENTICE, City of… Edition

Cue: “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays

“For the love of money
People will lie, Lord, they will cheat
For the love of money
People don't care who they hurt or beat”

Introductions scroll by as the teams are introduced. Team Paragon is chock full of notable and not-so-notable heroes. Team Rogue, on the other hand, features some notorious villains… and Jenkins.

Boardroom. Donald Trump sits in state, flanked by George and Carolyn. Across from them, we see Team Rogue assembled in the hot seats. Jenkins sits uncomfortably in the center seat.

Trump: Well, here we are, Team Rogue. In this year’s battle of hero smarts versus villain smarts, I expected you to lie and cheat your way to victory. What happened? How did Team Rogue lose this competition?
Inferno: Jenkins was a terrible team leader.
Jenkins: You [censored].
Mortificator: Yeah, it was bad leadership that did it.
Jenkins: Not the fact that you were trying to attract kids to an outdoor circus by wearing a red nose and shirt made of human bones?
Mortificator: It was your job to tell me if that wasn’t a good idea.
Jenkins: I did! You threatened to saw my head off!
Trump: Jenkins, stop trying to avoid responsibility for your decisions.
Jenkins: Don’t you people record every minute of this thing? Do you even bother to watch?
Trump: This isn’t about me, this is about your team making half of what the heroes did. Explain it, Jenkins.
Carnie Illusionist: (appears from thin air) Yeah, Jenkins, explain it.
Jenkins: Stop doing that!
Trump: You’re getting hostile to your team, Jenkins. That might be why you couldn’t lead them.
Jenkins: I’ve got a guy in a devil mask, one wearing an entire skull on his head, and a woman who thinks every day is Mardi Gras. I think that has more to do with it.
Inferno: Stop trying to shift the blame, Jenkins.
Jenkins: Maybe if you hadn’t been more worried about scoring drugs than scoring points in the competition…
Trump: Jenkins. Explain what happened.
Jenkins: Fine. You want to know what happened? We had a task to raise money for a children’s charity by organizing a kids’ circus along with Fisher Price, who happens to be a big advertiser for this show…
Producer: Ixnay on mentioning the onsorshipspay.
Jenkins: Oh, I forgot, this is all just a true-to-life reality show.
Trump: Pause for edit.
Everyone freezes
Jenkins: So we were supposed to raise money for the children by organizing a kids’ circus along with Fisher Price, and the goal was to raise the most money. Morty here ‘convinced’ a mini golf place to let us use the facilities for free. Carnie got some of her friends to come by and perform. And Inferno… well, he kept out the troublemakers.
Inferno: Damn right.
Jenkins: The whole thing was a little scary, you know, given the group I had to work with, so we didn’t get as many kids to come. Might have something to do with the fact that we didn’t have a personal autograph signing with Statesman like the other guys. Can’t imagine why he wouldn’t take my calls.
Trump: Statesman’s a famous guy. He’s yooge.
Jenkins: Yeah, I've seen him up close. So are his fists.
Trump: But my apartment is bigger than his.
Jenkins: I’m sure that keeps him awake at night.
Trump: And I have the hottest wife.
Jenkins: Several of them, yes.
Trump: So why couldn’t you have someone like Statesman show up?
Jenkins: It’d end this show pretty fast if all of Team Rogue ended up back in the Zig.
Trump: You know, a real businessman does the best he can with what he’s got.
Jenkins: Actually, we didn’t raise as much money as the heroes did, but we had no expenses, so at the end of the day we actually ended up with more.
Trump: (Looks at George and Carolyn. They shrug.)
Jenkins: You know, that may be a foreign concept to a guy who says he’s a millionaire when his debts actually outweigh his assets.
Trump: I have a yooge penthouse.
Jenkins: Yes, sir, you do.
Trump: The goal was to raise the most money. You failed.
Jenkins: But we actually donated more than the heroes did!
Trump: But you didn’t raise as much.
Jenkins: Look, you don’t work for as many organizations as I have without learning a bit about the bottom line. Sometimes those lessons can be painful. Trust me on this.
Trump: Do the rest of you have anything to say?
Inferno: Hell no.
Mortificator: He’s doing a great job of digging his own grave.
Illusionist: (fades into thin air)
Trump: Well, this seems like a pretty clear decision.
Jenkins: Let me guess…
Trump: Jenkins, I thought you had a lot of potential. You sure have a lot of experience. But you just don’t understand how things work here in business. Jenkins… you’re fired!
Jenkins: Oh, bloody hell.

