Our story begins in 2056, when twenty-six years earlier; the world had been experiencing a devastating epidemic of organ failures. Millions of people were dropping like flies, and depression plagued just as many people. To put it simple for any of you uneducated people, a lot of people died, and everyone was very, very sad. Times were incredibly tough, until one day, along game a common, rotund man by the name of Rottissimo "Rotti" Largo who created a company that will soon be known as GeneCo.
What is GeneCo? Good question—GeneCo is a company that donates organs for free. Sounds good, no? Drank too much alcohol and need a new liver? No problem; GeneCo gives you a perfect, new liver! Broke your back while shoveling snow over the summer? Get a brand new spine!
Sounds like a perfect miracle, no? Well, there's a slight catch that makes a big difference. See, if Rotti Largo and his family (made up of his eldest, homicidal sociopath son Luigi Largo, his spoiled daughter Amber Sweet—she didn't like her old name, Carmela Largo—and the younger, narcissistic son Pavi Largo who steals faces from beautiful women) decide that if one of their patients haven't been able to keep up with their organ payments soon enough, they send in Repo Men. No, these Repo Men don't come and take their car and furniture; this isn't the Sims. The Repo Men come and take the used organ that the patient had obtained from GeneCo. They don't notify you about this ahead of time. Whenever GeneCo is ready, the Repo Men right wherever you are and with a little slice of the scalpel and snip of the scissors, they rip the organ right out of your body.
Gory? Yes it is, very. Fair? No, not quite. But alas, Rotti is too much of a jerk to realize this, and his kids sadly inherited this trait, so they didn't think even once about pointing out that their dad was an absolute nutcase for coming up with the idea of this law. The fact that the law was actually accepted by congress probably would've blown the siblings' minds had they not been just as bad as their father, or even worse.
But for the sake of this story, they're just like their dad…just not fat.
GeneCo also produces Zydrate, a drug that is the future's equivalent of today's morphine. In other words, it's not only a painkiller, but it's also highly expensive and highly addictive. However, like every drug, there is always a way to abuse it. Grave robbers often steal a cheaper version of Zydrate by extracting it from dead bodies and selling it on the black market.
Now, this story wouldn't be much of a story if this rant about the history of GeneCo and its employees (for instance, Luigi's first fight with Pavi when Luigi was five…the worst day of Rotti Largo's life). Our story really begins with a grave robber repeating the same basic narration just told while a girl who got a heart transplant from GeneCo gets chased by a Repo Man.
The grave robber's name is…well, GraveRobber. He has no other known name, just like Frankenstein's monster and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. At times, however, he may be referred to as "GR" or "Graves".
"This Repo Man is six-foot-six," GraveRobber began, "not that really matters. But he will always be able to find you. No one actually knows his name, just like me, for even I don't know my real name, but he always comes when no one can help you. He doesn't show any pity whatsoever for you…he just rips the still beating heart from your chest! However, many years ago we all fell in debt, since everybody in the world decided that their organs weren't good enough, and they went and cashed in their old organs for better ones! So, until the day we die, everyone fears that he will come and take our organs!"
As GraveRobber stated all of this, a young woman was being chased by a Repo Man somewhere nearby his dark alleyway. She went into an elevator to try and escape him, but as soon as she got out, the Repo Man appeared and cut the heart out from her chest. He walked away as if he just swatted a fly instead of killed someone.
"…I'm gonna go and take some Zydrate from some dead bodies now," said GraveRobber, taking out an empty syringe and walking away.
Meanwhile, at the Largo mansion, Rotti was having a family meeting with his kids and his two henchwomen in fishnets.
"What's this?" he asked, looking through a portfolio of photos. The first photo was of a shirtless Luigi with a girl who looked strangely like a black-haired Magenta from the Rocky Horror Picture Show if she didn't walk around with Riff-Raff and actually combed her hair a bit for once. Rotti glared at Luigi. "You disgust me," he said to his oldest son. Luigi loosened his ascot nervously. Rotti continued to look through the photos, occasionally looking up at his kids, only to find either Luigi playing with his knife and/or ascot, Amber twirling her hair or playing with the feathers on her black and white dress, or Pavi admiring his reflection in his precious hand mirror.
After a few hours of angrily looking at the photos of either Amber posing suggestively, Pavi stealing a woman's face to cover his disfigured one, Luigi chasing someone with a machete while waving a hockey mask around, a picture of a younger Luigi doing the same thing (Halloween of 2030), or pictures of Joel Schumacher, a man with graying hair walked in and handed a piece of paper to Rotti.
"Butter…milk…pancake mix…eggs?" Rotti read aloud, confused. His kids tried not to laugh. "You idiot; what's this?"
"Sorry," said the man, "that was my grocery list. Here's your medical report." He handed a different piece of paper to Rotti. "I'm afraid you won't make it to Christmas. I'm sorry, Mr. Larg—"
Those were the last words that the poor man ever said, for at that exact moment, Rotti told one of his henchwomen to shoot him in the head. They sadly obeyed, and killed the man; his name was Paul. For security reasons, I cannot give out his last name. The saddest part about this was that Rotti now knew where his son Luigi got his often unnecessary aggressiveness.
Rotti sighed, and got out of his seat. He left the room with his two henchwomen and got into the elevator. The room was utterly silent for a few minutes, until Amber asked, "Is he gone?"
"I think-a so," Pavi replied, grinning like the Cheshire cat. It was surprising that his face mask didn't split.
Luigi walked over to a nearby coffee table and turned on a radio. Rock-and-roll music from the 1980's immediately came on, and even though it was likely ancient compared to the music people listened to in the late 2050's, Pavi got up in his chair and started dancing to the Bangles' Walk like an Egyptian. Luigi started dancing too, and the two Largo boys got into a dancing competition. It didn't end quite well, since Luigi and Pavi started wrestling each other around on the ground, and Amber started taking pictures of their fight for blackmail.
Rotti turned off his gadget that was connected wirelessly to a hidden camera in the family meeting room. He cringed with repulsion, wishing that his kids could be a little bit more mature for once.
"If my kids continue to keep this up," he muttered, "not only will I disinherit them, but there won't be any heir to GeneCo when I die. God, why did I get a homicidal maniac, a narcissistic face-klepto and a futuristic Paris Hilton for kids?"
"Because they're the comic relief to the story," said the henchwoman to Rotti's right.
"Shut up. There is absolutely nothing funny about Pavichi and Luigi trying to rip each other apart like mountain lions."
Meanwhile, a young girl named Shilo Wallace was sneaking around a graveyard even though her father told her never, under any circumstances, to leave the house due to her having a rare blood disease. However, since she's a teenager, she had to disobey him. She was trying to catch a half-scorpion and half-spider bug that she found in her late mother's grave. When she finally caught it with her empty peanut butter jar, she had gone outside of the grave, and bumped into GraveRobber, who was extracting some Zydrate from a dead body.
"Hey, kid," he said to her. "Come 'ere, want some Zydrate?"
"Um, no," Shilo replied (she knew better not to talk to strangers—she was a very well-raised child); "I gotta go back home. My dad's kinda stri—"
"But it's the perfect cure for the twenty-first century!" GraveRobber moved his hand in front of the vial of blue liquid, nodding his head. "Come on…you know you want it…"
"Seriously, I have to get back home!"
"Hey, guess what I rob for a living?" GraveRobber smirked, suppressing a chuckle.
Shilo sighed with impatience. "What?"
"GRAVES!" GraveRobber screamed as a white light from a helicopter above shined down on him. His long, dark brown hair streaked with blue, green, silver and yellow blew through the wind.
"Geez, is the light really too bright for you, Lestat?" Shilo asked. She looked behind her, only to find a sign that read in all capital letters, "GRAVEROBBERS WILL BE EXECUTED ON SIGHT…YES THIS MEANS YOU, GRAVEROBBER."
Shilo rushed back to the door to her mother's tomb, which somehow led back to her house, only to find it locked. She banged her hands against it, as if doing so would do anything good, until she found GraveRobber nearby, using a dead body as a battering ram to get into a tomb full of even more dead bodies.
