I'm sure some of you were looking forward to THIS . . .

You Can Save Or Be Saved By A Stripper

The peculiar, sectioned, knife-shaped vehicle slowed to a stop in an alley. The masked man exited the lead section and opened the second, allowing Ann Gee to step out. He handed a badly crumpled map to her and started peering around.

"I don't get it," she said, "You can't just divert them with those remote things?"

"If I'm going to control how the dead continue to power the cell tower with that whole escalator as a treadmill, I'm going to need large amounts of controlled burning to gradually herd them there. I can rig a few hoses and downspouts to do most of the channeling, but I'm going to need a few cases of alcohol. I've got aquarium motors rigged to remotes to feed in small amounts at a time. I just need the alcohol."

"Can't you ferment some apple juice? We must have passed three orchards on the way."

"It would take too long to set up, and it might not work. Apple moonshine is a little unpredictable. Any luck?"

"You're right. The notes say there's a big delivery every weekend to right here. But that's a church."

"Baptist. Very dry-looking. No entrance, anyway. Trash from a chute above."

She turned to look at the other alley wall. "This sign says 'Druther's Electronics. I don't see a tavern elevator anywhere. That other window had a sign—"

The masked man took another glance around the alley. "It said 'moved' and an address. It was a bank, anyway. No freight elevator of any kind. Recessed dumpsters. Two for each building. I found where someone came out here to smoke."

Ann Gee turned to examine the extremely weathered cigarette butts on the pavement to the right of the recessed door. She stared for a moment at the door. She stepped into the recess and turned to face the alleyway. "What's that?" She pointed straight across the alley.

The masked man didn't even turn. "Bracket. Maybe to hang a sign or a visibility mirror. This alleyway is curved slightly. A mirror made just so could pick out people coming in the end of it from there." He turned then and looked again. "A double mirror could see both ends. What are you thinking? Illegal sales? Inventory theft drop?"

"I was thinking a delivery truck pulls up here behind a car. He gets out and puts some booze in the car's trunk. Then he gets in the car and—puts his thing in the DRIVER'S trunk. This is where they'd have cigarettes after—or maybe before if one of the guys was late."

The masked man cocked his head. "Oh. No lipstick stains on the cigarettes. More than one brand. We won't find the booze then."

"But no, that's not it. Can you pick this lock?"

"Probably. You think the booze is in there?"

"Yeah. Let me take this one. You keep watch."

"Okay," the masked man knelt gracefully, drawing a lock pick and began, "You know I haven't laughed in—well, years."

"Made up for it today. I thought you were going to kill me."

"I would have stayed mad. At first I didn't realize you'd made sure they were all faceted stones. Turning that bin over under their feet was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Gem-encrusted walking corpses! Your invention." He stood up.

"Gem-encrusted dead PRATFALLS. My invention." She smiled and opened the door, brandishing a long kitchen knife. "It DID slow them down on the steps, there." He saluted her with a small flashlight and handed it to her. "Don't point that directly at the headgear," he said, "It can temporarily stun." She nodded and trotted in, adjusting the headgear's chin strap.

A few moments later she bounced out eagerly, saying, "You GOTTA come see this. You got lanterns?"

He nodded, stepped to the vehicle, and pulled out three large lantern-style flashlights with homemade external battery clips. He snapped a battery onto each and started to walk in behind her. He hung the headgear on his toolbelt as she handed him a mirror shaped like a triangular prism and took the flashlights. "It was on the bar," she said, and he nodded, turned, walked out, hung the mirror, and returned. He stepped in to see—

A stage with three stripper poles, neatly curtained, with a stereotypical-looking jukebox at the back wall. Pushing a case of Hennessy across the floor was Ann Gee. "There's three more behind the bar and some other stuff, but you need to see the E-M-T-500!" She pointed to the wall behind the stripper poles.

"We're not here for entertainment. Besides, music would probably attract the dead. Maybe from the rest of this office building."

