Krieger probably took the disclaimer telling you that I don't own any Archer characters. So what did the gang do when Archer went to Vegas after what happened in Sitting? Well….
Happy Times In Krieger Valley
Part I: The Louse And The Soused
"I don't miss him!" Lana spoke out as she sat in the break room. "I don't miss him at all!" She looked at Ray and Cheryl who were also at the table. "I don't!"
"And I won't miss it when you stop complaining about him," Cheryl groaned. "If ever!"
"Seriously Lana, don't you think were a little too hard on Archer?" Ray asked. "Not that I'm defending the guy but…"
"But what? The man ran away to Vegas!" Lana barked.
"After he got shot twice in a scam worthy of Mallory Maleficent!" Ray pointed out. "Seriously Lana? Was that her idea or yours?"
"Uh…." Lana paused.
"That's what I thought," Ray shook his head and drank his coffee.
"Seriously, you couldn't just put him in a room with cameras and just watch him?" Cheryl asked. "You had to have that Pakistan guy shoot up the place?"
"When she comes up with more sensible ideas you know things are wrong," Ray pointed to Cheryl.
"Yeah!" Cheryl agreed. "Wait a second…No, you're right."
"Okay…Maybe using Farooq was slightly over the top?" Lana admitted.
"Maybe?" Ray groaned. "Oh Lord Lana just when I think your relationship with Archer can't get any crazier. I swear if my book I'm writing ever comes out I may have to put it under fiction!"
"Is that the same book you've been saying you're gonna do for years?" Pam snorted as she entered the break room.
"Hey I've got quite a few chapters done," Ray protested.
"Sure you have," Pam remarked as she went to get a coffee. "Speaking of doing things where's Archer?"
"Where do you think?" Lana grumbled as she folded her arms.
"Archer's still in Vegas huh?" Pam asked as she sat down.
"He's only been gone three days," Ray pointed out.
"And by now he's probably through at least thirty hookers and picked up a half dozen new venereal diseases," Mallory grumbled as she stormed up to them. "On my money! And speaking of moochers living off my money…"
"Mallory, there's no missions," Lana spoke up. "No intelligence coming in."
"Not that there's much here to begin with," Mallory grumbled.
"We have no files, reports, leads or cases to work on. What do you want us to do?" Lana protested.
"I expect you to do something! I don't care what you do as long as you don't cause any more damage!" Mallory snapped. "Pam don't you have any HR crap you can do?"
"Not really," Pam shrugged. "Remember ninety percent of my job is dealing with sexual harassment by Archer? And since he's not here…"
"Not to mention barely any co-workers to harass," Lana spoke up.
"And five percent is whatever Krieger does to the interns…" Pam went on.
"And since there are no interns either…" Lana added.
"And the rest is just stuff either Cheryl burns or whenever Ray gets injured…" Pam went on.
"And stuff you do!" Ray added.
"That too. There's really nothing much to do," Pam shrugged.
"Well what about those God damned peer reviews you like to do so much?" Mallory shouted.
"Can't. There aren't any forms left," Pam admitted. "They all got burned somehow."
"WHAT?" Mallory shouted. She glared at Cheryl.
"It wasn't me. This time," Cheryl admitted.
"Then how did it happen?" Mallory sneered. "Did the arson fairy just come in and burn them all?"
"Well…" Ray began.
Let's go back a few weeks ago shall we?
Pam was passed out at her desk completely drunk and half dressed. There was porn running on her computer. She had no idea Ray was taking out several forms and burning them in her wastebasket.
"Let's see Archer complain about not having any gum now!" Ray snickered.
He took out an expensive cigar and unwrapped it. He used a lit form to light it. "I should thank Archer for those expensive cigars he keeps in his desk. It makes things so much easier to frame him," Ray said cheerfully. "I should do a lot of things but I'm not going to…"
Back to the present.
"I think Archer burned them all," Ray said with a straight face. "Knowing him he was probably drunk and trying to light up a cigar or something. Like what happened back in that operation in Montreal a while back."
"When he burned twenty thousand dollars of my money lighting those God awful cigars trying to impress those hookers?" Mallory snarled.
"Which of course set off the fire alarms in that hotel which was specifically non-smoking," Lana remembered. "Which blew our cover and the entire mission."