"You moron, you'll get us caught!" Shilo yelled as she ran over to his side. She entered the tomb anyway, immediately regretting it. As GraveRobber began extracting more Zydrate from the bodies, Shilo was pulled out of the tomb by two GeneCops.
"Blood pressure warning," beeped the communicator-bracelet around Shilo's wrist, "blood pressure warning."
"Knock it off!" yelled a Repo Man that seemed to appear from nowhere. He picked Shilo up as she passed out.
Three hours later, Shilo awoke in her bedroom, her father using a stethoscope on her wrist.
"What happened, Dad?" she asked.
"Shi, that was close," her father, Nathan Wallace, said, "You almost died."
"What happened to my hair?" Shilo asked, touching her now bald head. "Did I have cancer?"
"No, of course not," Nathan replied. "I actually have no idea as to why you're bald." He handed her a long, black wig and smiled at her. "But you're still pretty."
"Aw, thanks. But I saw all of these dead bodies…"
"You must've had a bad dream about being in a graveyard."
"Oh. But there was a drug dealer, too."
"Hm…what was his name?"
"I don't know," said Shilo. "But he really seemed to like me. I can still smell those dead bodies."
Nathan screamed. "You scare me to death!"
Shilo frowned and put her wig on her head.
"I'm sorry," said Nathan, "it's just that you got that blood disease from your mother…I will do anything to keep you safe…!"
"Should I take my meds now, Dad?" Shilo asked.
"Yes." Nathan dropped some pills into a glass of water and watched them dissolve.
"Your mother would be proud of you taking all of this medication." He kissed Shilo on the forehead and left the room, closing the door behind him. "Seriously," he called, "take your medicine."
Shilo sighed. "Thanks a whole gosh-darned lot for the disease, Mom." She sat up from the bed, placed the glass of water on her mantel and opened the curtains to her three windows. She opened the window and walked out onto the balcony. "God, I want to get out of this place." Shilo watched the city from her hideaway, along with a cruddy commercial promoting GeneCo's Genetic Opera, starring the Largos themselves. From watching it she learned one new thing: Rotti's only daughter is a terrible dancer.
Downstairs, Nathan was sitting in an armchair, staring off into space and reminiscing on the tragic night that had changed his life, and no where for the better. Seventeen years ago, Nathan had married an extremely beautiful and nice woman named Marni. While Marni was pregnant with Shilo, she had gotten sick. Nathan thought he had found a cure, but he had ended up accidentally poisoning her. He could only save Shilo even though in the end he ended up discovering that she developed a blood disease while in the womb. Apparently, that was a really bad day for Nathan.
Nathan got up out of the chair and started talking to himself. "I miss you; Marni…my whole's become a lie. Shilo should be afraid of me." As he talked to himself, he climbed his way through a secret passageway behind the fireplace and strapped himself into his black, leather Repo Man suit. "I've raised her as best as I could. I'm no more than a monster." He glared at his new victim whose organ he would soon repossess. "I am the futuristic SWEENEY TODD."
A few hours later, Luigi, Pavi, and Amber arrived at work at the Home Repot, aka GeneCo, even though they didn't work there. Amber was accompanied by two bodyguards that strangely looked like Michael Keaton in Batman without the bat-mask, Pavi with two Genterns, or scantily clad female workers—the only workers there. Luigi simply stood there, removing his gloves and trench coat with a blonde Gentern nearby him, but she didn't pay much attention to him after taking his things to the coat room. No one really likes Luigi.
Amber said a very bad word when she asked Luigi where their dad was.
"Look, since I'm the oldest," said Luigi, "I'm in char—"
Amber kicked Luigi in a very sensitive area between the legs and licked the side of his face like a cat. Luigi made a face of disgust as he doubled over in pain…he obviously didn't like cats, didn't like his sister, or didn't like either cats or his sister.
Pavi giggled somewhat immaturely as the two Genterns he was with rubbed his arms. "My-a brother and-a sister should have—"
"Pavi, shut the bleep up!" Luigi yelled at his mad brother. For one of the very few times in his life, Luigi was censored while not on TV.
"Jeez, Luigi, I was-a going to-a say that-a you two should-a go to Olive Garden together and get to know-a each other better."
"Okay, Pavs," Luigi said, showing a fist to Pavi. "First, Olive Garden is an absolute insult to Italians like us. All they sell there is pasta. We eat more than just pasta and olives! Second, Amber and I know each other perfectly. She's an absolute tramp that changes her appearance every week, at least! She knows that I'm a homicidal maniac that hates your guts. Third, I'm the only smart one that can be tough." He glared at Amber, who merely waved with fake innocence. He had a sudden, strong urge to slap his sister across the face. As he glared at her, an unfortunate Gentern had accidentally dropped a brain on the front of Luigi's shirt, leaving a blood stain on it, which led to Luigi stabbing her in the stomach. "I ain't gonna take no crap from no one!" Luigi threw the brain over to another Gentern, the only one doing her job.
"Only I have a decent amount of brains—that's why Pop's gonna leave GeneCo to ME!" Luigi grimaced as he ripped open his stained shirt, ala the Incredible Hulk on a day that he forgot to turn green, revealing a long, stitched scar running down from just slightly below his collar bone down to his abdomen, along with a few smaller scars on his stomach and chest.
Amber tossed a one hundred dollar bill at Luigi.
"Thanks for the money, sis!" He grinned slightly as he buttoned up his now clean shirt. My sister is nuts, he thought. Why did she give me money, anyway? Oh. Right. Olive Garden. I'll remind myself later to kick Pavi's—
Luigi's thoughts were interrupted by Pavi's sudden boasting. "All-a the Genterns love-a the Pavi!" Pavi beamed, his perfectly white teeth making a ping sound. "'Cause I'm a dentist!" he started singing, until he realized that he was a face-klepto, and not Steve Martin. He picked up a heart that someone dropped from the floor and tossed it over to the only Gentern doing her job. "That is-a why I steal all of-a the hearts!"
"You don't have any guts, brother!" Luigi yelled, pointing at Pavi.
Pavi laughed. "You can-a yell, but you-a obviously have-a no lungs!"
"Why do you think I have these scars? I've spent so much time yelling at you—" Luigi ripped his shirt open, revealing his many scars again. "—that I needed a lung replacement!" Realizing that this time, he ripped all of the buttons off of his shirt, he removed it and replaced it with a slightly wrinkled shirt that he pulled out from his pants pocket.
"When Pop makes me the heir to GeneCo, I will make sure you're written out!" Luigi shouted at his brother.
"Like-a-wise, brother," Pavi replied, winking at him. Luigi banged his head against a closed, glass cabinet of jarred-up organs.
No one helped the slowly dying Gentern. She expired shortly after Luigi and Pavi's brief quarrel.
Meanwhile, Shilo was in her room, watching her idol Blind Mag during a commercial promoting her last performance at the Genetic Opera. Mag wasn't actually blind. We'll get to why soon. Shilo's circlet beeped. She looked over at it, and a holographic image of Rotti came up out of it. "Shilo," he said, "I'm Rotti Largo. You obviously don't know me, other than the fact that you likely know that I'm the owner of GeneCo. Completely disobey your uptight father and meet me outside your mother's grave. It's okay to talk to strangers right now."
This couldn't do too much harm, Shilo thought as she slipped out of her white nightshift and got dressed. Could it? She shrugged and grabbed her shoulder bag. Shilo put on a mask that made her look like a bee that needed oxygen as soon as possible to conceal her face as she made her way down the tunnel to Marni's grave. She removed the mask, and leaned on the wall near the door, so that if anyone looked through the small, barred window in the door, no one could see her.
This may be a decent time to introduce Rotti's past. Seventeen years ago, Rotti was dating Marni. They were going to get married, until Marni met Nathan and broke poor Rotti's heart. It may have had something to do with his extreme weight problem and the fact that he was relatively older than his ex-fiancé that Marni left him. However, when Rotti discovered that Marni had gotten sick, he had one of his assistants sneak poison into Nathan's lab. Apparently killing the one you once loved and still do is the best way for someone to obtain vengeance. Rotti had blamed Nathan for the death of his own wife, and Nathan still believes to this day that he murdered Marni. Oddly, Rotti never got a chance to put Nathan in jail. Then again, Luigi and Pavi haven't been arrested for killing people and/or stealing their faces, because even if they are the sons of the most powerful family in the world, it isn't right to murder innocent Genterns, or any people in general.
