There's a corner of the internet, where folks peek in, voyeuristic folks with a third dimension... who watch the digital dramas of folks like me... hard working and hard drinking citizens of a little burg by the odd name of Yoville, scratch that, They call it YoWorld. I call it Y Town or Yotham City. It doesn't matter, because it is home. Home is where the bourbon is stashed.
My name is Spade, Sam Spade, and I’m a private investigator. Don’t call me a detective, unless you are already a client (the customer is always right, especially when they are wrong). A detective detects things. You’ve got your lie detectors, your smoke detectors, and your radiation detectors. I don’t do any of that stuff. I investigate. Sometimes that means trouble.
I’ve got six slugs in me. One is lead and the other five are bourbon. I keep two magnums in my desk. One’s a gun I keep loaded. The other’s a bottle and it keeps me loaded.
It’s a tough job, but then, I’m a tough guy. Some people like an audience when they work. Enough of them have told me so with blunt instruments until I’m a phrenologist’s dream come true. But snooping pays the bills. Especially Bill my bookie, and Bill my probation officer.
Well... to my point... yeah, I’ve got a point, loosen up your knickers and relax. Getting in a hurry is a good way to get yourself hurt.
I was in my office...
I’d been stalking the blue-bottle fly for five minutes, waiting for it to sit down, but it just kept doing circle eights in the light streaming through the dirty window. I knew it would eventually land where the light hit the corner of my desk... a warm spot, a miniature helipad with a nice circle imprint left by a bottle of Old Noob Kentucky bourbon.
Suddenly the buzzing stopped and there it was, pulling a leg over its sorry excuse of a face. I raised the swatter and... the phone rang.
I lifted the phone slowly and spoke softly: “Hold the line a moment please.” I set the phone down gently on the brown blotter. It had finished “washing” its “face” and now was grooming its wings. It sat there, a symbol of evil, like a goat head in a pentagram, or a teller at the DMV, or a developer of Zynga themes...
I swung hard and fast, at an angle so it wouldn’t leave a gooey mess. Half of it arced neatly into the wire trash basket, and the other sailed into the streaming light and settled near the radiator. I picked it by a wing and reunited it with its abdomen.
I poured a glass and reached for the phone...
Say, before I get back to that call... would you care for a drink yourself?
I picked up the phone... “Spade Investigations... This is Sam. How can I help?”
If dogs could talk they might sound like the voice that came over the receiver: “Spade? Good. Listen... Lay off Zynga if you know what’s good for you. If you don’t know, then keep right on poking around and a fisherman might be surprised to find a cold avatar of the detecting variety in tiny little pieces in his next catch.”
The line went dead.
Apparently a lot of things were going dead lately. Themes, gifts, even the crowd in front of Alton Towers wasn’t all that lively. And now a voice over the phone was making predictions for other things to cease their proper functions.
I wasn’t particularly interested in snooping into what Zynga has been up to, I kind of like it quiet, but on the other hand, I don’t like being told to buzz off (you saw what I did with that fly).
I put my feet on the desk and an Itsaboy cigar in my mouth, pulled my fedora over my eyes and contemplated the baritone sax crooning from the drunk jazz musician across the alley.
Then she walked in... A dame wrapped in a black dress the way they wrap those little ready to eat sausages. So tight you wonder if you can get at the goodies without damaging the merchandise.
Her hips swung to each side the way the warning sign wags over a train crossing... and like the RR Xing I heard an alarm clanging somewhere, but I didn’t pay it any mind.
She purred a question. It might have been my name, but I couldn’t be sure as my brain hadn’t reengaged all my senses yet. I stalled for time by pouring a double shot of Old Noob.
Mona Lott, daughter of Carr Lott, wealthy Yoworld philovatarist had asked me to look into a case. She had come in person to persuade me, using feminine wiles and a bag of YoCash. She didn’t need to try that hard.
I raised my glass slowly so the fumes of the bourbon would work like smelling salts and watched as she pulled out a cigarette holder so long I couldn’t imagine how it fit in her tiny pocket book. Somehow she produced a cigarette and fit it into the holder in a manner that made my teeth sweat. She leaned over the desk for the lighter, further than she needed to, and in lighting it I realized it was too warm in the office.
“Good afternoon, Miss...”
