Chapter 28
Putting It All Together, or
Some Plot Assembly Required
Hundreds of armed audience members aimed every conceivable kind of hand weapon at Rupert and his band.
"Eef dey're a band," quipped Boris, "dey're all tone deaf!"
"They're tone deaf?" retorted Natasha. "Have you heard yourself sing?"
"Sharrup you mouth!"
"Sharrup both you mouths!" shouted Fearless Leader. "And breeng dem up here!"
Simon and Cad and Klink and Schultz came down the aisles to supervise their capture. "All right," barked Schultz, "everybody raus!"
"Hey, I wanted to bark at em to move!" Cad complained.
"You snooze, you lose, Cad!"
Michael slowly, casually leaned his wrist-radio hand closer to his head and whispered, "KITT, we could use a four-wheel-drive distraction right about now."
"I would be happy to oblige, Michael, but I'm afraid I can't."
"Why not?"
"While all of my runtime was occupied with calculating the override signal for the conveyor belt, two parking attendants sneaked up and booted me."
"They what?"
Klink sidled up to Michael, held up a with an identical wrist-radio, and grinned and said, "He said they booted him."
"Where did you get that!? That's top-secret Foundation tech!"
"It was the prize in my box of Sugar Corn Crunchies."
"You got a wrist-radio?" griped Joe. "All I got was a lousy set of temp tattoos, and they all gave me rashes."
The armed audience herded all their captives to the stage, with the laser tank aiming its turret right at them the whole time. They were halted just short of stepping onto the stage itself and Fearless Leader looked down on them with an evil grin. "Vell folks, how do you like the show?"
"I give it two thumbs down," Rupert answered.
"I give it two of a different finger!" Ima snapped.
Captain Rehab pushed his way through the armed crowd with a long cutlass and aimed it at Ima. "Belay your insults, wench!"
Everyone in Rupert's group immediately backed away from Ima as she slowly turned to Rehab and built toward an eruption that would make Krakatoa look like popped bubblegum. "WHAT'D YOU JUST CALL ME!?" Totally forgetting about the hundreds of guns pointed at her, she stomped toward Rehab and roared, "GIMME ONE GOOD REASON I SHOULDN'T REACH DOWN YOUR THROAT AND TURN YOU WRONG-SIDE OUT!"
Every single gun pointed at her cocked and aimed even more pointedly in her direction.
"GIMME A BETTER REASON!"
A snide, cultured British accent replied, "Perhaps it would be simpler to shoot you. It's what my ancestors would do to uncivilized, overly-aggressive American colonists who refused to comport themselves with humility in the presence of their betters." Sir Kumstance, the owner of the voice, emerged from the crowd and glared at Ima like she was a growth of fungus in an otherwise immaculate bathroom sink.
"Who asked you, King George the Turd!?"
Kumstance sniffed in contempt. "Typical American, always using such vulgar language."
"Maybe so, but how many wars have you won without our help!?"
Klink crowed, "Oh-hoho, that was a great comeback!"
Fred suddenly choked and gagged. "Oh boy, the Brothers Grime are here too!" On cue, Rank and Messy James came through the crowd, much more easily than Rehab or Kumstance did thanks to the crowd parting at least ten feet distance from either of them.
"At last, de gang's all heere!" Boris, a.k.a. World's Nastiest Nogoodnik, a.k.a. Pencil-Face (his nickname in high school) declared to Fearless Leader. "Everyone who's been steecking dere noses eento our beesiness ees all here for you to gloat over, Fearless Leader, oh boss-man, oh beloved schnook!"
"Save the boot-licking for your next performance review, Badenov!"
"Alreadee written three more pages of eet een my resume, Boss!"
Phil addressed Fearless Leader and Boris. "You mean that each and every one of us have interacted with your grand design in some way? It's hard to believe that only random confluences of the planes of existence could be responsible."
After a few seconds, Fearless Leader turned to Boris and Natasha and asked, "Vhat did he say?"