Anyway, back to the story.
Rotti got out of his limousine and walked over to Marni's grave. He peered into the barred window, not noticing Shilo. "Go to hell, Marni! I could've given you everything, but instead you leave me and marry the guy who looks like Master Chief while at work! Well, this is what you get for that. You're dead now. HA!"
Shilo luckily (or maybe unluckily) didn't know who Master Chief was.
Rotti's two henchwomen kicked open the door to Marni's grave and came out with Shilo, dragging her into Rotti's limo.
"I can't be outside!" Shilo cried.
"Blood pressure warning," her communicator-bracelet beeped. "Blood pressure warning. Medicate immediately. Seriously, Shilo; remember what happened last time?"
Rotti got into the limousine as Shilo swallowed a few pills.
"It's nice to meet you," Rotti said in a deep, baritone voice. "Thanks for coming. Why do you hide your pretty face, though? By any chance, are you interested in dating my single son with anger issues?" He showed a picture of Luigi's face taped over the Italian model Fabio's. When he realized which picture he had accidentally shown her, he switched it with a more recent picture of Luigi with Pavi, who was making a silly face while Luigi had the usual sneer disfiguring his overall decent facial features. Wait, why did I ask that? Luigi's at least fifteen years older than her.
"I have a blood disease," Shilo said quietly, almost shyly.
"Ah yes, how very, very awful," mumbled Rotti as he put away the two pictures. He planned on burning them later on. "GeneCo offers a likely cure for your disorder though. Would you come with me to the Italian festival?"
"But—" Shilo began.
"Blind Mag will be there."
"But my dad will worry if I'm gone." Shilo fiddled around with the Cameo pendant on the chain around her neck as she said this.
Rotti smiled mischievously. "But dad doesn't need to know everything."
"Does he need to know that I'm into that GraveRobber guy?"
"What?"
"Nothing."
Meanwhile, Nathan was working…again…in his Master Chief costume. He was in a room that looked like it came out of one of the Saw movies with a man strapped to a metal operating table propped up against the wall. His neck was held down by a thick, black collar, and he was wearing a tight, black vest and trousers. Contrary to Pavi's perverse, NC-17 rated beliefs, Nathan was not going to do any random acts of nastiness to him any worse than taking out his organs as a method of torture while doing his job.
"Oh-a darn it," Pavi muttered.
Sorry Pavs.
"You wanna know what really annoys me about this job?" Nathan asked the man in a husky, raspy voice, almost as if he had laryngitis.
"Eeep," squeaked the man as Nathan ripped open the vest.
"I never get thanked when I'm done!" Nathan snipped open the man's belly and started taking out his small and large intestines.
The man was too busy screaming to hear him. When he finally interpreted what Nathan had said, not only was he too out of breath to say anything, but he was also DEAD.
Nathan shoved a leather-gloved hand up the hole in the man's stomach until he reached his jaw bones. He moved the man's mouth as he said without movie his lips, "No one wants a thankless job," in a high-pitched, Muppet-like voice. Nathan looked down in disgust, realizing that he just used a dead human body as a hand puppet. Five minutes later, he was in scrubs and dark pants, spraying the blood off of his Repo Man Suit, which was hanging from a thick, iron chain.
Back at the Italian festival, Pavi was getting a new face. How exactly? Five or six Genterns were clasping the metal clasps on Pavi's face (don't ask how they got there, because not only do I not know, but no one probably wants to know, and for many good reasons) to the face that had once belonged to an unknown woman that Pavi stole it from.
As Pavi admired his new reflection in his hand mirror (even though his new face had skin as white and lips as red as the one he had before), Luigi stormed in, grumbling about something, as usual. In this case, it was coffee. Oddly, if he didn't drink so much of it, maybe he wouldn't kill so many people as often, he wouldn't curse as much, he and Pavi would get along better, he wouldn't be as OCD about his shirts getting stained, and he'd just be a better person in general. The only problem about asking Luigi not to drink coffee and expecting these results is that you're both asking and expecting about ten times as much of what the phrase "too much" means to him.
"If I don't get my coffee," Luigi hollered, his thin face red as a tomato, "I will hang someone!"
"Decaf?" a random person with short, pink hair and a doctor's surgical mask asked, holding out a cup of less than strong, brownish-black liquid.
"I have a gun in my jacket pocket," warned Luigi, "and I'm not afraid to use it!"
"Sorry, Mr. Largo," said a young employee that sounded as if he wanted to be someplace better. "Here's a fresh cup for you, sir." He passed Luigi a cup of steaming black coffee.
Luigi sipped at his coffee and spit it out a second later. "What're you trying to do, poison me?" He took out his knife and started stabbing at the employee. "This tastes like rat pee!"
"Luigi, stop it!" cried a black-haired woman with wide silvery-green eyes. Her voice was like an angel's with a slight lilt to it. Not for the first time and not for the last time in Luigi's life, he wished that she was blind.
Amber came into the tent. "After you leave, who's gonna sing?" she whined. "Why couldn't it be me?"
"Please, Amber, it's none of my business," the woman said calmly.
"Hi Luigi," Amber said to her brother, flicking a strand of black hair from her face. No, she was not flirting with her own brother—that'd be disgusting.
"What do you want?" Luigi screamed, ripping his shirt open like the Incredible Hulk, ready to start ripping his gelled, dark brown hair out. His ascot was askew and he was foaming at the mouth.
"Jeez, I just wanted to ask if you wanted to go to Olive Garden sometime this week."
"Well, the answer is NO. N-O. That place offends me, and I hate it with a deep passion."
"Both of-a you, calm-a down!" Pavi adjusted his leather jacket over his white undershirt. He gazed at his reflection, and thought it was more beautiful than the phrase "Cellar Door". "They all love-a the Pavi!"
"No one respects me!" Luigi grabbed Pavi's hand mirror out of his hand and threw it at the ground, breaking it. Pavi started shaking Luigi by the neck back and forth violently as soon as Rotti had entered the tent.
"That's enough!"
"But he—" Anber cried as she pointed her two index fingers at Luigi and Pavi, and they pointed fingers at her.
"Look-a," said Pavi, "there is-a two of-a us, and-a only one-a you!"
"Shut up, Lock, Shock, and Barrel, and go to your rooms!" Rotti yelled. He then realized that his kids weren't teenagers anymore. "I mean—just—just go…somewhere…else…besides here. Get out of my sight!"
Amber, Luigi and Pavi sulked out of the tent.
"Stupid geezer thinks he can boss us around…what does he think we are, crazy?"
"Technically he does, Luigi."
"Shut up, Amber."
"Yes, sir."
"Okay, so," Rotti said back in the tent, holding one hand out to the woman and Shilo. "Mag, Shilo. Shilo, Mag."
Now it's high time that Mag's story was told. Seventeen years ago, Marni and Mag were best friends, and Mag had been born blind. Marni had been going out with Rotti at the time, and Rotti gave a free operation on Mag's corneas as a little happy-happy. At the end of the operation, Mag was able to see, and soon became a famous operatic singer. However, the contract she had signed before the operation was not only written in Mag's own blood, but it also stated that she would have to stay committed to GeneCo and Rotti Largo forever. The moral of Blind Mag's story is to never sign contracts in blood, unless you want to end up like the Phantom of the Paradise. She also learned to always make sure that you read the tiny print on contracts, and if you don't, plan on either getting glasses before singing, or finding some sort of way to break the contract. If you don't, then that's your loss.
Five minutes later, Mag and Rotti were in front of the Genetic Opera, which for some reason was blocked off by a red ribbon.
"Please don't go, Mag," Rotti said, "we'll miss you."
"I'm sorry, but I must go," Mag replied.
"Technically you belong to GeneCo." Both Rotti and the audience laughed. "I'm just joking of course."
"Of course you are."
