Charles Incorporated
Old Mr. Wonka sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. It bothered him that he was so tired all the time. He used to be so full of dance, song, bright light, and sweetness. He grimly suspected it wasn't mere age that sapped his energy.
Mr. Wonka's world, you see, had gone horribly wrong. He'd built an empire on rainbows and happy dreams only to have it turned into a twisted black nightmare. He wasn't exactly sure how it happened. He wasn't quite sure how it happened. He wasn't quite sure of a lot of things these days. But he knew something was wrong, that much he was sure of. He wouldn't know and by all means shouldn't know, but something in the back of his mind always brought him back. It was their mistake. They shouldn't have allowed him a television in the nursing home.
Every afternoon, he'd see the face on TV- a kind face, excellent for television. It had a demeanor that made you trust it. It had a soft, firm voice and a slight smile like a best friend with an inside joke. For the most part, he looked exactly like he had when Mr. Wonka first met him, given thirty years. The difference was his eyes. Behind his kind exterior, where once could be seen only stars and hopes and big dreams, now hid only greed and treachery. It was the face on television that brought him back; that motivated him; that made him fight the medication. But it wasn't just the face. It was the monopoly it stood for. It was the mysterious death of Mr. Slugworth. It was the country of Loompaland he invaded and claimed for his own. It was the city he purchased in New York. It was his seat at the UN and his involvement in arms dealings to the middle east. Most of all, it was the name of the company he ran: Charles Incorporated. He'd changed it.
It took a week before Wonka was motivated enough to get up and do something. He had faked taking his medication for three days, allowing his memories to come back from repression and wash his consciousness. He achieved his good old medium: eccentrically lucid. Now it was time to make good his escape.
He put on his bathrobe and slippers and looked in the mirror. He would need a top hat if he was to get anything done at all. He grabbed his walker and hobbled out to the cafeteria for breakfast. Behind the counter, a familiar fat man was scooping applesauce onto cafeteria trays and eyeing Mr. Wonka out of the corner of his eye. Mr. Wonka wasn't interested in applesauce or suspicious glances. He casually hobbled his way towards the front door where he was halted by an inordinately dense security force.
"Where do ya think you're goin there, Wonka?" said a security guard whose name was Carl.
"I just thought I'd go for a walk." Wonka wheezed.
"Not according to Charles, you're not."
"These are not Charles' legs, and this is not Charles' waistline to be concerned with. They're mine. As of now, consider yourself informed I'm going for a walk."
Carl raised his gun and said: "You're not going anywhere."
But Wonka was prepared. From common cleaning products found in the janitorial closet, he had made a smoke bomb of dark, thick purple. Wonka turned to walk away, allowing Carl to holster his weapon before turning suddenly and flinging the device to the ground. A purple haze flooded the lobby and Wonka craftily maneuvered his walker around the guards, stealing one of their guns on the way there. Just out the door, a strong hand clapped him on the shoulder.
"Gotcha!" yelled Carl. "Thought you could get away, did y…"
He was interrupted by a soup ladle striking him rather abruptly in the temple. He collapsed unconscious and the familiar cafeteria worker stood in his place.
"Augustus Gloop at your service, Mr. Wonka." He said in a silly German accent.
"Well," said Wonda, "if it isn't the fat boy who drank from my chocolate river."
"Yes sir. We've got to get you out of here. We've got to find the others."
"Sounds fine. Give me a lift to your ride, will you fat boy? I'm not too swift on this here walker."
He sheathed his soup ladle and carried Wonka to a waiting car just as the guards made chase.
The car was a typical black van with a red stripe down the side. Mr. Wonka was ducked into it and a sack was placed over his head. Augustus shouted the German word for "go" and the van squealed out. A thirty minute ride later, he was pushed out of the car into an indiscriminate warehouse in an undisclosed New York ghetto.
Once inside, the sack was removed to reveal a huge open room littered with computer equipment and a hodgepodge of illegal weaponry.
At one of the consoles was a thin, black-haired man with a white cowboy hat. He had very pronounced front teeth and a rifle at his side. In the center of the room was a table littered with handguns, cigarette butts, and poker hands. At it were seated two women: one, an attractive, prim woman in a red dress and fur coat with a snobbish expression on her face and sandy blonde hair, and the other, a plump brunette chain smoker in a pantsuit with a slightly bluish complexion.