“Mona...” she said with a voice that could cut steel.
“You got a last name that goes with Mona?”
“Lott. My father was Carr Lott, the importer.”
“I remember him. I’m sorry for your loss.”
He had been an original dealer in Y Town rares long before there was YoBay. Zynga said he was connected to hackers skimming cream from the Sweets Factory. They pulled his digital plug. Poof. One less avatar."
He had been an original dealer in Y Town rares long before there was YoBay. Zynga said he was connected to hackers skimming cream from the Sweets Factory. They pulled his digital plug. Poof. One less avatar."
“It’s OK,” she purred. “Daddy left me his passwords and I retrieved enough inventory that I won’t have to punch into the Widget Factory for a very, very long time."
“That’s swell, Doll. So tell me, what brings you to the seedy side of town?”
“I’m lonely.”
I tried to avoid showing my spike in blood pressure by lighting another Itsaboy cigar.
“Yeah? How so? I figure a dame like you can buy all the company she needs.”
“Yeah? How so? I figure a dame like you can buy all the company she needs.”
“I tire of sycophants. What I really want are my parties.”
“Can’t see how I can help you there. I’m not much of a social director.”
She leaned close. Close enough I knew she could smell my Brylcreem. I felt her breath as she whispered...
“True friends, Mr. Spade. I want my friends who have gone to V Cruise and Candy Crush and Vegas Dream Poker. I want Yoville back the way it was, Sam. Yoville Bob has disappeared. He was one of the common people, Sam, and I love the common people. I miss Bob, and I know, I just know it is all part of the same thing... Find out what has happened with Bob. I will make it worth your while.”
Mona Lott was using her Lauren Bacall voice on me, slowly leaning over my desk as if she were trying to be earnest, but in reality reminding me why we are called mammals.
“Make it worth my while, how?” I asked.
“Well, I am rich, and bored...”
I considered splashing my glass of Old Noob into my face, but I downed it instead. Setting the glass down with gentle determination, I said: “Well, given the two, I’ll take the dough. I usually get $200 YoCash a day, plus expenses.”
“What sort of expenses?”
“Oh, gas, food for stake outs, maybe a hotel room or a train ticket if I need to go out of town. Sometimes, to get information, folks need a little lubrication...” At that point I filled my glass with my favorite lubricant.
“How long does it take to solve most of your cases?” she purred.
“Well, it depends on a great many things...”
“I’m interested in finding out where Bob is. Is he hurt? Has he retired to another game? Has he been involved in something that was too big for him? I don’t care what it costs, but I hate waiting.
"I've gone to the police, but they don't care. They are too busy with Zynga and some guys that are coming from Norway, or Denmark, or some nordic place...
"What if we say it takes a week to find out, that would be $1400 YoCash plus expenses, as you say, which I can pay now. But if you solve it in just a few days I will pay you $3,000 YoCash. Does that sound reasonable?”
“Lady, if you have that kind of dough, then I suppose I can say it is plenty reasonable and throw in the expenses for free.”
“Then we have a deal?”
“We have a deal.”
She strolled around the desk proving she had her own way to cross her heart, and laid $1500 YoCash on the blotter. She leaned over and gave me a squeeze and a kiss I knew left a mark.
“Thank you Mr. Spade. I hope to hear from you very soon.”
So I went to the factory. Other than a couple of scuff marks on the factory floor he just disappeared.
Outside there were skid marks on the pavement, and a body in the road. No, not Bob’s. It was from the new Road Kill theme: an opossum. Someone had pulled it from the road and sat it up against a rock and tied a balloon to its tiny fist.
He was a mid-level supervisor at the Widget Factory. At one time he’d been the manager of the plant, back when he’d convinced Zynga to turn it into a Sweets Factory. He was lucky to hang on around there as a graveyard shift supervisor. When The Big Guy had given the boot to The Big Dog, Bob had managed to hang on.
Between his involvement in the Sweets Factory, working for Zynga, and gaining a cult following just prior to the landing of the nordics he had a lot of folks interested in him. Good and bad. Love and hate. He also was a member of a bag pipe and accordian marching band, which makes things even more complicated.