"Yes Lana. I remember the gunfight in the lobby very clearly!" Mallory snapped.
"I did find a used cigar on the floor," Pam realized. "Which was one of his brands!"
"Well that was probably him," Ray spoke up. "Unless Krieger is making paper airplanes again."
"He even burned the damn request forms for the peer reviews!" Pam was angry. "Which is unusually thorough for him."
"Well then do something else!" Mallory was frustrated. "Run a quick seminar or something!"
"For what?" Ray asked.
"I don't know! Maybe go over the policy on drugs and alcohol in the workplace?" Mallory began.
The others started to laugh. "Like how there's probably not enough?" Ray laughed.
Mallory started to snicker. "Okay. Even I thought that one was funny. But seriously maybe we should go over policies like…Office fraternization…" Then she started to laugh harder.
"Work ethics!" Ray called out. The others started to laugh.
"Political correctness?" Lana snorted. Everyone laughed harder.
"Dress codes! When we are dressed anyway…" Pam snickered.
"Our office's impact on the environment," Lana spoke up. Everyone laughed even harder. Especially Mallory.
"The proper use of firearms…" Ray went on. Everyone laughed. "Animals in the workplace…"
"That depends," Pam snorted. "Are we talking about Krieger's lab animals or whenever Cyril is alone in the elevator?"
That earned a laugh from everyone. "I've got another one!" Ray laughed. "The Fair Labor and Standards Act."
"Oh my God!" Mallory was guffawing now. "I can hardly breathe…HA HA HA! That's a good one!"
"I thought you might like that," Ray admitted.
"Making harassing phone calls!" Cheryl spoke up. "You know like you do to Trudy Beekman Ms. Archer?"
"Guilty…" Mallory laughed. "I've got one! Bring your child to work day!" She looked at Lana.
"Uh hello?" Lana pointed at Mallory. Everyone else laughed harder.
"Okay you've got me there," Mallory laughed.
"More like when your child doesn't show up for work day," Ray snorted. This made everyone laugh harder.
"That's enough! That's enough! Oh I really needed to laugh like that," Mallory laughed.
"So did I," Cheryl nodded.
"We really did," Ray admitted.
"It did kind of break some of the tension around here," Lana admitted.
"It did. But seriously we should do something productive today," Mallory calmed down.
"Besides you making another call pretending you're Trudy Beekman's credit card holder?" Cheryl asked. "Or making false complaints about something on whatever committee she's on?"
"Oh my God. I haven't done that in a long time," Mallory realized. "Okay so now I know what I am going to do this afternoon. The rest of you do something productive. Or at the very least a simulation to it."
"So what are we going to do?" Cheryl asked as Mallory left.
"Well she said to do something productive," Pam pointed out. "She didn't say what. Let's get Krieger and Cyril. I have an idea."
"Why do I have the feeling the next chapter in my book is coming up?" Ray groaned.
Twenty minutes later…
"Welcome to our first moonshine/distilled Alcohol/wine tasting event!" Krieger said cheerfully when the gang had assembled in the lab. "We have lots of fun and exciting new blends for you all to try. Most of which was made in this very lab. Or sewers connecting to the lab…"
"Eww…" The others winced.
"Oh come on! Everything is thoroughly washed and processed," Krieger protested. "I'm thinking of creating my own winery! I'm calling it Krieger Valley. Sounds classy right?"
"It sounds like a case for a lawsuit," Cyril groaned.
"This is so going in my book," Ray remarked.
"It's a little known fact that if you take cheap wine and put it in a blender for sixty seconds it will age about five years," Krieger said. "This is called hypercanting. So what I did was take my wine and turbo blasted it in this!"
He pointed to a large tube like machine which had some red liquid swirling around quickly. "I call this the Krieger Canter 5000!" Krieger said proudly. "Imagine what wine tastes like after sixty minutes in this sucker? KAPOW!"
"I am. Oh God I am…" Lana winced.
Krieger turned off the machine and started to pour drinks from the spout. "There. This stuff will make those Benjamin Franklin wines we had in San Marcos taste like grape juice. Lana would you like to be the first?"
"Uh no. For one thing I'm still breastfeeding," Lana declined. "And I also think at least one of us should be sober when the paramedics arrive."