"He said the odds of all of us running into parts of your plan are pretty low," Myran translated.
"9,427,148.3 to 1 against," added Chip, "plus or minus 0.3."
For those readers who just stumbled upon this chapter at random, or decided this whole novel was too long and slow to come out to bother with anymore, Phil Harmonik will now list the different parts of Fearless Leader's plan our characters stuck their noses into:
"Abigail, Feathers, and I met the Joker and Catwoman stealing the diamonds that you are now using in your destructive laser rifles."
"And I haven't forgotten how you nutjobs nearly drowned us in pie filling!" Feathers shouted.
Phil ignored the interruption. "Ima and Gary inadvertently took possession of the circuits and flash drives meant for Control, which Klink and Schultz then tried to steal for Central Control. We still don't know your intentions for them."
Dr. McDonnald replied to this. "They were part of the controlling circuitry for the laser tank. The experimental jet Captain Rehab sent us provided the rest."
"Our jet!" snapped Luke.
"That would be Jerry, Rhoda, and Chip's part of the story," said Phil.
"Of course, since your so-called agent here," McRonnald thumbed Gary, "only gave us half the circuits you were supposed to surrender, I had to tell Sir Kumstance to frisk your Robot for viable substitutes!"
"It is fortunate that the memory circuits that Sir Kumstance removed from me are not vital to my function," said the Robot. "They contain my data on United States income tax tables, historical geography of Africa up to the year 1800, and the complete collection of Adam Sandler's motion pictures." The Robot turned to McRonnald and added, "You may keep that one."
Phil continued: "To continue, these two men," he referred to... "Simon and Cad, if I remember? They stole a disc from a convention in Houston because it accidentally recorded the location of Central Control's secret headquarters. For as-yet-unknown reasons, the forces connecting all of us chose Rupert, Digger, and the Robot to be there at that time."
"The only forces that chose us to be there were Myran's missing communicorder and his stupid transmat," grumbled Rupert.
"Which are as much parts of the universe of forces as we are."
"Moving on...!"
"Fred and Barney were at a dude ranch in Texas when these two . . gentlemen -"
He looked at Rank and Messy James. Rank and Messy looked behind them in confusion. "Who came in?" asked Rank.
Phil continued, "They stole a very large diamond to use in the laser tank." After a moment of thought, he added sadly, "Using such a large diamond to amplify and focus electromagnetic energies for destructive purposes, when it could just as easily focus calming psychic energies. Such potential for universal harmony going to waste for a base desire for domination of the earthly plane -"
"Focus, Philly Lama!" snapped Rupert. To Fearless Leader, he said, "Okay, so the big diamond, the little diamonds, the DVD, the computer chips, the jet, all of that was part of your fiendish plan', I get it, but tell me this: What the hell does Homer and Joe playing narc to a steroid pusher in a baseball stadium have to do with any of this?"
"Who said de steroid pusher vas de connection to us?" Natasha smirked and her eyes wandered toward Dr. Smith.
Everyone else looked at Smith. Smith's instinctive response was, "How dare you cast suspicion upon me! I am as pure as the driven snow!"
"Don't geeve us that old snowjob, Smith, you know you're vun of us!" countered Natasha.
"Is that true, Smith!?" demanded Homer, marching up to Smith and scowling at him. "Are you in with Pottsylvania!?"
"I most certainly am not!"
"Hey, I got a nose for garbage," said Joe, who also closed in on Smith, "and I know when someone's saying nothing but! And you've been saying more than anyone I've ever met ever since we met you!"
Michael also closed in on him, declaring, "You've been nervous and evasive ever since we got to Pottsylvania, and it's not just cause you're scared of this place! You're scared of every place!"
"Natasha's right, you're hiding something!" Rupert cut off Smith's last avenue of escape into the crowd. "Spill it, Smith! What's your connection to all this!?"
