JESSICA
[0000]
I now turned human every five to ten minutes. I timed it with my phone while I was doing paperwork. For the rest of the time, I was a sexy animated character.
Anyways.
The bird folded her desk and paperwork back into a suitcase, leading us to the window.
I watched as she stepped out on the ledge like nothing was wrong or scary about it. God, I wanted to have courage like that!
Looking completely casual, the NBF auditor hopped off the concrete, and onto a cloud, standing on it like it were solid ground.
Turning around to face us, she unbuttoned her suit top, and a pair of wings exploded from her back like a springloaded umbrella, leaving her top half covered in nothing but a shiny white bra.
She unbuttoned the sides of her skirt, shook her hips a few times, and a big feathery tail burst out of her rear end, stripping her lower half to a pair of panties.
Her nurse's cap, strangely, stayed on her head.
I giggled, climbing out on the ledge. Chad, however, balked at the window.
Cupcake flapped her wings, which, apparently, still remained draped in parts of her uniform, or maybe were made from her uniform, drifting close to the ledge. "Take my hand."
I eagerly obeyed. "You got it, sister!"
Chad, on the other hand, looked very sick and pale.
"Sir," the bird said with the tone of an irritated paper pusher at the Department of Motor Vehicles. "Will you be accompanying Ms. Malleybuckthorn to NBF headquarters, or would you prefer we meet with you for the blood resampling at a later date?"
Swallowing, Chad stepped out on the ledge, taking her hand.
The bird could fly surprisingly fast, even with us weighing her down. My guess is that she may have delivered a few babies in her time.
That sounds totally wrong, but you know what I mean. Carrying around Baby Huey in your beak probably makes you strong enough to lift anything.
Rapidly we rose higher and higher in the air, passing what appeared to be miles of apartment suites on the building of impossible height that Chad inhabited.
At long last we came to the roof, which featured, for some strange reason, a helicopter pad, upon which a futuristic white chopper had been parked.
The vehicle reminded me of something from one of those 1980's toy related action cartoons, a bulky angular thing painted and molded to resemble an oversized stork.
Once on the pad, Cupcake dropped us on the concrete, trying to look all prim and proper as she folded her wings and tail down and buttoned up, pretending like she hadn't flown us to the roof in her underwear.
We were led into the small but oddly cozy interior of this vehicle, which just so happened to be piloted by a stork and Launchpad, that big chinned guy from Ducktales.
We settled in moon chairs with pink padded cushions, beneath a chandelier. A little Asian bird flight attendant soon decorated the coffee table between us with cups of tea and scones.
The rotors turned, and we sat in awkward silence, just staring at the generic scenery passing the open sliding doors.
"Whoa," the pilot cried in alarm. "Where are you bringing those two?"
"We need to take them down to HQ for resampling," the nurse replied.
"I thought you were going to just prick them with needles like you did that last couple."
"Last couple!" I cried, immediately drawing conclusions. "You mean-?"
They ignored me.
"I was, but this noid girl has a suggestion for an alternative. I need someone from R&D to check into it."
"Okay," the stork groaned. "It's your baby."
Cupcake shuddered. "God, I hope not."
It was the only helicopter I'd seen that didn't drown out all conversations with its machinery.
"Hey," said the stork, leaning over his seat. "Rasenburby. You on for the Bar Mitzvah this Saturday?"
I suppose this may have answered the question about circumcision I had posed earlier.
Cupcake shook her head. "Sorry, Eph. You know we're behind on quota."
"The woman likes her overtime," Launchpad laughed.
"Hey. I offered."
Our vehicle swooped over a hilly countryside covered all over with little squares of bright colors, crisscrossed with lines, the rows of planted crops. Plant sprayers, tillers and even something that looked like grain cultivators worked the land.
One whole section had been devoted to cucumbers and other relish related vegetables.
As we flew in lower, the theme song to Jurassic Park started up from an unseen speaker system, and I could see the big crops.
Like the logo for Cabbage Patch Kids, they all seemed to be nothing but heads wrapped in leaves, tended by dozens of storks.
Beyond these farms stood a complex of buildings, set up in a way that reminded me of an amusement park, except everything was baby related.