"I'll take a drink," Ray volunteered.
"You're actually going to drink that?" Lana was stunned.
"Can't be any worse than the other drugs he's given us over the years," Ray told her as he took the glass.
"He's got a point," Pam agreed. "I still get flashbacks from that stupid Krieger Cleanse crap."
"Technically that was a combination of the Krieger Cleanse and the heavy dosage of tranquilizers," Krieger corrected as he poured some more drinks.
"Wait I don't remember you drinking any wine in San Marcos," Cyril realized. "Or saw much of you for that matter…"
"Oh we had a huge vat of that stuff down in our lab," Krieger waved. "After a hard day of genetic splicing and clone boning and making bombs we always kicked back a few."
"Clone boning?" Cyril made a face. "What the hell is…?"
"Uh never mind," Krieger waved. "Don't ask."
"What do you mean by 'our lab' and 'we'…?" Cheryl realized something.
"Uh our lab as in my clone brothers shared with me!" Krieger protested. "No hidden subtext there. Okay! Everybody drink up! Drink up!" He put glasses in everyone's hands except for Lana. "Prost!"
"Well down the hatch!" Pam said as she took a big drink.
"You're supposed to sip it! Not gulp it down like it's a Slurpee!" Krieger snapped.
"Who are you? Steven Spurrier?" Pam hiccupped. "Hey…"
Cheryl had taken a big gulp as well. "This grape juice is pretty kick-ass!"
"It's surprisingly good," Cyril remarked as he and Ray sipped. "A good body. Pleasant nose."
"But enough about me," Krieger quipped. "How do you like the wine?"
"This is actually good," Ray remarked in surprise.
"I think this stuff is even better than the wine we drank in San Marcos," Cyril added.
"Krieger's concoction is better than two hundred something year old wine?" Lana was stunned.
"I hate to say it but yeah," Cyril admitted. "It's got a smoothness that…WHOA!"
"Oh man!" Pam's irises grew bigger. "Mama likey!"
"Did I mention that this wine is made from genetically altered grapes cross bred with the rare South American muscadene? AKA Crazy Fruit!" Krieger asked. "Known for its mild hallucinogenic properties."
"No, you did not," Cyril hiccupped as his eyes grew wider.
"There it is," Lana groaned.
"Wow!" Cheryl took another drink. Then threw down her glass. "Is it hot in here or is it just me?" She ripped off her blouse.
"Nah you're pretty hot all right!" Pam burped. She threw off her top. "Let's party bitches!"
"Why the hell not?" Cyril started taking off his clothes too. "Hell any day Archer's not here…"
"Hey Krieger! How about some music or a light show or something?" Cheryl took another drink of wine. "And I don't mean your girlfriend!"
"Got it," Krieger nodded and pushed a button on the wall. A strobe light came down and rock music started to play.
"Yay! Party time!" Krieger's Virtual Girlfriend appeared and started to twirl around a virtual stripper pole to the music.
"Oh yeah! WHOOO!" Pam whooped as she twirled her skirt around.
"Well this devolved pretty fast even by our standards," Lana sighed. She then noticed something. "Ray how come you're not affected?"
"I grew up in the holler. I'm used to drinking things with a kick," Ray told her.
"That and all the experimental drug blends I sometimes use whenever Ray needs cyborg work done," Krieger spoke up.
"I thought this had a familiar buzz," Ray mused.
Krieger took a hard stiff drink of his own concoction. "OH YEAH!" Krieger smashed his glass on the floor and ripped off his shirt. "Club Kick Ass is now in session!"
"Well this is definitely a productive way to end the day," Ray snickered at the sight of his co-workers drinking and dancing around in their underwear. "Sorry this isn't any fun for you Lana."
"Are you kidding? Archer is going to be pissed off he missed out on this," Lana waved. "You know he loves nothing more than getting plastered at work. Except of course getting laid at work."
"Don't tell him. Let him read about it in the book," Ray snorted.
"You really think people will read this book of yours when and if it ever comes out?" Lana asked him.
"WINE FIGHT!" Pam whooped as she threw wine on Cheryl and Cyril. They got glasses and threw wine back. Soon the three of them were splashing each other and laughing.
"Are you kidding? We're talking best seller here," Ray smirked as he sipped his drink.