(Apologies for branching out beyond CoH, but the temptation was too much to bear. The product placement on the Apprentice and the ridiculous fixation on the income from a task rather than the profit just dives me wild. Jenkins is just too smart for these villain groups he's trying to join...)

Jenkins seems to be the only one who sees the stupidity of attacking a reactor:

In another time, place, and perhaps another dimension.....

The setting we descend upon now is the entrance to the Terra Volta Reactor Room.

Jenkins: Now wait. You're saying you want me to go in there, and attack the reactor core until it explodes?!?
Sky Skiff Captain: Ya, pretty much. I'll be supervising from here.
Jenkins: What!? Are you crazy!? For one, if that core blows, there will all kinds of fallout. Second, that room is already full of radiation. Why can't I use the rad shields right there?
Engineer: We can't use those, only the heroes use those. We have our own shield generators that are infinately better and don't run out.
Jenkins: Those crappy things?!? They like fly at like a foot a minute! My grandmother can use her walker faster than that! And besides, there's about eight really angry heroes in there! I saw one that had a battle axe the size of your head! *pointing to a nearby Jump-Bot's oversized noggin*
Jump-Bot: Hey! I can't help it, they made me that way!
Sky Skiff Captain: Enough! Jenkins, get in there and shoot that core til it blows! Ignore the guy beating on you with the axe, just shoot the core. The rest of you, get back to standing around!
Jenkins: Forget this! I'm outa here. I'll have my jetpack and gear on your desk by Monday.
Engineer: Wait! Don't forget the--*BOOOM*--proximity bombs....

ok real quick, in the beginning of beta the Snakes arms were actually reversed. knowing this makes the joke a little funnier to others:

Once again we find Jenkins in a peculiar predicament, one that seems to be taking place deep below the earth, around large earthen formations and what appears to be discarded snake skins.

Jenkins: Okay, ssso that'sss the lassst of the formsss right? My armsss are already aching from the other onesss.
Cobra: Yesss, that is the lassst of them. You ssseem to already have the rolling of the ess'es down fairly well.
Jenkins: Ya, well I learned that in my run in with Bobcat and her cat-boysss.
Cobra: Yesss, well ssstop it, you're giving me a headache with all those ess'es. I get enough of that already. Now all thatsss left is your uniform and mandatory minion arm adjustments. *hands Jenkins a large snakeskin costume, complete with tail, minus the legs*
Jenkins: Boy, these are tight. What did you say about minion arm whatsit?
Cobra: Minion arm adjussstmentsss. Every sssnake that sstartss working for usss must have reversed armsss. If you'll jusst let me twisst them to the other ssside of your body, and then you can begin your first asssignment.
Jenkins gets a look of terror on his face and attempts to run, but the snake costume, lacking legholes, causes him to fall flat on his face.
Jenkins: Oh bloody hell!

the skull man just wont leave poor Jenkins alone:

Something nudged him in the ribs. “Donwana go school,” he muttered and rolled over. A large bucket of cold water was suddenly dropped on him, causing him to jolt awake in freezing agony. The fact that the metal bucket had been dropped on him along with the cold water accounted for the agony part. “What the bloody Hell?!” Jenkins sputtered angrily as he tried to figure out who, what, or where he was.

He seemed to be inside a trash dumpster. Complete with trash. Oh, and a large rat. Wonderful. “I said,” came a voice from above him, “it’s time to get up Nancy.” Oh no. Please no. What did I ever do to deserve this lunatic? Jenkins whimpered a little as he looked up into the empty eye-sockets of his tormentor, the nameless skull-man.