They had a tower that looked like an enormous baby bottle, attached to a building that looked like a cross between the Lincoln memorial and a baby crib...with windows. A second building looked like a massive rubber duck, and actually sat in a moat. Then there was a huge factory that appeared to be built from massive alphabet blocks, surrounded by bottle silos.
I grinned at Nurse Bird. "Cute. Very cute. You guys don't put on diapers and poop on yourself for fun, do you?"
Cupcake furrowed her brow. "Why...would we do that?"
"I don't know. Do you?"
The bird turned pink for a moment. "Our diapers are reserved for ripened babies. Speaking hypothetically, though..." She cleared her throat. "When you say `fun,' what (ahem) exactly are you implying?"
I shrugged. "Some people get off on it, sexually."
"Is that what your people do?"
"Some of us," I said with an amused smirk. "Not me personally."
The bird swallowed. "You're right. That is...disgusting. And we certainly don't do that kind of thing around here."
Her tone sounded official, but the look on her face said that someone would definitely be "doing that kind of thing" soon.
We landed on a helicopter pad painted with a giant Star of David, between a synagogue and a Vlasic pickle factory with a giant rotating jar on the roof, following Cupcake down a path lined with cucumber frames, where ducks in lab coats and glasses sprayed various nutrients on plants, took readings on things like flavor and crunchiness.
Cupcake explained what a Crunchitometer was as she led us to a motorized golf cart designed to look like a baby stroller. We rode through about an acre of experimental pickle crop, arriving at the (I didn't make this up) Bloch Building.
We marched through a fancy lobby decorated with framed baby pictures, gold trophies, and J.D. Power and Associates awards. Their baby pictures included Bugs Bunny, Miss Piggy, Grape Ape, Huey, Dewey and Louie.
I thought the awards would all be baby or pickle related, but it seems they have a sailing club, a motorcycle racing group and a golf team.
We stopped at a reception desk with a giant sign reading Vlasic National Baby Farms, and a plaque memorializing someone named Henry Blochhead. The desk was unattended...
...Sort of.
You see, Cupcake wore many hats, and she insisted on keeping things formal.
For this reason, she talked to an empty swivel chair. "Excuse me? Miss Rasenburby?"
In a flash, she was behind the desk, typing something on a computer.
Secretary Cupcake looked up at the empty space beside me. "Yes?"
Then Cupcake stood next to me again. "I have a noid and doodle couple who have a proposal for our R&D department."
Desk Cupcake: "All proposals must be submitted to the Review Board for approval before being sent to R&D."
Auditor Cupcake: "I'm afraid that's impossible. This is a time sensitive issue. It regards genetic material associated with subjects I've just audited. They're proposing an alternative to blood sampling."
Desk Cupcake: "I'm sorry. Rules are rules. You still need to go through the proper channels."
Auditor Cupcake: "So you'd rather let the assembly line put together another inferior product rather than allowing R and D to experiment on a potentially richer source of genetic material."
Desk Cupcake: "I didn't say that. I just said that all proposals needed to go through the appropriate channels."
Auditor Cupcake: "The baby is due to roll off the assembly line any minute now!"
Desk Cupcake: "Did you take any blood samples yet?"
Auditor Cupcake: "Well, no..."
Desk Cupcake: "Then you have nothing to worry about."
And then Desk Cupcake took a call. "Thank you for calling Vlasic National Baby Farms, this is Cupcake. What can Vlasic do for you?"
She paused.
"So your pickles are bending instead of snapping? I'm sorry to hear that. Let me connect you to Quality Control."
Auditor Cupcake turned around, giving us an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, sir and madam. It looks like we're going to need to meet with the Review Board."
I grinned. "It's okay. I'll be happy to wait."
Desk Cupcake handed me a clipboard with a stack of papers on it. "Please fill out all of these in triplicate."
Then she answered another call. "Thank you for calling Vlasic National Baby Farms, this is Cupcake. What can Vlasic do for you?"
She paused.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Bernstein. You have the maximum allowable amount of children. If you wish to have more, I suggest that you wait for the children to mature and have their own on a spinoff...Is it my fault you waived their ability to age?...
"No sir. But many would kill to have a child that never aged...
"We are aware that you keep trying. In fact, you're on the high score list. Would you like a trophy?
"No sir, I don't think that's a good idea...I know it's lighter than a baby, but pizzas cost money...
"Yes we are a delivery service, but it's not that kind of delivery. Where would we be if everyone started having sex just to get a vegetarian supreme?...