Luigi passed a pair of the world's largest scissors to Rotti, who passed them to Mag. Mag took them and snipped the ribbon, opening the doors to the Genetic Opera. She fell over, due to the scissors weighing more than her pint-sized weight. During this ordeal, Rotti's two henchwomen took Shilo and carried her off into a tent somewhere nearby. Shilo couldn't get out, due to someone guarding the flap area where you could enter the tent.
"Great," Shilo sighed. "Now how am I gonna get home?"
Meanwhile, Nathan was doing more jobs that only Repo Men can do, this one in particular involving him hanging a man by the feet to catch up with him while playing Sweeney Todd music in the background. As the man screamed, he called Shilo on her communicator-bracelet.
"Shilo, did you take your medicine?" he asked.
"Yes," Shilo replied, swallowing a few pills.
"What's that noise?" Nathan asked as he slashed the man's back just like how he slashed Rotti's tires on Mischief Night in college.
"What noise? Oh. I'm just watching the Largos' new citcom on the TV outside."
"Why aren't you wearing your mask then?" (Nathan could tell she wasn't wearing it due to the image of her on his communicator-bracelet not wearing a bee-oxygen mask. In reality, it wasn't meant necessarily to conceal her face, but apparently part of her blood disease involved Shilo not being able to breathe fresh air.) "They have a new citcom?"
"I don't know," said Shilo. "But they're acting like the guys on I Love Lucy."
"Should I head back home?" Nathan asked. He cut deeper into the man's back with the scalpel.
"No I'm fine, don't worry."
"By the way, does Luigi have a long-lost brother named Mario?" The man coughed up blood.
"I don't think s—Dad, who's that?"
"Oh, one of my patients is really sick."
"Is he gonna live?" Shilo asked.
"Erm…it's looking pretty bad, I gotta go, love ya, honey!" Nathan hung up.
"Love you too, Dad."
Nathan continued cutting until he pulled out a bloody spine and put it into his metal briefcase from which dry ice emitted.
Gross, yes? Yes it is. Why not cut to something a little bit more cheerful?
Back in Shilo's tent, GraveRobber poked his head through a tear in the cloth.
"Hey, kid," he whispered.
"You're real?" Shilo cried.
"Duh—c'mon, I have candy."
"Sicko."
"Look," GraveRobber said, ripping open the tear wide enough so that Shilo could step through to his side without being caught, "I'm sorry about earlier. Just come with me. I'll take you home after I show you something."
Shilo followed him through the ripped cloth into the crowd, even though last time she did this with him, she ended up passing out in the middle of a graveyard.
While Shilo was running off with GraveRobber, Rotti was being interviewed briefly by a random man with black sideburns.
"How're you, Mr. Largo? We've heard that you've been helping Zydrate addict support groups? Do you have any comments?"
"My daughter actually helps Zydrate addict support groups. Amber, we'd like a word from you!" he called. No reply. "'Lil, 'lil Amby?" Rotti grimaced. If Amber wouldn't answer even the family dog call for her, she definitely wasn't around.
Ironically, rumors had recently been sky-rocketing about Amber. No, they didn't involve her helping Pavi with his face-kleptomania or going on killing sprees with Luigi just like Chucky and Tiffany or Bonnie and Clyde, only incestuous. Due to her constantly-changing appearance, people started getting the feeling that she was addicted to surgery of any kind. Zydrate is often involved in this surgery to minimize pain, so rumors also started spreading about her being not only a surgery addict, but a drug addict as well.
But is she?
Back with Shilo and GraveRobber, they had wound up in a dark alleyway full of many girls with unnaturally colored, spiky hair and bright colored fishnets. They looked like they just jumped out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show more than Shilo with her white ruffled shirts and frilly black skirts, but much more colorful than Shilo.
"Guess what?" a girl with blonde hair asked Shilo.
"What?"
"I got a fever…and the only prescription is more ZYDRATE."
Shilo cringed, now curious as to what Zydrate really was.
GraveRobber held up a glass vial of blue liquid and stuck it into the end of a gun as if the vial were glue for a hot glue gun. He put the gun against a girl with blue hair's forehead, and she passed out when it sparked. It only comes to show how desperate some people are for drugs.
"GraveRobber," a sultry voice cooed from a short distance down the alleyway. Shilo knew who it was before she looked up to see Amber dressed in a black outfit almost more scantily clad than what the Genterns wore (short white dresses with translucent red masks to cover their eyes and white high heels). At least Amber wore boots instead of heels. "GraveRobber…you don't know how badly I need your Zydrate…" She lunged at him, pressing GraveRobber against the black-stained brick wall.
"Amber," GraveRobber muttered, turning so that it was now him pinning Amber against the wall. "Not in front of Shilo, she's still too young."
"I'm seventeen!" Shilo cried. "My dad's a doctor and he's taught me all about drugs!"
"Still." GraveRobber took out the Zydrate gun and injected it into Amber's arm. He started whistling a tune that was familiar to Shilo for no apparent reason.
"Isn't that Blind Mag's song?" Shilo asked.
"She said it, I didn't!" said GraveRobber, pointing down at Shilo, who was a head shorter than him even in her high-top boots.
"You must think you're real tough, huh?" Amber asked, stumbling a little. "You think Mag can sing? You just wait until tonight."
"What're you talking about? All I said is that—"
"Look, kid," said GraveRobber. He took out a magazine and showed her a page.
"Why is Pavi Largo posing in underwear and suspenders on a couch?" Shilo asked.
"I'm gonna kill my brother," Amber muttered, "and I'm not letting Luigi help me."
"Hem," GraveRobber coughed, tossing the adult magazine into a nearby dumpster. He took out a different magazine and turned to a page with Mag on one side and a ludicrous amount of tiny writing on the other. "Okay, so, kid, Mag got her eyes from GeneCo, and the Largos are planning on sending in Repo Men to take them, since she's leaving GeneCo." GraveRobber handed Shilo the magazine. "Keep it and cherish it. Think of it as a first date gift."
"What?"
"Never mi—oh shoot."
About five seconds after GraveRobber gave the magazine to Shilo, many, many men dressed very similar to Nathan in his Repo Man suit (the only major difference was that you could see their eyes inside the GeneCops' helmets, and there were no bright blue lights inside of them like Nathan's either). It was obvious that Rotti had sent in these GeneCops for Amber.
"Sir, we've found Amber," said one man into a walkie-talkie…if that's even what they'll still be called in 2056. "We think she might be over-dosed."
During this entire ruckus, GraveRobber had run out of the dark, dark alleyway with Shilo and the first magazine (he quickly slipped it into Shilo's shoulder bag to see if she would notice—she didn't) and hitched a ride on the back of a GeneCo dump truck. Ironically, there was no trash in there, except for dead bodies, and even in the future, it should still be somewhat dangerous to hitchhike on the back of operating vehicles. However, since GraveRobber is not just a drug dealer/grave robber, and he's a good drug dealer/grave robber (character-wise), he can do things like this and not get caught/hurt, and be able to take seventeen year old Goth girls along for the ride,
They arrived at the graveyard shortly after getting on, and Shilo got off by her mother's grave. Before entering, GraveRobber blew a small kiss to her and tossed a note card over. It read:
Here's my number:
555-1800-GRAVES
P.S. You're much prettier than Amber—I'd go out with you in a heartbeat if you weren't a minor. –G.R.
Shilo blushed and made her way through the tunnel to her house. She arrived at the right side of the staircase and ran up to her room just before Nathan returned from work from behind the fireplace. The communicator-bracelet around his wrist beeped and up came a holographic image of Rotti.
"Nathan Wallace, come to my office at once."
Nathan hit a button on the silver communicator and both Rotti's image and voice faltered. He climbed up the stairs to Shilo's room to make sure she was safe, only to find her sleeping in her bed. Nathan left the room, closing the door behind him, and Shilo woke up and started looking through Mag's contract.
Rotti's image and voice came on again from the communicator. "Nathan Wallace, when you come to my office, make sure to bring that repoed spine. Yes I know that's not a word. Don't judge my odd way of saying things. Also, bring dinner. I'm fresh out of food. Pizza preferably, since we're Italian. Or…are we Spanish? Pavi does nothing all day but speak Italian into his hand mirror. I don't know, all right? Just get your sorry little tush over here! …With the pizza of course…and the spine. Thank you." His image went away with his voice.