“Go away,” Jenkins said angrily as he stood up.

“Tut, tut Williams, there’s no need to be like that. Plenty more sardines where they came from.”

“What?” Sardines? Where sardines? Oh please tell me that squishy feeling in my socks is cold water.

“Now get out of there and let’s get cracking. Crime is afoot, you know.” This seemed to puzzle the shull-man for a moment.

“Look,” Jenkins slowly lifted his right leg to examine his foot, “please, just go away and leave me alone,” yep… sardines.

“Nonsense my boy,” the skull-man said as he patted Jenkins on the back in a congratulatory manner. “We must stick together you and I. I’m your fairy whatsit, you know.”

“You’re a crazy man with a skull for a head,” he replied as he tried to remove his shoe without falling over.

“Didn’t you pay any attention in school? Everybody’s got a skull, nitwit. No wonder you’re unable to tie your shoes properly. Why do you put fish in your shoes anyway?” he asked with morbid curiosity as he watched Jenkins gingerly remove four or five very smelly and slimy sardines from his shoe. Jenkins didn’t answer. Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll get bored and go away.

“That’ll happen,” the skull-man said flippantly, shocking Jenkins to the core of his being.

“You read my mind?!” he shouted, aghast.

“What? Who? Mind-reader?! Where?” the skull-man spun around in circles looking for a small man with a large head, “come out you big-headed freak! I’ll teach you to boil an empty pot!”

“No no, you read my mind,” Jenkins explained patiently, wondering why he was bothering.

“I did not.”

“You didn’t?”

“Ok, I confess.”

“You did!”

“Liar.”

“Then why did you confess?”

“I don’t know. Why did you confess?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then neither did I.”

“But-,” Jenkins sighed and pulled himself together, “ok,” he let it drop and climbed out of the dumpster. “I’m going home.”

“Excellent, I’ll help you pack.” The skull man leapt into the dumpster and bent down to pick something up. Jenkins took the opportunity to run away, horror etched on his face. “Wait! Jernando! You forgot the sardines!” the skull-man shouted after him, holding a handful of rotten fish above his head.


Thirty minutes and two tram rides later Jenkins was home. Safe in his tiny wretched apartment. He nearly sobbed with relief. First a shower, then something to eat, then a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow he was telling Roberts that he was quitting, giving it all up. He’d get a job at the SuperLanes or something and slowly starve to death. Even the possibility of being murdered by Roberts when told the bad news didn’t bother him.

Feeling a deep sense of peace for the first time in weeks, Jenkins locked the apartment door and headed for the bathroom. “Simpson, where do you hide the toothpaste?” a voice inside the bathroom asked as soon as his hand was near the doorknob. No. Oh no, please no. He watched in horrified fascination as his hand slowly crept closer and closer to the knob, grasped it, and, despite every ounce of will straining to prevent it, turned the knob and push the door open.

Inside the bathroom was a skeleton wearing a towel around its waist, with what appeared to be a shower cap on its head, shaving cream on its jaw and a toothbrush wedged inside one empty eye socket. “Without toothpaste I can’t get the inside there to sparkle,” the skeleton explained casually.

Jenkins decided to skip the shower and get a good night’s sleep on the spot. The skeleton watched him fall then resumed scrubbing the inside of his eye socket with the toothbrush.

Jenkins works for Hami and gets a lesson in Hammy O's:

Life as one of Hamidon's Mitochondria seemed to suit Jenkins' fancy. He floated in salty goop and caught up on his summer reading. Sometimes the other Mitos and him would play croquet and he was constantly being fed Devoured Earth gossip from his buddy, Mitophlangea Amberphyll, which Jenkins enjoyed. Mitophlangea Amberphyll seemed like a nice guy, if not a little flamboyant. All in all, the Mitos were a good bunch of protoplasmic endomorphs and the weather this far outside of the hustle and bustle of Paragon City couldn't be more beautiful.