"Welcome, Mr. Wonka." said the attractive blonde "I am Ms. Salt. This is Violet and the man at the computer is Mike Teve. You're probably wondering why you're here."
"Not at all." said Wonka. "I suppose you all just want another tour of the factory. Well, you've come to the wrong guy. It's under new management."
"A tour of the factory." said Salt. "That is exactly what we want. But we're not concerned with the new management. We thought we'd get a much more experienced tour guide to…"
"Oh, pipe down with the double-talk, Salt." Violet interrupted as she lit another cigarette. "Here's the deal, Wonka. That guy you left in charge of the factory is an ass. It's time to get rid of him and I know you want him out as much as we do. We have the means. Mike Teve over there is recon because of his observation abilities. Ms. Salt is our illegal arms connection and our major funding provider. Augustus Gloop is our resident tough guy and chef and I am the tactical mind."
"Well, it seems you've got this operation under wraps. What do you need me for?"
"Loompas." said Teve. "Charles has millions of Loompas under his thumb. It's an army- armed to the teeth with machine guns and bombs. It's like munchkin land gone horribly wrong. We can break into the factory, but there's no way we can fight off the Loompas."
"And what, may I ask, do you four get out of this?" said Wonka.
"Shares." said Violet. "Lots of shares. We're not interested in running a chocolate factory/ munitions factory/ military power. We just want a hefty cut and some influence."
"And I want an oompa loompa." said Ms. Salt.
Violet rolled her eyes and said "Well, let's get to it."
For the next four hours, they sat and planned around poker and beers until they finally came to a good plan of attack. The next day, the began the assault.
The fence that used to surround the factory was now replaced by a ten foot concrete wall topped with coils of razor wire. The surrounding city, which Charles controlled, was policed heavily by loompa guards. The people that lived there were in poverty and worked as slaves in the factory under loompa taskmasters. The entire community was a communism whose economy revolved solely around the factory. There was not an inch of the city that was not under Charles' complete control. Inside the factory wall, legions of loompas tirelessly patrolled. Getting in would be the easy part.
The black van with the red stripe was heavily armored and bulletproof. Under the hood was an engine that made an Abram tank look like a toy. It could generate enough torque to ram through anything, but the van's body wouldn't be able to take it. So, to the front of the van Augustus fastened a large industrial strength snowplow and reinforced the front and sides with steel beams. Underneath the bulletproof glass windows on the sides and back, he drilled three inch diameter holes through which guns could be fired. Lastly, the back of the van was filled with plastic explosives for which Ms. Salt had a detonator.
The van drove slowly through the outskirts of the city, making it's way towards the center where security was tightest. Always, they were watched by loompas hiding around corners. A quarter mile away from the factory gate, the van was met by a roadblock of jeeps and transports behind which stood about forty loompas with guns drawn. One of them had a megaphone.
"Halt!" he yelled. "Get out of the vehicle with your hands up and state your names and your business or we will open fire!"
Augustus gunned the engine and the van surged forwards at full speed. It pushed the trucks aside like wind through grass. The loompas' bullets bounced off the armored hide like ping pong balls as the van's passengers shredded them with machine gun fire. The van continued forward towards the gate, running over or shooting many loompas on the way. Once at the wall, it tore through the foot thick wooden gate without but barely slowing down. It continued on to the door of the factory straight through the loompa patrol and mowed them down. The van plowed through the front door so that it's sliding door was inside.
The five insurgents filed out in full body armor with machine guns and grenades. Wonka had his walker. They swiftly made their distance away from the van towards what used to be the candy forrest.
Loompas from all over the city were rushing towards the crash site. Ms. Salt waited a minute until she heard the loompas' rams pummeling the wall and hit the detonator. They felt the heat of the tremendous explosion from where they stood inside the building. Cries from loompas echoed all around.