Nathan went back behind the fireplace and led himself to Rotti's family meeting room. Ironically, Nathan is in no way related to Rotti. He put his metal briefcase/fog machine on the coffee table and took out the spine in a plastic bag.
"Why didn't you bring the bleeping pizza?" Luigi hollered, wielding a switchblade. Pavi, Amber and Rotti said the same thing as him, except they didn't need to be censored. Nathan, the two henchwomen, and the three uncensored Largos glared at Luigi. "What?" the brunette asked, "Cursing is like breathing to me. I can't live without it!" Luigi then started going into a slew of curses, until Pavi whacked him on the head with his still broken hand mirror, leading to yet another catfight between the two Largo brothers.
"Okay," said Nathan, holding his head heavy in his hands. Just one member of the Largo family being in his presence was sometimes just enough to trigger a migraine for him. "What do you want me for?"
Rotti replied, "We have a new target, but only you can do this job. It's involving a GeneCo employee. Mag. She's betrayed us. I want you to take her eyes—tonight is the last night that she will ever sing for us."
"But…" Nathan sputtered. "Marni was Mag's best friend…"
Luigi pulled Nathan so that he was staring at him like the madman that he was. "You break my—" He was censored by a nearby Gentern that accidentally dropped a tin tray of absolutely nothing. "—heart!" Luigi slashed at the poor Gentern and removed his jacket to replace his stained shirt once again.
"Will you stop that?" Nathan yelled.
"Look, Nathan," said Rotti, "remember when you killed your wife? I promised I would keep your secret from the world, and more importantly Shilo, as long as you would work for me as a Repo Man. Don't deny this life of yours…"
Nathan sighed as he removed his rectangular, thick-rimmed glasses and Luigi and Pavi began to tighten the black leather straps on his Repo Man suit. "Marni, I'm so sorry…will you ever be able to forgive me…?
Luigi and Pavi pushed Nathan into a separate, stark white room that was only a room due to being enclosed by plastic. Dead bodies that were wrapped in plastic-wrap hung from the ceiling. Another man that wasn't due for an organ-repossession was strapped into a chair with a rag wrapped around his face where his mouth was, preventing him from talking or screaming for help. He constantly flinched in paranoia.
"Remember what you did to Marni," everyone in the room kept repeating except for Nathan and the man in the chair, "remember who you are…" They continued to say these two phrases until Nathan finally snapped, which took at least an hour, while for the average person of 2010, it would take them only twenty minutes of at least ten people repeating this in a room as austere as the one Nathan was in before they went nuts.
"SHUT UP—I'VE SEEN THE SHINING AND THE LION KING ALREADY!" Nathan began slashing at the man strapped in the chair with a double-sided knife that a Gentern slid over to him two minutes earlier out of his madness. He laughed like a maniac and yelled, "I remember—all—work—and—no—play—makes—Nathan—a—dull—Simba!"
Luigi watched in admiration as he watched blood spray into Nathan's face. He mouthed the word "whoa" when Nathan dug the knife deep into the man's stomach.
"Who's your night surgeon?" Nathan bellowed into the dead man's face. He dropped the knife and walked toward the door slowly. "I can't do this job."
Luigi's face turned from admiration to repulsion. Not only was he wishing now that he was the one covered in blood and slashing at the man, but also how what Nathan just said made no sense to him. He mercilessly hacks at an innocent man and then refuses to obey one of his father's actual commands, and an important one at that. I think he's become more like me, Luigi thought. Oh, God, help me and my reputation as a serial killer.
"Get your sorry Repo Man butt back in here, Nate!" Rotti beckoned. "First you don't bring us pizza, then you kill a random, innocent person, and now you refuse to do your actual job? Go burn with your bloody wife! I don't care that I'm not British!" he yelled at Pavi. Rotti started breathing heavily.
Pavi pat his father on the shoulder. "Don't-a be upset Papa—we'll-a way to take-a Mag out! But-a, could we-a make sure that we-a don't-a ruin her face?"
"I made out with her once," Luigi said, his eyes closed, his hands behind his neck and the corners of his mouth turned up as if he were pleased with himself.
Rotti and Pavi whacked Luigi with the tin tray that the Gentern dropped on the head. He fell unconscious.
Meanwhile, back at the Wallace's house, Blind Mag arrived outside in a limousine. She stepped out and walked to the gate, speaking into a gadget that would allow anyone inside the house to hear what she was saying outside. "Shilo, is that you?" she asked. "Please let me in." She opened the gate. "You look so much like your mother. You have her eyes, her hair—"
"I'm actually bald," said Shilo, "this is a wig." She pointed at her head.
"Oh," Mag replied. "Well, you have her eyes at least. Look, I only have a very limited time to talk to you. I'm your Godmother."
"What do you want, exactly?" Shilo asked.
"I want to tell you not to screw up the way I did. But more importantly, could you please let me in?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
Mag's eyes flashed then, and from them there produced a holographic image of a woman singing from them. It was Marni, Shilo's deceased mother. The image disappeared.
"How did you do that?" asked Shilo.
"I don't actually know," Mag responded, "all I know is that my eyes are magical. They do more than just see. I think GeneCo got them from Hogwarts."
"Could they make me older so that I could go out with that amazing GraveRobber?"
"…no. But," Mag quickly added when she saw Shilo slump over slightly, "we could watch your mother sing again!"
"Okay!" Shilo said, smiling.
Mag's eyes flashed once more, showing the holographic image of Marni singing. A minute later, Nathan appeared at the door in slacks, his glasses, and a black shirt and vest.
"Hi, Nate," Mag said as Shilo sprinted up the stairs; Nathan luckily didn't see her.
"Mag, why are you here?" he asked.
"You told me that Shilo had died with Marni!"
"I need to give," said Nathan, "Shi her medication." He started up the stairs until he noticed Mag still standing in the middle of the foyer.
"Dad," Shilo pleaded, coming out from her hiding place. "Let her stay here—she'll die if you make her leave!"
Nathan grabbed Mag by the arms. "Get out of my house, you crazy woman!"
"Nathan, you're hurting me!"
"I don't care! Get, the hell, out of my house!" Nathan pulled her towards the door.
Shilo grabbed at the back of Nathan's vest. "Her eyes will be repossessed!"
"Don't worry," said Mag, "I'll be fine, Shilo—even if I do lose my eyes…and likely die."
Nathan growled. "You're a bad influence on Shilo! Next thing you know, she'll be going off and marrying famous British composers and starring in their musicals just like Sarah Brightman!"
"But…" Mag began.
"I don't bloody care that you bloody look just like her!" Nathan screamed into Mag's face. "GET BLOODY LOST!" He pushed her out the door, slammed it, and locked it. Nathan then pushed a table and a chair in front of it, placed the chair on table, put a vase on top of the chair, went into the kitchen and filled a watering can with water, poured the water into the vase, and put a forget-me-not in it. He made a cheesy, toothy grin.
Shilo glared at him with disbelief and dragged him up the stairs. "Look, Dad!" She grabbed the magazine from her room. "Read thi—"
"Shi," her father said, "this is a magazine of Pavi Largo posing for PlayGirl. Where'd you get this?" Nathan's right eyebrow was arched slightly.
"Oh." Shilo threw the magazine on her bed and scrambled through her drawers. She pulled out the actual magazine containing Mag's contract. "Look, if you don't stop her, a Repo Man will come and take her eyes!"
"Shi…"
"You have to try, Dad!"
"I can't…"
"Why not?"
"Because."
"Because why?" Shilo crossed her arms.
"Look, I just can't!"
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"NO."
"Please?"
"Look, Mag already tried that on you five minutes ago, and it worked, but it won't work with me." Utter silence.
…
"Please?"
"SHUT UP!"
Shilo frowned and walked into her room, closing the door behind her. She sat on her bed, only to find that Nathan had opened the door and followed her in.
"Look, Shilo…your mom's death taught me that nothing ever lasts forever, not even Mag. If I can't save her, what're the chances that a seventeen year old girl can?"