Smith's face fell. He realized it was no use, he couldn't keep his secret any longer. With a pathetic look of defeat, he finally confessed his connection to the grand Pottsylvanian scheme of things:
". . . I'm Natasha's fifth cousin, twice removed."
The rest of the captives rolled that revelation around in their minds for several seconds, until Rupert finally voiced how pretty much everyone was reacting. "What kind of a stupid connection is that!? I'm more closely connected genetically to an amoeba!"
"More closely than I am," noted Myran.
Imitating Smith's pompous accent, Robert retorted, "Spare me your extraterrestrial effrontery, you insufferable interstellar interloper!" He then turned to Smith and retorted in his normal voice, "Let's see you top that!"
"Indeed!"
"But een spite of everytheeng you've stuck your noses eento," Fearless Leader declared, "I now have de laser tank and de laser rifles, and I'm now readee to lead Pottsylvania forth to rule de vorld!"
A neon "Applause" sign lit up and his circle of thugs cheered and applauded on cue.
There was silence among the captives for several seconds after the jubilation died down, until Fred said, "Well? Isn't this the part where somebody tells the bad guy he'll never get away with this?"
"That's getting old, Fred," answered Homer.
"So are all the villains here, but they're still going strong," Fred replied.
"Vatch it, dah-ling!" barked Natasha.
"Fair warning, Fearless Leader!" warned Max. "Kill us, and Control will avenge us with all the power at its command!"
"Wait, who said anything about killing us!?" Gary stammered.
"Kill us," said the Robot, "and all the resources of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will be directed against you and your organization."
"Ha!" scoffed Fearless Leader. "You theenk I'm afraid of de resources' of any agency whose budget ees less dan dat of Pottsylvania's postal seestem?"
". . . That was a low blow."
"Kill us," warned Rupert, "and all the resources of R. C. Gumby Productions will . . . will . . . . . who'm I kidding?"
"Kill us," warned Bo, "an' the U.S. Air Force'll come down on you lahke sausage gravy on biscuits!
Rhoda gave him a weird look. "Sausage gravy on biscuits?"
"Ah'm hungry."
"You eat sausage gravy? I thought it was for stripping vacuum sealant off albatross feathers."
Bo gave her a weird look back, but then it turned thoughtful as he mused, "Well, I s'pose Luke's sausage gravy could do that."
"Hey!"
"And I don't even wanna know why you have vacuum sealant on anybody's feathers in the first place!" added Feathers.
" . . . . . What were we talking about?" asked Rhoda.
"We were talking about us all getting killed," said Joe.
"No we weren't!" panicked Fred.
Fearless Leader leered at the captives and said, "Relax, fools! Ve're not going to keell you just like dat. Dat vouldn't be any fun!"
"Really?" asked the Doctor. "What do you have in mind that's more fun than shooting us?"
"Heh-heh-heh, eet's a surprise!"
One quick scene-change later, all the captives found themselves tied up on the giant shooting gallery conveyor belt with Batman, Robin, and Maxwell Smart. Even KITT was towed in and dumped onto the conveyor belt, his wheels still booted. Rehab, Kumstance, Rank, Messy, Simon, Cad, Joker, Catwoman, and Klink joined the massive firing squad, now wielding their own laser rifles.
"Surprise!" Fearless Leader shouted.
"I hate surprises," Homer muttered.
"Wheeee!" Ab squealed with delight. "This is better than a roller coaster! Look out, Gary, I'm catching up to you! We can play follow the leader and we don't even have to get out of our seats!"
"Will SOMEBODY slap her!?" Feathers shouted.
"I think slapping would be a waste of time," Joe replied, "considering how much these guys want to turn us into melted Swiss cheese."
"A-hem!?" Catwoman shouted.
"Those guys and that girl," Joe corrected.
"Girl!?" Catwoman shouted again. "I'm forty-two years - I mean THIRTY-two! I'm THIRTY-two years old!"
"Hunh, and they call me the Joker!" he scoffed, earning an angry hiss from his partner in slime.
