Chapter 1: Purgatory Burger
It was a quiet day at Starbucks in South Beach. The teenaged girl working the counter barely looked up when a blonde man ordered a Chai latte. She turned around, ordered her hardworking associate, and asked for the three-fifty she had obviously earned in the asking for it. The blonde man paid for his drink and sat down with a copy of "The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin."
Out of the bathroom, then, came a man most peculiar. His hair was long and greasy, his once white coat hung in rags about his shoulders, his pants were stained with blood, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of what appeared to be tinted welder's glasses. The greasy man in the tattered lab coat was QUIBBLECUE, end-times prophet from the future.
Quibblecue: You!
Blond Man: Yes?
Quibblecue: You are Chris Knight, correct?
Blond Man: Nnno, I'm VAL KILMER.
Quibblecue: Ah! You operate under an alias to keep the lizard people from discovering you and destroying you! Very smart Chris Knight, you truly are a "Real Genius," but I see through your façade and require your knowledge of optics.
Val Kilmer: Huh? Chris Knight. is a character I...
Quibblecue: Do not worry, Mr. Knight! I am not an agent.
Val Kilmer: An agent?
Quibblecue: An agent. Of the Matrix.
Val Kilmer: You are a very sick man.
Quibblecue: Sick? But I have not been bitten by the virus-carrying monkey. *looks around, warily* Not yet, anyway.
Val Kilmer: Hey, look, it's Batman!
Val made a break for it. He ran, but before he could make it out the door he was struck in the back of the skull and blacked out.
-----
Awake, but in a great deal of pain, Val noticed he was stretched out in the backseat of his BMW. Quibblecue was at the wheel.
Val Kilmer: What did you do to me?
Quibblecue: I had to employ a sacred ritual in order to keep you from fleeing.
Val Kilmer: Sacred ritual... what's that on the passenger seat?
Quibblecue: The tool I used to transfer the positive energy of my suggestion into your mind.
Val Kilmer: It's a sock full of quarters!
Quibblecue: You were hysterical. Perhaps you weren't ready to be unplugged from the Matrix.
Val realized then that Quibblecue was going much too fast for a local street.
Val Kilmer: You crash this car and I'll kill you.
Quibblecue: Excessive velocity is necessary. I have placed a sign in the back window to alert any authority figure who might try to stop us.
Val Kilmer: *reading* Bomb in Car, Can't Go Under 55. *replacing sign* You do know you're fuckin' nuts, right?
Quibblecue: No, I am not "nuts." I am bipedal hominid singular.
Val Kilmer: ...
Quibblecue: I apologize. I have failed to introduce myself. I am Quibblecue, the last scientist of the twenty-fifth century.
Val Kilmer: I don't wanna know.
Quibblecue: *not hearing* In my time, the planet has decayed to the point of...
Val Kilmer: Oh, shut up. I don't care. Want some money? I have money. Just leave me AND my goddamned car out of this.
Quibblecue: I apologize, Mr. Knight, but this is necessary. The fate of the world depends on you and your skill! Val Kilmer: But I have no.
Quibblecue smacked Val with the sock full of quarters, silencing him. In his delirium, Val didn't notice Quibblecue fling him out of the car until he hit the pavement. The car went faster, and Quibblecue yelled, "I'll be back! Just stay right there!"
-----
Meanwhile, in Canada, a flash of light was followed by a hissing noise. From out of the haze came a snake, MEEKLE OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE, slithering into the rain duct.
Not far away, BRUCE CAMPBELL retreated to his hotel room after a night of drinking and sci-fi conventions. As he browses the minibar, he realizes that the burrito he ate for dinner was not becoming one with his digestive system without putting up a fight. Bruce ran to the bathroom, dropped his pants, and did what all men do when Mexican food calls. However, Bruce soon noticed that something was definitely wrong with his lower plumbing as, instead of the desired effect one expects when sitting down on the toilet, he came to find a snake swimming up his ass. Bruce didn't scream, but he was on the toilet and humans are conditioned against screaming while on the toilet in a public place. Try it sometime.