Shilo glared at her father. "Well, it's better than being forty!" The lights in her room went out, and when they came back on, they made the room look red and blue, and Shilo was in a black rock star-esque outfit. She started dancing like a junior Avril Lavigne and singing lyrics that her father would not approve of. Joan Jett was in the background playing the electric guitar.
Shilo came up to her father, pointing, and belted out the most profane part out of her entire song. Nathan slapped her across the face, because even though most teenagers love to say the f word, he never heard Shilo swear before.
The girl-Green Day fantasy was now over, Shilo was back in her normal clothes, and her bedroom wasn't filled with bright red and blue lights. She touched the side of her face as she sat on the floor.
"I'm so sorry, Shilo!" Nathan apologized. Five seconds later, Shilo passed out. He carried her to her bed and tucked her in.
Meanwhile at the Largo mansion, another family feud was brewing. No, Luigi did not steal Pavi's hairbrush—it was a little bit more serious than that, if not a lot more serious.
Rotti was fixing his medium-length gray wig into a loose ponytail while looking in the mirror. Only a day after he discovers that he is going to die, he realized that he's going to die much sooner than thought. Rotti was trying to make his final hours peaceful hours, which was going extremely well despite being relatively sad, until Amber stormed in.
"That surgery has screwed me up!" she wailed.
"Amber, it's not that bad!" Rotti tried coaxing, even though he didn't even see how bad Amber's surgery had gone. "Besides, I warned you that you can't become happy from having surgery done all the time!"
"I don't care—it's not fair! Besides, if I sing tonight, they'll all laugh at me!"
Rotti sighed. "All I ever do is give, and all you ever do is take! Remember back when you asked if you could be Asian? I didn't object—even though it took ninety-thousand dollars to do it! Besides, I didn't care when you changed your name, either!"
"But I need a stage name!"
"You're a disgrace! You don't deserve to be my daughter!" Rotti grimaced and wheeled Amber around to look at her. Her mouth and skin around her jaw looked as if someone had tried melting, and then stitching it back together. He started coughing due to his illness kicking in again.
"Are you okay, Daddy?" Amber asked.
"Don't worry, I'm fine," Rotti replied. "Look, I'll have Pavi fix you up, he'll know what to do."
"I'm sure he will," Amber mumbled—Pavi would be more likely to steal her face than fix it. "Thanks, Dad." She kissed him on the forehead and skipped out of the room.
Once Amber had left, Rotti took out his will. He massaged his temples. "I ask for good kids, and I get thirty-something nightmares. What'd I do to deserve this?"
"You killed Marni," said his female bodyguard to his left, "and you told Luigi that Santa Claus wasn't real."
"Shut up, he was twelve and he needed to know the truth. Besides, Luigi and Amber were born before I even met Marni!"
"Well, so was Pavi."
"Whatever, I have Alzheimer's. Still, all of my children scare me. I'm still having nightmares about Pavichi scraping my face clean off, while Luigi and Amber whip me across the back. I'm leaving GeneCo to the littler Wallace….but I won't sign it unless she agrees to kill the less-than-little Wallace in return tonight."
"But what if she doesn't kill her dad?"
"Then GeneCo goes out of business. Either that, or Luigi and Pavichi take over the world…with Amber, of course."
Meanwhile, back at the littler and less-than-little Wallaces' house, Nathan was taking care of Shilo's medicine. Shilo's communicator-bracelet flashed, and another holographic image of Rotti appeared. "Shilo," his voice said, "I finally have your cure. Come to the opera tonight, and I will meet you there." Rotti's voice laughed. "By the way, could you also bring a pizza? I'm all out of food and your idiot father didn't bring any when he came to my office. My family is starving. Nathan's there, isn't he? Well, Nathan, I have no regret in telling you to go and burn with your wife. Have a nice night, Wallaces!"
Nathan turned off Shilo's communicator bracelet and growled. "He thinks he can take Shilo and try to turn her against me? I hate you so much, Rot—"
"Dad?" Shilo was staring up at Nathan with big, brown eyes, awake from her unconsciousness.
"Nothing, Shilo," Nathan replied as he poured two pills into a glass of water. "Just stake your medicine and go to bed."
"Why didn't you tell me that I had a godmother, Dad?" Shilo took her glass of vitamin water (not the energy drink) and rank it.
"What godmother?" Nathan clearly had forgotten who Mag was. He kissed her forehead and left the room.
Once Shilo was sure that Nathan had gone, she got out of bed, moved her plastic, doctor's office-style canopy out of her way, and walked over to her three windows. She opened the black velvet curtains and looked out at the large, floating flat-screen television. On the red screen, there read the white words, "come to the opera tonight, my driver is out front waiting. Shilo, this means you and you alone." Shilo quickly changed out of her casual outfit and dressed in a white top, black corset, her frilly black skirt, and her knee-high boots. She slung her bag over her shoulder and snuck out of her bedroom, down the stairs, out the front door, through the gate, and into Rotti's limo. Luckily, Nathan had to leave for Rotti's office one minute earlier.
While Shilo was sneaking out like the rebellious teenager that she can be, Nathan found himself in Rotti's office, as instructed, only to be ambushed by two GeneCops. He got involved in a Matrix-style fight with the GeneCops, involving knives, kicking, punching, and ironically no slow-motion jumping or flipping in the air. Nathan ran out into the area where he always changed into his Repo Man suit, as Rotti's voice sounded over the loudspeaker. "Anyone in here that isn't a Gentern or one of my kids, track down the Repo Man Nathan Wallace and kill him! The first one that does gets an eighty-percent raise in their paycheck for the week!"
Nathan breathed out deeply. "Tonight we have been betrayed," he muttered in a deep, sadistic voice—his Repo Man voice. "I will keep Shilo safe," he added in his more fatherly voice, the voice that he always used around Shilo—his, sane, normal Nathan voice. "I will make sure that Rotti doesn't go unpunished." Repo Man voice. "I will own Marni's grave." Nathan voice. "I will never give Luigi a hug on his birthday again." Repo Man voice. "…At the opera tonight!" he finished with both his Repo Man and Nathan voices combined.
Back in the back of Rotti's limo, Shilo found a box under her seat. When she took it out, Rotti's holographic face flashed on her communicator-bracelet, and his voice said, "Shilo, this dress belonged to your mother. I would be glad if you wore it to the opera tonight; you look just like her." Rotti's face and voice faltered.
"If someone says that I look like my mom again, I am going to explode," Shilo fumed. She got over it quickly, and opened the box, changing into a strapless black dress that went down just above her knees and a black see-through veil from behind the dark windows separating the seat she was in from the rest of the inside of the limo. She kept her Cameo necklace, black knee-high boots, fishnet arm socks, and her communicator-bracelet on. "Hopefully I'll find a way to save myself…at the opera tonight," she whispered.
Meanwhile, Mag was walking through the graveyard. "I hold no grudges now," she whispered, "and I will sing tonight, even if it will be the last song I ever sing."
At the same time, Nathan was strapping himself into his Repo Man suit. "I feel like a bloody superhero." He smirked. "Which I will be—the streets will run with Rotti's blood."
"At the opera tonight!" the opera-singer and Repo Man said in unison, even though they were in two completely different places at the time…not that that really matters much.
"Here's your Zydrate back," Amber said to GraveRobber back in his dark alleyway. She tossed a little glass vial of fluorescent blue liquid into a dumpster, where apparently GraveRobber slept, since it was full of dirty pillows. "I don't think I need it."
"Oh come on, babes," GraveRobber replied, "you know you need it." He held the blue liquid out to her.
"Oh, all right, fine!" Amber took the vial and ran out of the alleyway with it.
"Darn, that was my last vial." GraveRobber crossed his legs and started reading a magazine.
"Tonight," Rotti announced back at Home Repot, "we will set the stage!"
"My-a greatest face," Pavi said, grinning and combing his fingers through his raven hair.
"My greatest rage," Luigi added, taking out his beloved butcher knife.
"Were you-a born with that-a thing super glued to-a your hand?" Pavi asked.
"Probably."