It was one such sunny afternoon when the anxiety began. By anxiety I don't mean Jenkins was worried. Oh no. Jenkins was busy winning Mahjong. He had no concerns whatsoever. Hamidon, however, sensed trouble and as such notified his Mitochondria with minute shocks of electricty, who in turn, suddenly began to float in the air. The organism's bio-energetic tympana were vibrating on a wavelength that Jenkins hadn't seen before. They crackled with primordial energy. The usually stoic Devoured Earth monsters which milled about outside of the primordial booger-stew were now at full attention and poised watching a heretofore unseen enemy.

Jenkins suddenly found himself repeating the word "raid...raid...raid."

"Dang it. I don't like it when you guys manipulate me as a speaking vessel. Cut it out," Jenkins waved his fist at Hammy, but still the ominous words 'raid' echoed inside his pear shaped head. Were they talking about roach spray?

That was when the first signs of battle began. Over the hill up from the primordial pond muffled sounds of electricity crackling and explosions could be heard. Very quickly the noise escalated and the towering monsters of quartz, granite and wood began scrambling to meet the unseen hero.

Make that: heroes, plural.

Jenkins eyes grew as wide as Mitophlangea Amberphyll's bioluminescent ova. Heroes in all manner of shapes, sizes and costumes began cresting the top of the hill facing Hamidon and his remaining guards. One, two, four, nine, fourteen, thirty, fifty-five, one hundred, two hundred, six hundred, maybe a thousand?? A thousand bloody heroes! They stood there on the hillside and watched the scene below them.

Jenkins panicked.

"No-no-no-no..." He turned to his current master. "Oh, Mr. Hamidon. I'm so very sorry. All of this is my fault. You see, I've crossed paths with so very many heroes in my career of villainy. Perhaps it was my vanity or my thirst for power which lead me down my darkest of paths. But alas, the hundreds of heroes I've wronged have now, obviously, joined forces to rid this fair world of my putrid presence. Oh Mr. Hamidon. My apologies for bringing their wrath unto you and yours as well, I feel just awful about all this. I had no idea I was such a threat."

Hamidon studied him coolly with his blob. "Relax Jenkins. They're not here for you human."

"Oh."

"They're here for my Hammy-O's." Hamidon sighed and his blob quivered.

"Your Hammy-O's?" Jenkins appeared confused.

"Yes. My Hammy-O's. It's a Devoured Earth spawn's post-nocturne sustenance rejuvenator. In your primate's language that means 'children's breakfast cereal'."

"Oh! Hammy-O's! I've read about those on the Hero message boards. Wow. There are a thousand heroes up there. That must be some bloody powerful cereal you own."

"Bah. It's not the power they're after. Our mutual Gods, The Devs, eliminated the potency of the Hammy O's long ago, but with only boring Statesman Flakes to choose from, my sugary O's are to kids what crack-cocaine is to Whitney Houston."

Jenkins understood, "So the heroes steal your cereal and sell it to kids for influence."

"Basically, but remember, influence is not a monetary system. They trade it for influence. Then their level of influence determines which products, like tech upgrades and new costumes, vendors will freely give them."

"Right...I'm still a little confused by tha--" Jenkins didn't have time to finish as hundreds of heroes descended into Hamidon's gooey soup searching for the elusive, delicious Hammy-O.

Jenkins crosses paths with that skull head thingy again:

Pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpl ease, Jenkins prayed to himself as he raced down the street. Oh please don’t let them catch me! He weaved his way through the light crowd on the sidewalk and tried desperately to stop himself from looking backwards. Knowing he wasn’t being chased would allow his mind to cut his body some slack and prevent his lungs from vetoing the entire run-away idea altogether, but he knew that if he spun around and saw something chasing him he’d just collapse.