The conveyor belt started up as Boris sauntered up to the shooting gallery. He had replaced his usual jet-black hat and coat ensemble with the outfit of a carnival side-show barker, complemented by a thin wooden cane which he waved toward the long row of captives slowly passing by.
"Step right up, schnooks!" he shouted. "Step right up and test your shooting arms! Heet a goodee-two-shoes and vin a prize!"
"Prize? What do you mean?" asked Sir Kumstance.
"I'm glad you asked, my fiend! Natasha, tell our contestants vhat dey can vin!"
Natasha stepped up to a row of curtains. "Our contestants vill be shooting for a vonderful array of prizes!" The first curtain parted to reveal the first wonderful prize. "Shoot vun target and vin this brand-new clock radio! AM/FM digital tuning, snooze mode, and stereo speakers! Select radio alarm, buzzer, or high explosives! The only clock radio made right here in Pottsylvania! Guaranteed to vake up the dead!"
The second curtain opened. "Shoot two targets and vin this new flat-screen TV! 65-inch screen, stereo sound, remote control, and a built-in socket for either cable television or lethal electro-shock! Made right here in Pottsylvania, it's pre-tuned to Pottsylvania's favorite television station! Adapter for other channels not eencluded!"
Curtain number three: "Shoot three targets and vin this elegant bedroom set! Dressers complete vith secret compartments, a keeng-size bunkbed vith rifle hidden under the pillow, and a comfortable mattress set vith plenty of hidden stash room! Thees charming bedside table vith reading-and-signaling lamp! And all of this pre-vired for emergency self-destruct! Eet's all yours from Pottsylvania Home Furniture!"
Natasha then pulled something out of her pocket and held it up for display as she declared, "Shoot Joe Fool and vin this rhinestone bracelet!"
"What!?" shouted Joe. "I'm only worth a stinking piece of cheap crud!?"
"You are a stinking piece of cheap crud," replied Homer.
"I hate you."
Boris stepped back into the limelight. "And all theese can be yours, eef de shot ees right!"
Canned applause started playing over the loudspeakers. Barney glared at Fearless Leader as he passed by. "You cossack! Eet ees willians like you dat geeve every-vun vith Eurasian accents a bad name!"
"You're sick!" 99 cried at Fearless Leader. "Is this all a big joke to you!?"
"Joke? No," Fearless Leader replied, "I just like to be deefferent. You folks aren't enjoyeeng thees, even just a leettle bit?"
"Yes, Fearless Leader, I can tell you quite truthfully that we aren't enjoying this," Batman answered.
At that moment, everyone stopped for a second and turned toward the Doctor. He'd started whistling.
"At least, most of us aren't," Batman amended.
Sarah glared at him. "Doctor, how can you just sit there whistling like that instead of doing something!?" The Doctor didn't reply, but just kept on whistling.
The bad guys then noticed something creeping slowly toward the stage, leaving a thick trail of green paint.
"Look, it's Digger!" Fred shouted. "The Doctor must have called him over here to save us! That's it, Digger, kick their butts! Bite their legs off! Go prehistoric all over their hineys!"
The shooting contestants didn't run at Digger's approach. They laughed. Fearless Leader, loudest of all as Digger stopped next to him and wheezed a low growl at him.
"This ancient mutt ees trying to save you!?" he cackled. "Vhat's hee going to do, run over my feet vith his vheelchair!? Gum mee in thee leg!?
Fearless Leader's raucous, cackling laughter slowly died off and his jaw slowly dropped as he began to feel something warm and wet run down his right shin. When he finally got up the nerve to look down, he saw exactly what he was afraid of: His pant leg was soaking wet, a yellow puddle was spreading around his foot, and Digger was looking up at him with an expression that seemed to say, "Take that!"
Jerry grinned. "He may be old, but he's got a leg up on you!"