"Ah well, maybe I'll find a pretty Gentern tonight." Pavi wiggled his eyebrows.
"I'm sure you will…" Luigi rolled his eyes.
"At the opera tonight!" the three Largos finished together.
Nathan, meanwhile, continued to make his way through the catacombs, turning on a bright blue light on in the glass part of his helmet just in front of his eyes. It's a wonder how he didn't go blind. A GeneCop snuck up behind him.
"If anyone says 'at the opera tonight' again, I will kill you," the GeneCop said.
While the GeneCop continued to chase Nathan, Mag was placing roses on Marni's grave. "Come take my eyes tonight, Repo Man…" she said calmly with the usual lilt to her voice.
The GeneCop finally caught up with Nathan, only to find a poison dart in the side of his neck moments later.
"Sorry, Bob," Nathan said to him, "but this is for Shilo…and to get to Rotti to kill him." He continued his way through the catacombs. "…at the opera tonight!"
Back at the Genetic Opera, Amber was getting ready for her debut as she rolled her new face over a much more ravaged version of the disfigured one that she received after her surgery.
"Everybody, everybody!" the band leader of the opera yelled as the music started to play—music that was relatively modern for an opera house. "Get up! No, sit down! Get up! You idiot, get down! Okay, just kidding." The band leader chuckled. "Get up, and testify!"
A dark haired man got up from his seat. "Because of GeneCo, I don't get drunk as much!"
The band leader nodded. "Testify!"
A woman with blonde highlights in her hair stood up. "I destroyed my liver before GeneCo, but now I'm able to drink anything I want!"
"Testify!"
The scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz jumped up. "I didn't have a brain, until GeneCo gave one to me!"
"What're you doing here?" asked a random audience member. "Get out! You should be getting torn apart by flying monkeys right now."
The scarecrow sulked sadly out the door. The band leader played a sad tune on the world's smallest violin for him. When he left, he went back to watching the Genterns dancing onstage.
"State your name!"
When he said this, the Genterns immediately started doing things that wouldn't be allowed on Barney, but weren't so extreme that they'd be on adult TV channels.
"Score!" Luigi yelled as he came in, jumping up with his arms in the air. Pavi gave him a high-five. For once, the two brothers were getting along perfectly.
Outside, Shilo had arrived at the opera and got into an elevator to get into a dark room with nothing but a television inside. She turned it on and removed the veil that she was wearing. Immediately, a video came on that seemed as if it had come from a Saw movie. "Shilo, great job," a recording of Rotti's voice said, "you've made it! I'm sorry, but we used you as bait to get to a rebellious Repo Man. We haven't caught him yet, but in order to catch him properly, we need you to do it. Don't ask why, but once you bring the Repo Man to us, you will have your cure, I promise you. You saw him in the graveyard, by the way. No, that was not a dream that you experienced, it was all very real." There was a long pause. "You didn't bring any pizza, did you? That's okay. I forgive you." Along came another longer pause. "By the way, if you see my son Luigi at the opera tonight, take a look through his pockets. I think he took my crazy-pills when I wasn't looking, and they are highly addictive. Thanks!"
Back in the opera, a limousine pulled up in front of the stage, and out came a blonde woman who immediately testified while Luigi began to dance on the stage nearby some Genterns like the absolute crazy-pill addict he had become while grinning like an idiot. Pavi stood beside the woman. "You see, I'm a single mother, and I needed a kidney transplant badly. It was cheap, but I got a full body makeover for just a little extra money. Now, world, look at what GeneCo's done for me!" She opened her fur coat wide, and immediately Luigi stopped waving his arms in front of him like a complete moron and fell into a nearby drum set. Pavi pointed and laughed as Luigi got up with a bloody nose and a flushed face, blushing furiously. Oddly enough, he shook it off and didn't try to kill someone. The woman was ordered to leave afterwards for "disturbing the peace".
Shortly after these two very odd acts, it was time for Amber's debut. As she came on stage, Luigi asked a midget sitting next to him in the audience if he could have his popcorn.
"No," said the man bluntly.
Luigi took the popcorn anyway and started clotting his nose with the white stuff. Luckily, it wasn't salted or buttery. You see, in the world of Luigi, no means yes, and yes means no.
Amber began to sing, but when she turned around in a circle, she dropped something: her face. She picked up the skin mask that fell from her ravaged face (or what was left of it) and ran off the stage as many people in the audience booed at her.
Once Amber had left the stage, Mag slowly came down from a harness, singing in Italian about a bird called Chromaggia. The ironic part about this wasn't the fact that her clothing resembled a bird's feathers, or that her eyelashes now seemed extremely long, but the fact that she was singing about a bird while in the snow, even though birds migrate…usually. But in this case, birds that both look and sound like Sarah Brightman can defy the laws of nature.
Backstage, Rotti was coughing loudly into a handkerchief, while Luigi and Pavi played in the fake snow like small children.
"Want some snow, Pavi?" Luigi held out a clump of white cotton to his little brother.
"Thank-a you, big-a brother!" Pavi grinned and started poking the fake, fluffy white stuff.
Rotti had a strong urge to look into his son's pockets to make sure that his brain wasn't an egg in a frying pan.
Mag finished her final lines. "Chromaggia, come take these eyes," she sang, "I would rather be blind!" At this, she dug the sharp, silver claws on her index fingers into her eyes, gouging them out. The claws cut the harness' ropes, and she fell to her death, being impaled by an iron fence. This is why people in 2010 usually use cardboard as fences and not metal of any shape or form.
The audience watched in shock. "Don't worry!" Rotti cried as he ran on stage. "This is all part of the show! Soon, for your own entertainment, you'll be seeing a young girl that her father has caged up for her whole life. In the meantime, my sons will be acting out random Monty Python skits to keep you guys entertained so you don't start killing each other."
…Clearly over the years, Rotti forgot that not every family on earth spends every waking moment trying to kill each other, and that his family needed to seek help from a very elderly Dr. Phil.
As Pavi and Luigi started acting out the "Dead Parrot" skit from Monty Python, deeper backstage, Shilo had snuck up on the Repo Man, and hit him in the head with a shovel. As his helmet rolled off, to her very horror she realized that she had attacked her dad.
"Shi," Nathan said, "I told you not to go out. Now do you know what's happened? Why don't we just got home and forget all about this whole night, all right?"
"Dad," Shilo whispered, "How could've you done nothing but lie to me for my whole life?" She threw his helmet at him and watched the holographic screen that came up in the room of the now eyeless, dead Mag. Dad did this… she immediately thought. "You said that you'd protect me!"
"I tried, I tried!" Nathan tried coaxing.
"Is this how you help me? Dad…I hate you!" Shilo pushed him. "Go and die!" She clutched her head and ran out of the room.
"My God," Nathan whispered, "this isn't because of Rotti. He took Shilo from me…but I failed my daughter! Nonetheless, he will pay for this!" He followed Shilo out the door. They soon found themselves on the stage. He gazed at Mag's lifeless body sadly, and made his way toward Shilo, but he didn't see the knife poking out from Luigi's jacket sleeve. Luigi sliced his knife across Nathan's wrist, causing him to fall over.
"Dad!" Shilo cried, despite having given him a death wish minutes earlier.
"You did better than I thought," Rotti said to Shilo.
"You could say more than Amber," Luigi added, smiling.
"Better than you could do, too!" Rotti pointed at Luigi.
"What?"
"Oh, and your brother."
Pavi hung his head, though the forced, Joker-like grin remained on his face,
"Cut that out, Pavichi," said Rotti. He turned back to Shilo. "I promise to give you your cure."
"Don't touch her!" Nathan cried. One of Rotti's henchwomen tazed him in the back, leaving him lying on the ground stunned and in pain.
"Oh yeah," I'm dying too," Rotti admitted.
"No!" Luigi and Pavi screamed in unison. Their arms flailed and they knelt at their dad's knees. "Don't die, Daddy!" Pavi pathetically wrapped his arms and legs around his dad's legs like he used to when he was a little kid. The audience laughed as Rotti tried shaking the thirty-year old off his leg.
I have the most pathetic kids on earth, Rotti thought.
"Hey, we should tell a secret too, huh, Pavs?" Luigi suggested.