That stupid skull-man, why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone? So he wanted to go to the Ziggurat, fine. Lesser men than he have found it perfectly easy to manage, but not this character. First he drags Jenkins up to the nearest police officer and picks a fight, (and of course the cop uses Jenkins’ head as a substitute kettle-drum and not the skull-man’s), then when that fails to produce instant results he decides to insult the floating Police Drones at the tram station.

Obviously the Drones don’t care if you insult them, they’re mindless robots! But does that strike the skull-man? Noooo, and every time Jenkins tried to slip away he’d drag him right back, or suddenly appear behind him somehow… it was horrible! Then those super-heroes turned up…

Suddenly a large dumpster appeared in Jenkins’ vision. Actually there was nothing sudden about it, but his poor mind, already overclocked with worry about Impending Imprisonment and/or a nasty Super-Hero Beating, simply couldn’t cope with any new information and put whatever his eyes were seeing on hold until it was really too late to do anything with it except shriek a rather vulgar phrase that fortunately never made it to his mouth.


There was a voice in the darkness and it was causing Jenkins some confusion. Who the Hell was talking? And where were they? And who was this George person they were talking too? It just didn’t make sense. His eyes popped open out of habit and what he saw caused them to close again, but it was too late, he’d been noticed. “Ah there you are George,” the skull-man said, “I’m glad you have decided to rejoin the rest of us again. That’s going to cost you five demerits and two days’ vacation time, I’m afraid.”

Jenkins let the words pass through his head without trying to make any sense of them. The way his head felt right now the only thing it wanted to hear involved the word aspirin somehow. He slowly sat up and struggled to stand. The skull-man watched him like he was an amazing clockwork creature moving for the first time and he just couldn’t figure out how it worked! “Come on Roger, you really should watch where you’re going, nobody is going to arrest you for beating your head against this trash bin, but I give you 10 points for effort.”

“I thought you got arrested,” Jenkins managed. Why was the world spinning around? That wasn’t normal, was it?

“Oh the floating matchbox thing? Yeah, I got arrested, but you didn’t, you miserable coward. How am I supposed to find your boss on the Inside if you’re not there to point him out to me? Huh? My goodness you must be the dumbest henchman I’ve ever had.”

Red Alert. Every alarm bell and siren his brain could conjure suddenly went off, and the imagined sound made him wince in agony.

“Ok,” Jenkins said authoritatively. It was time to sort this lunatic out, no matter what horrible thing he did to him for saying it, it couldn’t be worse than having him around all the time. And he was certainly not working for this crazy no-face monster. “I’ve got a few things to say,” he began in the voice of a person preparing to walk the plank, “and I don’t care what you do to me after I say it, ‘cause at least then it will all be over and we’ll go our separate ways, right? I don’t work for the Council, I’m not employed at that base, and I wouldn’t know who the boss was if I walked into him and he had a bright red name-tag with flashing-bloody-flashing lights!” A note of hysteria was enjoying itself weaving in and out of his voice. “I don’t want to go to jail, I don’t want to die, and I certainly don’t want to be near you any longer than necessary. The man I work for has me creep into abandoned secret bases like that one and steal everything I can get my hands on, ok? Now do your worst.” A feeling of peace coursed through his system, like a man who’s just faced death and decided there wasn’t really anything there that was all that scary. Two seconds later and his brain served up over two dozen things that really were that scary and he felt sick to his stomach.

“I see,” the skull-man said. Nails were being driven into a coffin somewhere. “And the pickles?”

You could see the crack in Jenkins’ sanity as he shouted, “sod the damn pickles! I don’t give a bloody-hellfire-damn about PICKLES! There are no bloody pickles! What the Hell is wrong with you?!” If you happened to peak into Jenkins’ head you’d see only a simple placard where his mind used to be. It said, “Gone for the Duration,” in a rather neat, if hurried, script.

“Well then,” the skull-man said darkly as he leaned forward so that his empty eye sockets were all Jenkins’ could see. “I suppose I shall have to find something else to put on my sandwich then, won’t I?” The blackness in those eyes seemed to swallow the world and Jenkins gave up trying to see anything else.