One second later, Digger howled louder than he had in years as he sailed through the air under the sudden propulsion of Fearless Leader's boot. Even though still tied up, Batman made a heroic lunge and caught him in his lap, but Digger was still bumped and bruised and badly shaken up, and the poor old dog moaned softly as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Fearless Leader's heinous act stunned everyone to silence. Even Boris and Natasha never thought their superior would stoop so low. Even the Doctor stopped whistling temporarily as the tension in the air needed a chainsaw to cut.
Finally, several moments later:
"Oh. You did not just do that," said Jerry in a low, calm - frighteningly calm - voice.
"Yes, I deed just do that, and I'm glad I deed eet!" Fearless Leader sneered back. "I'm only sorry he vasn't a puppy eenstead!"
The expression on Jerry's face slowly transformed into one so angry, so furious, that no words could ever fully describe it in this novel, so I'll just say that her next words were:
"It . . . is . . . on!"
With a monumental force of effort, she hurled her tightly-bound body once, twice across the conveyor belt, and finally threw herself off, onto the floor, and smoothly rolling to a standing position facing Fearless Leader and his army with a silent snarl of pure rage.
She then spun herself rapidly around, and she was suddenly enveloped in a brilliant flash of light accompanying by a deafening thunderclap. When the flash faded, she was unbound, and she now wore a golden tiara on her head, a strapless red, yellow, and blue bodysuit with white stars, shiny red knee-length boots, golden bracelets, and a golden lasso hanging from her belt.
"What the hell!?" shouted Rupert. "Since when are you able to do that!?"
"You got your favorite old TV shows, I got mine!"
"Well, this is one rerun that's been cancelled!" sneered Simon Bar Sinister. "Simon says... burn!"
He fired his laser rifle. Jerry caught the beam in her bracelets and reflected it back into the crowd of villains, where it turned half of Cad's hairdo into smoldering charcoal.
"Mind if I smoke?" he whimpered.
Three Pottsylvanian goons fired at her. She deflected all three laser shots, one of them toward the refreshment table at the back of the auditorium, where it set an entire platter of doughnuts on fire. Schultz, who had retreated to the table when everyone else was given deadly laser rifles, wailed in horror at the senseless destruction of so many doughy treats. "WHYYYYYYYY!? Oh, the confectionary!"
A few hefty goons charged Jerry. She tossed them aside like rag dolls. One of them landed on KITT's windshield. KITT turned on his wipers and shoved the goon off. "Typical. Even when I'm booted, people want to hitch rides."
It was only then that people noticed the Doctor was whistling again, more quickly this time as if he was underscoring Jerry s action scene.
"I appreciate the fight music, Doc, but you're way off-key!" Jerry told him as she judo-flipped yet another goon.
"Enough!" shouted Fearless Leader. "Vhy are henchmen alvays so stupid as to attack vun at a time!? Have you forgotten you're an army of hundreds strong!? Everee-vun, ready rifles!"
Suddenly remembering they were a mindlessly obedient mob, every spy in the audience stood to attention and hefted their laser rifles at every captive on the conveyor belt. Fearless Leader sneered at Jerry. "Let's see you block eight hundred laser beams at vunce, old lady! Take aim!"
Jerry's confidence evaporated. Fearless Leader was right, even she couldn't manage that!
The Doctor was still whistling happily.
"And I vant at least a hundred of you aiming at that Doctor! I hate vhistling!"
The Doctor whistled a surprised question.
"FIRE!"
The rifle shooters pressed the triggers . . . and all that emerged from McRonnald's rifles were a few sick-sounding electrical sparks.
"VHAT EES EET!?" Fearless Leader screamed. "Ees there some regulation that nothing can go right for the bad guys in thees novel!?"
The puzzled riflers looked at their guns from every angle, with absolutely no idea what went wrong or where to look for what went wrong, until McRonnald asked to see Klink's rifle. He opened it up and saw what the problem was: "Oh my God, the focusing diamond's cracked! It's useless now!"