It was a quiet day at Starbucks in South Beach. The teenaged girl working the counter barely looked up when a blonde man ordered a Chai latte. She turned around, ordered her hardworking associate, and asked for the three-fifty she had obviously earned in the asking for it. The blonde man paid for his drink and sat down with a copy of "The Religion of Teilhard de Chardin."
Out of the bathroom, then, came a man most peculiar. His hair was long and greasy, his once white coat hung in rags about his shoulders, his pants were stained with blood, and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of what appeared to be tinted welder's glasses. The greasy man in the tattered lab coat was QUIBBLECUE, end-times prophet from the future.
Quibblecue: You!
Blond Man: Yes?
Quibblecue: You are Chris Knight, correct?
Blond Man: Nnno, I'm VAL KILMER.
Quibblecue: Ah! You operate under an alias to keep the lizard people from discovering you and destroying you! Very smart Chris Knight, you truly are a "Real Genius," but I see through your façade and require your knowledge of optics.
Val Kilmer: Huh? Chris Knight. is a character I...
Quibblecue: Do not worry, Mr. Knight! I am not an agent.
Val Kilmer: An agent?
Quibblecue: An agent. Of the Matrix.
Val Kilmer: You are a very sick man.
Quibblecue: Sick? But I have not been bitten by the virus-carrying monkey. *looks around, warily* Not yet, anyway.
Val Kilmer: Hey, look, it's Batman!
Val made a break for it. He ran, but before he could make it out the door he was struck in the back of the skull and blacked out.
-----
Awake, but in a great deal of pain, Val noticed he was stretched out in the backseat of his BMW. Quibblecue was at the wheel.
Val Kilmer: What did you do to me?
Quibblecue: I had to employ a sacred ritual in order to keep you from fleeing.
Val Kilmer: Sacred ritual... what's that on the passenger seat?
Quibblecue: The tool I used to transfer the positive energy of my suggestion into your mind.
Val Kilmer: It's a sock full of quarters!
Quibblecue: You were hysterical. Perhaps you weren't ready to be unplugged from the Matrix.
Val realized then that Quibblecue was going much too fast for a local street.
Val Kilmer: You crash this car and I'll kill you.
Quibblecue: Excessive velocity is necessary. I have placed a sign in the back window to alert any authority figure who might try to stop us.
Val Kilmer: *reading* Bomb in Car, Can't Go Under 55. *replacing sign* You do know you're fuckin' nuts, right?
Quibblecue: No, I am not "nuts." I am bipedal hominid singular.
Val Kilmer: ...
Quibblecue: I apologize. I have failed to introduce myself. I am Quibblecue, the last scientist of the twenty-fifth century.
Val Kilmer: I don't wanna know.
Quibblecue: *not hearing* In my time, the planet has decayed to the point of...
Val Kilmer: Oh, shut up. I don't care. Want some money? I have money. Just leave me AND my goddamned car out of this.
Quibblecue: I apologize, Mr. Knight, but this is necessary. The fate of the world depends on you and your skill! Val Kilmer: But I have no.
Quibblecue smacked Val with the sock full of quarters, silencing him. In his delirium, Val didn't notice Quibblecue fling him out of the car until he hit the pavement. The car went faster, and Quibblecue yelled, "I'll be back! Just stay right there!"
-----
Meanwhile, in Canada, a flash of light was followed by a hissing noise. From out of the haze came a snake, MEEKLE OF THE SNAKE PEOPLE, slithering into the rain duct.
Not far away, BRUCE CAMPBELL retreated to his hotel room after a night of drinking and sci-fi conventions. As he browses the minibar, he realizes that the burrito he ate for dinner was not becoming one with his digestive system without putting up a fight. Bruce ran to the bathroom, dropped his pants, and did what all men do when Mexican food calls. However, Bruce soon noticed that something was definitely wrong with his lower plumbing as, instead of the desired effect one expects when sitting down on the toilet, he came to find a snake swimming up his ass. Bruce didn't scream, but he was on the toilet and humans are conditioned against screaming while on the toilet in a public place. Try it sometime.