"No sir. We're Jewish. We would never ship pork products or meat with dairy...
"I was only speaking hypothetically, sir. We won't be doing that."
Losing interest, I took a seat in a strange chair that looked like a crib with kiddie blankets in it, filling out the forms, all of which consisting of nothing but "Lorem ipsum neque poro quisquam est" and so forth for whole pages.
Being gifted with a sense of humor, I just went with it and signed all the blanks. If someone animated wanted to take advantage of me, well, it wouldn't be the first time...and I figured I'd be just as fun.
"I feel like a father already," Chad said as he seated himself next to me.
I squeezed his hand. "You'll make a good one."
When I had finished signing forms, I got up to hand Desk Cupcake the clipboard, but Auditor Cupcake intercepted it, handing it to herself personally.
Desk Cupcake called someone, informing them of our visit, requiring a meeting with the Board.
"The Board will see you in ten minutes," she said.
I waited.
I tried reading a magazine, something called The Pacifier, but it was mostly lorem ipsum text with pictures.
At least they were moving pictures.
In one article, I learned that a stork named Yechzekiel Goldbeak had claimed the coveted Silver Cradle award for delivering a baby to parents who lost their home to a giant clumsy monster, actually tracking the couple down instead of placing the baby inside the demolished building. It was an interesting cartoon to watch.
Cupcake paged herself, appearing at the entrance of a hallway clad in hospital scrubs. "The board will see you now."
I followed her to an elevator, which just so happened to look like the interior of a baby bottle.
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience," said Auditor Cupcake. "But this is a very unusual situation."
Then, as Nurse Cupcake, "This is very unorthodox. Generally no one sees the board of directors without an appointment."
"Have you ever seen Fight Club?" I asked...both of her.
"No," said Nurse Cupcake.
"And if we did," Auditor Cupcake said. "We wouldn't talk about it."
I chuckled, but Chad only looked confused.
The doors opened, and we were led through a little nursery-like waiting room to a board room with a long table and windows overlooking the fields and factories.
The room's namesake, a large two by four, stood in a glass case along the back wall. A caption on the bottom of the display read, "Do not remove this pun under penalty of law."
A group of storks, and mice An American Tail, sat around the table, examining paperwork.
Chad, instead of being the smooth stud I thought he was, hung back at the door, clearly cowed by the serious looking cartoon animals. He didn't say a word.
One of the storks stood by an easel, displaying a concept sketch of a squeeze bottle. "It's time we expand our definition of relish. This relish will be sweet and spicy, giving them the best of both worlds. And this new To Go Bottle is perfect for picnics and barbecues."
"Larry," said a fat mouse in a suit. "No squeeze bottles. We've gone over this."
"Yes," said a suited stork with an orange comb on the top of his head. "The rabbi said no plastic, so we're sticking to glass."
"Weren't you trying to put onions in it last time?" asked a female stork in a blue suit.
"That sounds revolting," said Orange Comb. "Glad I missed that meeting!"
The others laughed.
"Plastic does not cause cancer!" shouted the proposal guy. "Furthermore, even if it did, there's no mention of it anywhere in Torah! We're missing out on an entire market!"
"We make small bottles," said Comb Stork. "They are perfect for picnics."
"I'd buy it," I said, gesturing to the picture. "I really think you guys should branch out."
"And who are you!" Business Mouse shouted angrily.
"You weren't invited to this discussion," said Mr. Comb. "Cupcake, could you please show this goyyische downstairs?"
"I think you should give her a chance," said Proposal Guy.
"You would say that!"
"I do like her outfit," someone else muttered.
"Ahem!" said Auditor Cupcake. "I have brought Ms. Malleybuckthorn to the board for a request regarding R&D. She has proposed an alternative to the blood sampling, one which may provide a solution to the inconsistencies of our previous attempt at combining doodle and noid genetics. Request permission to take her to R&D?"
Everyone stared at me.
With a nervous laugh, I waved to everyone. "Hi. My name is Jessica, and I have something called ovaries. Would you like for me to explain what they are? I'll draw you a diagram if it helps."
The storks and mice muttered amongst themselves. As they did this, I noticed, with some amusement, that Cupcake occupied two of the chairs, dressed in a sharp herringbone suit dress at one, all black in the other. The herringbone was, ironically, the R&D chair, the black suited one Second Vice.