The others opened up their rifles and discovered all the other diamonds were cracked and useless. The Pottsylvanian rifle squad was now about as dangerous as . . . well, as dangerous as a large bunch of unarmed thugs, unarmed with the exception of the large arsenal of chemical weapons which Rank and Messy James' body odors could easily be used as.
It was Myran who was the first to realize why the diamonds had cracked, and he turned and smirked at the Doctor. "You said that a particular sonic frequency could shatter the crystals while they were resonating in the laser assembly."
Sarah got it and smirked too. "You've been whistling at that frequency!"
The Doctor beamed. "I was, wasn't I?" To Jerry, he suddenly turned indignant and added, "Who says I'm off-key? Who do you think taught Caruso how to hit those high notes?"
"Well, Fearless Leader," said Rupert, "looks like hunting season is over!"
"That's vhat you think!"
Fearless Leader snapped his fingers, and the huge laser tank rumbled forward, aiming its turret right at the conveyor. The rifle-toting contestants screamed in unison and ran for cover.
"Medic?" Gary whimpered.
"Relax, Gary" whispered 99, "McRonnald built that tank with the phony circuits you gave him. It won't work either!"
The tank fired. The whole room exploded.
When the dust cleared, everyone and everything was scattered all over creation in various states of disrepair. Even Wonder Jerry was thrown into a heap among the wreckage. Mind you, don't ask me how, but no one was killed, and the levels of pain they were all feeling telegraphed that fact pretty well.
Boris wasn't spared from the carnage either. He sat tattered and half-cooked on his head in Natasha's lap. She, in turn, was sitting on her ear in the middle of a fallen chandelier.
"Now dat's deestruction!" Boris crowed in ecstasy. "Fire, eexplosions, chaos, mass mayhem...!"
"Oh Boris, you say de sveetest things!"
"Boris, Natasha," said Ima, "do the world a favor. Get therapy."
"I have email addresses for several highly respected spiritual therapists you might try," added Phil.
Homer turned to Phil. "Spiritualists use email?"
"We're not primitives."
Gary turned to 99. "You said the tank wouldn't work!"
"They must have real circuits!" she gasped.
"Gary, what did you do!?" demanded Max.
"I did exactly what you told me to! I gave 'em the copies - the same copies your lab gave me - I swear! You and 99 were with me the whole time!"
"Then how could they have possibly obtained the real circuits!?"
With sudden, horrified realization, 99 exclaimed, "Max, you did tell the lab we wanted copies that don't really work, didn't you!?"
Max started to respond, but then halted when he realized he might have forgotten that little detail in the requisition.
At that moment, a mega-loud scream was heard from the other side of the gigantic hole the tank's massive laser beam blew through the back wall. Everyone saw that on the other side of the hole was Dr. McRonnald's lab. Dominating the view through the hole was the stolen top-secret jet fighter, in inexplicably much better condition than anything else in the lab. The perpetrator of the scream, Dr. McRonnald himself, stormed through the hole, mad enough to chew a steel girder and spit its remains through every car tire in Pottsylvania.
"LOOK WHAT YOU MANIACS DID TO MY LAB!" he screamed. "Half my equipment's smashed to pieces! The other half is fried extra crispy! All my experiments are a total shambles, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT! . . . WELL!? WHAT'VE YOU GOT TO SAY FOR YOURSELVES!?"
"Does our jet still work?" asked Bo.
"Let's find out!" replied Luke. Before anyone could react, the two brothers leaped up from the undignified heap they landed in, sprinted to the fighter, and jumped inside.
"All right, Fearless Leader!" shouted Luke from the cockpit's front seat. "Let's see how yer laser tank stands up ta th' latest in Air Force firepower! Bo, give er th' guns!"
While Luke powered up the engines and weapons systems, Bo, in the rear seat, flipped up the safety cap on the weapons joystick and thumbed the firing button hard and fast.
Nothing happened.
"I emptied the guns before removing the circuits I needed," McRonnald explained.
"Damn," said Bo. He reached for the missile launch controls and activated the launch sequence.
Nothing happened.