"Oh-a yes," Pavi agreed. "Your-a papa murdered your-a mama."
"What?" Shilo asked, not understanding what Pavi said through his thick, Italian accent.
"Your daddy," Luigi said, wrapping an arm around Shilo's shoulder, "killed your mommy."
"It was an accident," Nathan said weakly in a pool of blood.
Shilo dug her hand into Luigi's pockets. His eyes bulged. "What're you doing?" Shilo took out a bottle of pills that read, CRAZY PILLS, PRESCRIBED FOR ROTTI LARGO. "This isn't what it looks like!" Luigi cried. "I swear!"
Rotti smirked a little. "He has another secret, too, your father," he said to Shilo.
"Please tell me," Shilo pleaded.
"Tell her, tell her!" Luigi and Pavi ran into the audience, egging everyone on to have Rotti tell the secret like seventh grade kids at a very competitive middle school pep-rally for field day.
"Your dad made you sick, Shilo," Rotti said, "and all of your medicine was poisoned."
"What?" Shilo asked, still not quite understanding. She doubled over in pain.
"You have no blood disease!" Luigi screamed at the top of his lung as he shoveled popcorn down his throat. "You've been being lied to for your whole life! Damn, this is really good popcorn."
"I can't breathe!" Shilo moaned.
Luigi choked. "Me neither—" His face turned blue, and the midget that was next to him began hitting this back harder than necessary. "Thanks," Luigi said to him after he was done getting his vengeance for having his popcorn stolen.
Nathan was tazed in the back again. "Someone, please help Shilo! This is NOT part of the show!"
"Yes it is!" Luigi yelled, coughing into his fist.
"No it isn't!" Pavi yelled back from the other side of the audience.
"Yes it is!"
"No it isn't!"
"Did you come here for an argument, brother?"
"…Yes."
Shilo fainted then. During her blackout, memories flashed through her mind. Meeting Mag for the first time…waking up in bed after being in the graveyard…GraveRobber offering her Zydrate…discovering that the Repo Man was her father…
Five minutes later, she woke up in a pool of blood—her father's blood. Shilo got up, nearly falling into Rotti's grasp.
"If your mother had never left me," said Rotti, sticking a hand inside his coat, "you would be my daughter." He took out a silver gun and handed it to Shilo. "Kill your father."
Silence…
…"KILL HIM!" Luigi cheered, popcorn flying out of his mouth.
"But…" Shilo looked around nervously, as if someone in the audience would point her in the right direction.
"If you kill him, you get GeneCo." Rotti took out his will and a pen.
"WHAT?" Luigi tossed the popcorn in the air. The midget that he stole it from eyed it carefully, as if it was going to fall into his lap.
"All of-a GeneCo?" Pavi asked as he sat next to a pretty girl.
"Yup," Rotti replied, grinning from ear to ear like an idiot.
"Oh no!" Pavi came up on stage with Luigi. "Come on, Dad, I deserve GeneCo!" they said at the same time.
"Shut your face, Pavichi Bocelli Pavarotti Largo!" Luigi yelled.
"That-a is-a not-a my name, Jim Carrey!"
"Jim Carrey? That guy has been dead for as long as I can remember! I think. Whatever, I don't catch up on all of this celebrity crap! You look like the girl from Eyes without a Face!"
"That was a good movie!"
"No it wasn't! The surgical procedure completely sucked!"
Pavi punched Luigi in the face, and Luigi started wrestling him, even after they got off the stage.
"I'm not a murderer," said Shilo as bravely as she could.
"What if you grew up to be the way your dad was?" Rotti asked, pointing at Nathan. "All I have to do is sign, and all you have to do is kill him, then you'll inherit all of GeneCo!"
"I don't care—I don't have to choose the same things he did."
"Shilo," Nathan said softly, struggling to simply speak. "I'm sorry…I poisoned your blood and imprisoned you from the world. I'm worse than Rotti. I'm just like Judge Claude Frollo."
"You used my entire family, didn't you?" Shilo asked, pointing the gun at Rotti now.
Rotti began to cough again.
"Shilo," Nathan said, "I want you to make something of your li—"
BOOM!
"No!" Shilo realized at the very last moment that the gun had disappeared from her hands, and that Rotti had shot her father in the chest. "Dad!" Shilo ran over to Nathan, sobbing.
Luigi and Pavi came out from backstage, with their shirt collars slightly torn, sweaty, and with some of Pavi's mask ripped slightly, revealing a little bit of his scarred face. Luigi's nose was bleeding again.
"Go away," Rotti snarled at them, "you two sicken me. Especially you, Luigi. You dishonor Jim Carrey."
Amber walked on stage, her face now scarred worse than ever.
"You're a disgrace," Rotti added to her. "You're not my daughter anymore." Amber exited stage right, opposite of her brothers, crying. "Now, world…goodbye." Rotti fell on the floor then, lifeless.
"Poor Mickey Rooney," whispered Nathan. "He was such a good actor."
"Dad," Shilo cooed, holding the dying Nathan in her arms. "Don't worry. You take your time to die. I don't care if you take longer than Eponine."
"Thanks…Shi, Marni's calling me. I see a light."
"Dad, I want you to know that I love you." Shilo held Nathan closer.
"I love you too, Shilo." Nathan said weakly. "Go now."
"But Dad…you have to live."
"You already saved me, though. There's no reason for me to live any longer now. You can change the world for the better."
"Well, isn't that nice!" Luigi yelled from backstage. "Does anyone care that OUR dad just died?"
"LUIGI, SHUT UP!" the audience yelled. At that moment, Nathan died in Shilo's arms.
"No, Dad…" Shilo sobbed. She tried to feel his pulse, but couldn't find one. Shilo stood up slowly. I knew that I should have turned off my communicator-bracelet that night, she thought. "It's not up to my genes to tell me how to live my life, is it?" She started to walk her way towards the exit door, ignoring Mag's dead body, which she passed. "It's up to me. I'm free at last." She opened the door, only to find cameras flashing, and a myriad of people standing outside the door for her. Shilo took one last look back at her dead father and left the building.
Shortly after, GraveRobber received the magazine describing her story. "Great," he said, slapping his ghostly pale forehead. "Now she's a gothic opera star. Who does she think she is, Sarah Brightman?"
…Dead silence.
"Apparently the oldest Largo is a crazy pill addict too, huh. First Amber, now Luigi. What's Pavi going to get addicted to, sugar pills?"
More dead silence.
"Now who's gonna take over GeneCo?"
Two hours later, Amber, Luigi, and Pavi emerged from the Genetic Opera. Amber now looked good as new, now that her face had been replaced with one that looked just like her old one.
"The heroes of last night won't be forgotten," she announced. "Also, I'll be running GeneCo from now on."
Luigi began clapping. "Amber Sweet, ladies and germs, Amber Sweet." His smile seemed more forced now. "I can't hear you guys. Guys? I can't bleeping hear you, you bleeping peasants! You'd better start listening to me for once! I'll kill you all if I have to, you bleeping mice!" He started crying into his hands. "Dad…!" Clearly Luigi didn't have just anger and violence problems now, but he also had emotional problems in general.
Pavi grinned and pat him on the back. "Don't-a cry-a, fratello. I love-a you." Luigi, for the first time in his life, hugged Pavi.
"I love you too, you face-stealing jerk," Luigi replied as he blew his nose with a handkerchief that he thought he'd never use.
Shortly after announcing her new ownership of GeneCo, Amber chose to auction off her old face and give the money to charity. Luigi ended up murdering the top three bidders. Luckily, he didn't go for the top four, because Pavi was the fourth top bidder. Of course, this meant that Pavi won the auction, and he now proudly wears his sister's face over his disfigured one.
As for Shilo, her whereabouts aren't quite known, since she turned down inheriting GeneCo. She is definitely still very much alive, but we don't know what happened to her.
That is why we must wait for the sequel…Repo! The Genetic Opera 2: The Search for More Zydrate.
…Actually there is no current sequel being planned out. All we can do is assume that Shilo decided to follow in her godmother's footsteps and became a Genetic Opera star. Only time will tell.