Chapter 11

The True Culprit

Marine made his way into yet another office. It was small, but it had a computer in it as many rooms in this factory did. The only thing on the screen was static. He leaned closer and fiddled around with the keyboard, trying to get it to work. But then the static cleared, revealing the elderly face of the company owner, Malcolm Buttrugger. Why would he do a video call with Marine? Marine wasn't much of a conversationalist. Buttrugger seemed to be a little upset.

"Ah, so you're the one who's been following me around, trying to find my chicken nuggets."

Marine's eyebrows lowered in confusion. He was supposed to try and find the chicken nuggets. He was hired by Mr. Buttrugger to find out what happened to them. Perhaps the old man made a mistake, confused him for someone else.

Malcolm continued. "Well, let me tell you, you will never get them because I have all of them."

Marine raised an eyebrow. Why would he be hired to look for missing nuggets if the owner had them the whole time? Maybe he found out where they were and was calling to let Marine know that the investigation was over.

"Did you really think that they just went missing?"

Marine nodded.

"Well, they didn't because I was the one who hid them in the first place. I will use these chicken nuggets to take over Mars, and then Earth, and then…" Malcolm froze. He struggled to get words out, but nothing came. Then he just said, "I didn't think anything farther ahead than that, but, I mean…"

If that was the case, then why did he hire detectives to investigate. Whether they were here or not would have had no hindrance to his plan whatsoever, unless Marine decided to try and stop him.

Malcolm continued. "Either way, I'm gonna absorb the power of these chicken nuggets, and you will all die. So goodbye forever."

The video faded back into static. Marine just stared at the screen in disbelief. He was being toyed with this whole time.

He ran through a list in his head of all the crazy stuff that he went through. His boss was a public menace that slapped people's butts, playing laser tag was mandatory just to get through the facility, Elliot Swann was a chicken nugget addict on top of being a streamer and YouTube Let's Player, his in-game wife in World of Kings was a clingy alien thing, and he met someone whose name was "Guy Number Four".

But now, as if it wasn't bad enough already, he was just informed that the chicken nuggets he had been searching for had some sort of supernatural power to them, and Buttrugger was now evil. He sighed heavily as he slumped down onto the chair behind him, resting his hand on his face.

He was surrounded by lunatics.

Marine entered the bathroom. "How can someone take over the world with chicken nuggets, anyway?" he asked himself. "It seems nonsensical."

"I can see the exit, finally," a voice said from one of the stalls. "I'm almost out of these damn sewers."

He looked inside the stall and saw a toilet the size of a king-size bed. It was the weirdest thing. No one's butt could be that big to sit on a toilet like that. The weirdness intensified as he saw a large fat man climbing out of the toilet. He was covered in all manner of sewage, perfectly complemented by the odor.

Generous enough to keep his distance, the man issued a warning to Marine. "Listen, dude, don't ever use the toilets in this place. They're disgusting."

Marine took his word for it. Other than the smell of waste, the customer looked and behaved in a less crazy way than everyone else he had met thus far.

They bid each other farewell and went their separate ways while Marine was now concerned as to where he should relieve his bowels.