The code to the candy forrest had of course been changed but they were able to bypass the lock with a grenade. As the smoke cleared, Wonka let out a grunt of disgust for what had become of it. There was no candy. The lush sugar grass carpet had been replaced with brushed steel. Where once were gummi bear trees and jawbreaker bushes now stood hundreds and hundreds of armed and armored loompas in formation. Worst of all, the chocolate river was now one of gasoline.
All at once, the lines of loompas turned to face the stairs where the five stood. Their guns raised as one and cocked. The four in front separated to allow Mr. Wonka to hobble through. The loompas' guns wavered but did not drop.
"Hello my oompa loompas." Wonka wheezed. "Look at you. What are you doing with those hideous guns? How can you dance in that terribly cumbersome armor?"
One of the loompas stepped forward to speak.
"We… don't dance anymore." said he. "We…"
"What?" Wonka interrupted. "No dancing? Where is your loompa spirit of fun and song?"
"We're soldiers now." said another. "We don't have to work anymore. We get to oversee humans and guard the factory."
"And never dance or sing? To stand in lines still as statues colorless and uniform?"
"We did like the old days… tending the chocolate river… making candy… we felt like we belonged."
"Because this isn't you. You are not militant people. You are creatures of fun and joy. Join me today and you will sing and dance again."
"What shall we do? Rise against Charles? He leads us now."
"No." said Violet. "We will deal with Charles. Only allow us passage to the glass elevator and spread the word that revolution is at hand."
The ranks parted and the five passed through to the door. Wonka led them through a labyrinth of hallways to an elevator doorway. He pressed the button and the doors opened. They rode the elevator up three levels and sideways, forwards, backwards, forwards in time, backwards in time, inside out and diagonally through six dimensions before arriving at a large room at the top of a large black tower. Inside, there were two doors, on either side of a shiny wooden desk. On the right was a cappuccino machine and on the left about six loaded file cabinets. Behind the desk, under a purple top hat, was a kindly looking middle age man with a glint of evil behind his cold blue eyes.
"Hello Charlie." said Wonka.
"My name," said the man, "is Charles. I see you five have made it far. You've penetrated my inner sanctum. You don't honestly think, now that you're here, that you're getting out alive, do you?"
"The oompa loompas no longer serve you." said Ms. Salt. "What are you going to do about it?"
Charles let out a deep belly laugh.
"The oompa loompas are easily led. They'll be mine again within the hour, once you're dead. I don't believe you've met my personal bodyguards."
Charles pressed a button under his desk and the doors on either side opened. From them came four black, blob like amoebas with huge saucer eyes. The creatures immediately launched themselves at Wonka's four companions, entwining their limbs so they couldn't move.
"Meet the vermicious knids." said Charles. "I met all kinds of new friends when I invaded Loompaland. These guys will work for oompa loompas to snack on and they're quite loyal."
Augustus Gloop, being the largest and strongest of the group, was beginning to wrestle free of his knid and threw it against the wall and advanced on Charles.
"Fat boy, get the hat!" yelled Wonka.
Augustus lumbered towards Charles, who quaked with fear. He snatched up the hat and threw it to Wonka just as the vermicious knid peeled itself from the wall and once again entwined him.
"Fat lot of good that will do you." said Charles. "You can't really cater any delusions of being a match for me, do you? Look at you. You can't even stand without that walker, you decrepit old loony."
Wonka placed the hat upon his head, threw the walker aside, and took a step. Immediately, his support gone, he began to fall forwards. Suddenly, his body arched downwards and he launched himself into a back hand spring. Wonka sailed through the air, did a flip over the desk, and landed forward, kicking Charles in the face. Wonka drew the pistol he'd stolen from the nursing home guard and aimed it at Charles' forehead.
"Please," said Charles, "I'm still a good kid. It was just a phase, that's all. C'mon, it's me, Charlie! The knids made me do it.!"
"You lose. Good day, sir." Wonka growled and pulled the trigger. He turned back to his ensnared companions.
"You own them now." said Ms. Salt. "Tell them to let us go."
"Eat them." said Wonka with an evil gleam. He holstered the gun, sat at the desk, and watched with morbid fascination as the knids did their work. Never again would he trust anyone other than himself with any part of his property. He rooted around in the desk until he found a jar of Wonka-vite he'd left there years ago. He took a capsule and the years melted from his face. Never again.