"This had better be good," said Herringbone Cupcake.
"It is, ma'am," said Auditor Cupcake, turning to me. "Could you please explain your uterus to the board?"
Bursting out in giggles, I ripped a sheet off of one of those giant presentation tablets, diagramming a vagina with its fallopian tubes and tulip thingies (cut me some slack - I'm not a doctor. I can't even see those damn things) explaining how the tulip thingies produce eggs that go down and get stuck in the lining that bleeds out every month.
The board members silently leaned over my drawing, a couple of them (and a couple Cupcakes) taking notes.
"And this is full of genetic material?" Comb Stork asked while munching a kosher dill.
"More than blood," I said.
"The idea has some potential," said the mouse.
"I don't know..." R&D Cupcake said with a scowl.
"She obviously knows more about it than we do," said Second Vice Cupcake.
"It's not like we're going to roll a million down the assembly line," said Mr. Comb. "I say let's try it."
R&D Cupcake stamped `approved' on the drawing with a big rubber stamp. I just had to laugh at the absurdity.
"Show this to Abraham," Cupcake told herself.
"Right away, ma'am." Auditor Cupcake rolled the paper up, gesturing for me to follow her out the door.
We took the elevator down to the main lobby, wherein Desk Cupcake took a call from a cat family complaining that they got a mouse baby by mistake, promising that they'd send a counseling and exchange team to the site immediately.
Then Nurse Cupcake, dressed in a white jumpsuit and yellow hard hat, led us down a long hall opposite the elevators, into the factory.
It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen in my life. Chad took it all in with wide eyed astonishment.
It reminded me strangely of a Palmolive factory I used to work at. At one end, a big dump truck thing poured hundreds of cabbage patch babies onto a conveyor belt, which rolled down to a staging area where a bunch of rabbits peeled the leaves off each baby (afterwards eating the leaves, of course), slapped the babies on the butt for no reason at all, then dropped them down chutes labeled `Clean' and `Unclean.'
So they discriminate.
The `Clean' side, sealed against contaminants...from the other side of the plant, required workers to go through that decontamination shower thing from Doctor No. We had to wear hard hats and lab coats to even walk down the middle aisle.
Pigs, goats and crabs went in the unclean section, which makes me wonder about Porky's upbringing.
These creatures got further sorted according to `dynasty,' as in Warner Brothers, Marvel, Disney, etc., getting laser markings with their designation on the soles of their feet before being further subdivided and packaged in baskets padded with silk and stuffed into a giant metal egg carton that a robot arm lifted into...a giant carrier airplane.
The others got shoved into cardboard boxes lined with newspaper and shipped down a different line.
"No Laverne and Shirley routines" said a sign along the back wall.
Mice and storks in black robes and yarmulkes wandered from station to station, notating things on clipboards. Nurse Cupcake told us about the various processes, the kosher compliance, and the other stuff I just described to you.
They also had a machine like they had in Ice Pirates, that drops down and...chomps males between the legs. I was about to ask about it, but we passed it by, entering the laboratories.
An awesome place, like a mad scientist's lab from one of those superhero cartoons, except this one had a conveyor belt. Lots of glass tanks full of bubbling liquid, lots of giant computers with spools of magnetic tape the size of car tires.
Okay. This part is a little hard to explain. Apparently everyone in Cool World has a sequence of ink and paint stored in a database of this facility, the raw material stored in a colossal tank that never runs empty, because it's a cartoon object.
A machine sequences these chemicals based on stork signals sent by copulating doodles (the energy blast I experienced, except less intense) and existing information in the database.
In layman's terms, this was the shoe factory, and sex was the online order you submit for the two hundred dollar Kendelle (TM) Laser Cut Pumps.
The chemicals were combined into seeds, which they physically plant.
Floating superhero aliens, owls and robotic storks monitored the computers, ensuring the quality of each `batch.'
Chad appeared to blush as he saw everything being done. I guess to him it was like looking at an endless machine assisted orgy.
I, on the other hand, found everything unscientific and absurdly oversimplified. So oversimplified, in fact, that I started getting ideas.
But first...the eggs.
We continued down a corridor lined with framed photographs of storks to a large executive office with a fancy wooden desk and a posh leather swivel chair (in baby blue) where the stork pictured on the Vlasic label talked to someone on the phone while munching dill spears from a jar.