"I removed the missiles, too," said McRonnald.
"Do ya know how much that ammunition costs!?" shouted Bo. "Ya better have stored it in a safe place!"
"We ain't licked yet, Bo! Try the flame thrower!" Bo did as Luke said, powered up the flame thrower, aimed for the tank, and fired.
Nothing happened.
"I drained the propane tanks," said McRonnald.
"Did ya at least leave th' radio in!?" Bo replied sarcastically.
"Vell, thees vas fun," said Fearless Leader, "but back to bees'ness. Charge up de tank again!"
Everyone soon heard the sounds of the laser tank powering up again. The firing squad cautiously came back into the remains of the shooting gallery to watch.
"Bo, Luke, try something else!" shouted Sarah. "Anything else!"
"Forget it, girlee!" retorted Fearless Leader. "I had Dr. McRonnald remove or empty everee veapon on dat plane, and deesconnect everee gadget dese Southern-fried jet jockies might use against us!"
". . . Except . ." muttered McRonnald.
Fearless Leader gave McRonnald the evil eye. "Vhat do you mean, except'!?"
"There was this one control in the cockpit that was just a big white button with a letter T on it. I couldn't figure out how to disconnect it. I don't even have a clue what that does!"
Bo and Luke did. With a big grin, Luke pushed the button.
This time, something happened. The jet plane began to shake alarmingly. Most of the people in the vicinity thought maybe it was going to explode or something, but truth was a lot stranger than imagination.
Selected sections of the fighter began to come apart while others drew closer together. The wings reversed direction and folded up behind the fuselage. The landing gear retracted and the fighter's nose tilted up as the rear lowered to the floor. The engine exhaust vents telescoped out from the fighter's body, and the middle of each telescope section bent at a huge joint. Huge rod-like sections of the undercarriage also telescoped out and bent in similar fashions, and their bases folded outward toward the sides of the fuselage. The nose folded back and behind at a hidden joint, and tucked in between the folded-back wings. The telescoping exhaust vents bent and shifted in such a way as to lift the rest of the changing aircraft to a vertical position, making the fighter appear to be rising up on giant . . legs? The telescoping undercarriage rods completed their shifting as the ends opened up, and extending out from the interiors of the rods were huge . . hands? At the very top, a hidden opening was revealed by the folded nose, and rising up from it was an enormous . . head? . . . Oh no . . . It can't be!
"It is," Rupert groaned.
There it was, folks, the greatest secret of the experimental new jet fighter Bo and Luke were entrusted to guard. The aircraft was now standing upright and looking down on the laser tank in the form of a giant robot!
"It's not just a jet," Fred gasped, "it's a Transformer!"
"'Transformer,'" Bo repeated, and his face beamed. "Ah like it! That's a darn good name for our baby!" He then told his brother Luke scornfully, "An' you wanted ta call it a Go-Bot!"
"Will everyone excuse me?" said Homer. "I have to step outside and throw up."
In Memory of
JUNE FORAY
(1917-2017)
Rupert, Ima, Gary, Phil, Myran, Jerry, Rhoda, Ab, Feathers, Homer, Joe, Chip, and Digger are copyright to me, myself, and I. All other characters are copyright to their respective production companies and the actors who portrayed them, as detailed in previous chapters. The only new character in this chapter is the one Jerry cosplayed, originally copyright to DC Comics in print, and then to Douglas S. Cramer Co., Bruce Lansbury Productions, and Warner Brothers Television Distribution on TV, where she was brought to life by Lynda Carter.
"Uh, does the airplane turning into a robot count as another copywritten character?" asked Ima.
. . . . If it does, then it's copyright to Hasbro and brought to life by . . . oh hell, just Google the voice cast list for the cartoon! Is there any copywritten character that ISN'T gonna show up in this freakin' huge rip-off!?
"We couldn't get any ponies," replied Gary. "They're booked solid for fanfiction gigs for the next several years."
Figures . . . and thank heaven for small mercies.