"It's not just for entertainment. I think it could help you. And look at the walls! They're padded for sound. You know if the church people next door could hear this place, this place would be boarded up or something."

The masked man turned, picked up a flashlight and examined the wall and the door. Even the panel that opened to look out at the hanging mirror was padded. "Hmm. What kind of help are we talking about?"

"You've—mentioned questioning people you kidnap. You hinted at torture. I remember a t.v. show that said torture isn't very effective. But there IS something that's effective. I don't know exactly how it works, but you should be able to make it work for you somehow. It's humane, and, as far as I know, it's a hundred percent effective."

"You don't know how it works?"

"But I can demonstrate it! Ten minutes. Please? I read about this machine and always wanted to try it. I could get information from YOU, and you wouldn't even notice!"

The masked man cocked his head. "What do you need?"

"Oh. Well, okay, we need the thing that looks like a jukebox rolled halfway up to the middle stripper pole. And AC power."

"For ten minutes? Is it one-ten or two-twenty?"

She looked blankly at him and opened a pamphlet. She skimmed it for a moment. "One-ten."

He nodded. "We can spare that." He checked the view and walked out to return in a moment with a football-sized device. He plugged three baseball-sized, matte-black batteries to it and showed her the outlet. She waited as he, grunting, pushed the EMT500 toward her.

"Wrap the cord around the pole twice at knee level," she said suddenly. The masked man cocked his head and did as she asked. She plugged in the cord. "Now the questions to make sure I get accurate results. I think we can skip the health and vision questions. 'Have you spent more than two years abroad?'"

The masked man cocked his head again. "Yes."

"Have you spent two years in Asia as an adult, one year in Asia as a young child, or been raised in a chiefly Asian community or family?"

"Yes. I thought you said you'd get information without me noticing."

"You'll see. Are you currently diagnosed with any mental disorder excluding depression or having any suicidal thoughts?"

"No."

"Do you have any facial tics or spasms of the eye?"

"No."

Ann Gee typed 'one-one-zero-zero' into the instrument panel. "Please look into the viewer."

The masked man positioned his eyes over the viewer, just a screen where the window showing records would be, as it pulsed with muted color. She watched him intently for over a minute. "What did you see?"

"I saw eighteen pages of lingerie. Three barely dressed silhouettes to each page. I don't see how this is helpful."

Ann Gee hesitated. "Lean back." She opened the instrument panel, which looked vaguely like an old-fashioned coin slot. "You see all that? Not just a viewer."

"It does look more complicated than that."

"This next part is faster. 'Don't try to read the words, because that can cause eye strain, nausea, and motion sickness in some cases.' Look in the viewer again."

After a moment, the masked man wobbled. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He cleared his throat and straightened. "I did try to read it. Sorry."

Ann Gee caught her breath and raised her eyebrows, looking at a readout. She nodded. She pushed a button marked 'Clear' and trotted over to the bar. She brought back a stool. "Have a seat," she said, locking in settings and powering down the device. "I'll be right back to finish this. There's some stuff I hadn't planned on—won't take me too long." She ran through the back curtain. Two minutes later she ran out quietly, wearing a long, shapeless coat over her clothes. She flipped the 'on' switch. "Your eyes automatically linger on what you like more or what you feel more strongly about. The EMT500 watches your eyes as you're presented with choices."

"There were repeats of lingerie."

"Lingerie isn't all it does. Subconsciously you picked out your favorite outfit, your most meaningful lyrics, and—more! You could find out a lot about someone with this if you figured out how to use it for what YOU want. The last part is a bit different." She opened the back of the unit and pulled out a bright blue wire globe. "Can you hold this against the back of my left knee?" She stood facing him, holding the pole with her right hand.