"What do you mean the automatic circumciser isn't working! Stop the line and fix it!" he crunched a pickle. "No we can't replace the machine. I don't care if there's blood all over the floor. That's what mops are for...Moishe, do you know how many babies are being peeled every minute? We'll have nowhere to go with the excess...can't you kick a few down the line as-is?...
"Yes I know. You can put them in the unclean section and set up house calls with Rabbi Goldstein. The last year he did it in July so he wouldn't be confused with Santa Claus. It worked very well. In fact, synagogue attendance is still up...
"Yes, yes. The Bris Fairy. God, I wish they hadn't come up with that nickname."
"Mr. Vlasic!" Auditor Cupcake cried.
The stork covered the receiver with one feathery, pickle stained hand. "Just a minute, Cakepan." He continued his conversation.
"...What did I tell you about the `A' word? We nearly lost our kosher designation two months ago with those circumcised pigs. What do you think will happen if we set up a miniature gas oven? Oy vey, the things I have to explain!"
"Sir," Cupcake said in a stern voice. "Abe."
"Not now, C-Cup." He kept talking on his phone. "Of course I'm up for Saturday. I think just about everyone in the plant is going."
Cupcake cleared her throat. "Excuse me! Mr. Vlasic?"
"...I'm sure they won't mind if you take the kids. Bring them all! It'll be fun!"
"Abe!" Cupcake let out a little Yosemite Sam growl, unrolling the diagram in this face. "Hello!"
"Thanks, Pancake, but I like the pickle label the way it is."
Then he frowned. "Why does this label design say `uterus' on it?"
Cupcake pointed to me.
Abe stared at me, then spoke into the phone. "I'm sorry, Moishe. I've got something I need to look at. I'll call you later."
He frowned at the other bird. "What."
Cupcake explained the situation. "We just need your signature on this diagram, saying we can extract these...genetic things from her in lieu of blood."
Abe munched another pickle. "I suppose it couldn't hurt. As long as the batch is limited to two or three, I see no problem with it."
"Wow," I cried in excitement. "Three kids! Wouldn't that be weird!"
Chad looked at me uncomfortably, but said nothing.
"Oh, and Corn Flakes...about this Saturday...are you sure you can handle the factory all by yourself?"
Cupcake's feathers bristled, but her tone remained even. "Sir, I already do."
Nurse Cupcake led me back through a door at the end of the seed room, into another mad science lab, this one full of beakers, test tubes and Bunsen burners, complicated sublimation systems and a Jacob's ladder.
Einstein looking guys and Einstein birds and koala bears in lab coats experimented on the chemicals, spun them in a centrifuge.
Cupcake switched to Auditor mode, showing one of the koalas the diagram with the official stamp and signature on it.
I got led into a small examination room, one which actually had stirrups on their rubber backed examination table.
"Wait. If you have a setup like this, why do you not know about ovaries?"
"We examine other things," said Nurse Cupcake. "It's mostly for baby extraction, but we've done a few tests with seed implantation as well."
"What kind of babies do you extract from a thing that isn't a uterus?"
She didn't answer.
The koala with one of those round mirror things strapped to his forehead marched up to the table. "I'm going to have to ask you to disrobe."
I sat down on the table, shrugging off the lab coat and hard hat.
"More," the koala said.
I undid my cape, tossing it aside.
"More."
Rolling my eyes, I unzipped my crotch. "Any more than that, and I'm going to charge admission."
The koala muttered something to Cupcake, then told me, "Wait here. The nurse will be with you in a moment."
"Wait," I said. "Are we talking a `nurse nurse' here, or did you mean Cupcake with a different hat?"
Nurse Cupcake furrowed her brow. "Why would I wear a hat? Do you need one as part of the procedure?"
"Sheesh, never mind," I cried in annoyance. "Call your `nurse.'"
The two left the room.
Chad seated himself on a stool next to me.
"It's really different," I said. "Isn't it?"
"I do not know," Chad said. "But the process of childbirth is really amazing."
I grinned. "I have a few ideas on how to make it even more amazing."
He looked at me like I were about to say something dirty.
I did. Kind of.
"You think, when we're done with this, you can, I don't know, provide some kind of distraction so I can play with those machines?"