He took the globe with his left hand, took a knee, and reached out to pull the globe to her knee with his right hand. As he gripped the globe around her leg, the blue wire globe twisted in on itself, snapping tightly around his wrists. Ann Gee yanked the electrical cord against it and pulled with her whole weight leaning polewards—and the masked man found himself kneeling on the stage with his wrists tied to the pole, arms still around her left leg. She tossed the shapeless dress to reveal a Supergirl costume—red thigh-high boots with gold trim, red flirt skirt, and a blue skin-tight top, showing off her amazing figure. She lifted the skirt to reveal the wonderfully curvy nakedness beneath. She lifted her right knee and swung her leg over the masked man's head to turn and show off her lovely posterior just centimeters from his face. As the EMT500 quietly began to play a snippet of "Somebody Save Me" by Remy Zero, she gently twerked and ground against the pole, bending then to hold his hands together and thrust herself ever closer.

The lyrics went "—sa-aaaave meeeee! Don't care HOW ya do-ooo it—sta-aaayee, sta-aaayee, come O-o-on . . ." As the music began to falter, she snapped to a full standing position. She turned her head to see a dead blonde wearing a skimpy summer dress limp through the back curtain, trailing a rope tied around her left leg. Ann Gee snapped the machine 'off.' "Don't you DARE move," she snarled, "I'm saving YOU."

She turned her body toward the dead blonde. "Look here, you BITCH! Your kind might get him someday, sure. But right now, he's MINE!" She unsheathed her left leg from between his arms like a weapon, seized the pole, spun around it and kicked the dead woman right in the left eye with her right boot heel. The corpse collapsed with a sickeningly wet crunch. Ann Gee came out of her spin. "Now where were we?" She smiled wickedly. He turned his head to look behind her. She looked behind herself. He didn't see her shocked expression, looking at the four dead half-naked women ambling out onto the stage. "Um? No. I—I got it." She ran two steps, front-kicked the lead into the next two, lunged sidelong past them and tore the curtain down onto the group. Seizing two parts of the curtain, she yanked them toward the stage left stripper pole and tied a quick granny knot. Snatching up an old Heineken bottle from the edge of the stage, she stabbed the first dead eye she saw and tried for a second. The bottle broke.

"FUCK!" She front-kicked the mass of curtain-covered bodies twice, smashing them into the pole. She stepped off the stage and picked up a chair and a trashcan. She upended the trashcan over the dead woman that had almost escaped from the tangle, further tangling the group, and began thrashing the group with the chair. On the twelfth impact of the chair with the curtain-covered swarming mass, there was another wet crunch, and the moving stopped.

Gasping for breath, her peripheral vision caught something in the mirror above the bar that brought an invulnerable smile to her face . . . he was putting his hands BACK INTO THE WIRE GLOBE. Stifling a giggle, she flounced up to the stage door and locked it. She picked up a can of air freshener and liberally sprayed the tangle of dead bodies and the one closer to the pole. Then she took off the skirt completely and got right back to where she had been. He nudged the side of her twerking buttocks with his forehead until she turned to face him—and he made it worth her while with his mask bunched up to his nose. When she couldn't stand in that position anymore, she knelt and returned the favor till he stopped her.

"We're not just gonna eat and run, are we?" She teased.

Tossing the blue wire globe to one side, he seized her, turned her upside down, and gently laid down on the stage, reminding her that two experiences can be enjoyed simultaneously.

Okay, so twerking and Smallville were both a thing before TWD. Stylized restraints, such as the blue wire globe have been on the market since the 'eighties. The 'EMT500' is perfectly feasible as well, and might in theory be applied to interrogation. Because the eye DOES act as Ann Gee describes. Really the technology has been around since the 'seventies. All you need is a device to watch and time eye movements, software to evaluate preferences between visual samples, a viewer to display those samples at speed, and, well, the samples themselves. Any living, healthy, sane, and sighted human brain will accomplish the rest. A psychological study in the 'nineties claimed that people who have had early exposure to violence or lived with a lot of it tend to prefer '69.'

Hope you've enjoyed so far. Thank you again to FanDance for the information about restraints, stripper poles, and shoulder stamina. Please read and review.