I went to the Widget Factory and waited in the shadows until no one was around, and jumped the fence to get at the burned our shell of the old Sweet's Factory. The rain came down hard, the way it does when some director in a B movie thinks there has to be more water in the air than in a swimming pool for it to look "noir enough". There were rusting hulks of burnt cake encrusted ovens, and red-eyed 2010 Halloween rats.
I heard a car coming and stepped back...
It was the local "riff raff". I could tell because that is what the license plate said. I didn't know if they were just patrolling or had a hint I was snooping. I figured I better make this quick.
Behind the factory I found a case of Old Noob with one bottle missing. I figure the cops won't worry too much if it's two. If you want one, we can make it three.
A shadow stepped from the shadows. Guido Nefariano, raised a fist in his usual greeting, and I took a nap.
Someone was playing a kettle drum. As I rose from unconsciousness the drumming became louder. It began to sound like my head was in the drum. It became clear my head was the drum.
“He’s coming around.”
There was something about Bob… Visions of hard hatted Bob, hard headed Guido, bottles of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon… boxes of Itsaboy cigars… A ringing sound… the drum beats matching my heartbeats… Yoville Bob…
I wanted to rub the back of my head, but my hand wouldn’t move. In a corny B movie transition the out of focus blob before my eyes sharpened into the grimace Guido used to imitate a smile.
He was helping me to my feet under the painful brightness of a bare light bulb.
“Listen, Guido. Just because you shave doesn’t mean folks can’t tell you are a gorrilla,” I muttered.
He managed to knee me in the gut while holding me up by the neck.
“You thinks you’s so smart, Spade. You ain’t smart.” Another knee to the gut. “You’s don’ knows whose you’s messin’ wid…”
“You Yadda!” I wheezed. “You… ended that… sentence… with a preposition!”
“Listen Guido…” I began.
“I not Guido.”
“Trot that horse by me again.”
“I not Guido. Guido friend. I Jimmy.”
“That is enough Jimmy,” said a metallic voice from a speaker on the wall.
Jimmy lifted me up, by my neck, and set me in a chair (Police v Mafia 09).
“Are you alright, Mr. Spade? I hope Mr. Krakorn has not damaged you.”
“Krakorn?”
“My associate there with you. James.”
“Naw, I’m fine.”
“I hope there aren’t any hard feelings over how you were invited here this afternoon.”
“Of course not. In fact, I was thinking of taking you all out to dinner.”
“Amusing… Well, Mr. Spade. It is my understanding that you are curious regarding the whereabouts of Yoville Bob. I would like you to turn that curiosity into more productive areas.”
“Productive… Well, let’s start by seeing you produce a body to go with that voice? I don’t care to hold conversations with a box on the wall.”
A pause…
“Jimmy.”
Jimmy Krakorn swiftly pushed my pancrease to a new location. After groaning a little I saw the humor in the situation and started to chuckle.
“Oh, you think this is funny?”
The chair was picked up, and set on its feet.
Jimmy cracked his knuckles, making a sound like a slow avalanche. He pulled his fist back and...
A voice came from a hidden speaker: “That is enough, Mr. Krakorn.”
He hit me anyway. It hurt.
“Jimmy!” the voice growled, “I said that was enough.”
“Yes sir.”
“I think you have gotten Mr. Spade’s attention already. Now, apologize for your excess enthusiasm.”
“I real sorry, Mr. Spade.”
I couldn’t help myself, I had to say it. I just shrugged and said: “Jimmy Krakorn... I don’t care.”
“Now, now, Mr. Spade. Please don’t antagonize James. He was teased quite a bit with that name and is very sensitive.”
“Of course,” I said. “That was insensitive of me. So, is this the part where we get down to business?”
“Why, yes it is. I have, let us call it an interest, in Yoville, and I am pleased with how things are going. You have been indiscreet, and I would be very displeased if things interfered with my plans. I do hope you understand how I feel about this.”
“Oh sure, I understand,” I said. “Somehow this means dough, and it ain’t for pizza. This whole kidnapping and beating thing is just your way of saying ‘Pardon me, but I think I was here first.’ I recognized Jimmy’s voice... he left a message suggesting I might make good fish bait. I’ve met a lot of hard boiled eggs in my time, mister, but you’re a 20 minuter. And don’t worry about how I feel. I feel fine.”
“I see,” said the voice from the darkness. You prefer to do things the hard way.”
“Mister, you don’t know hard. I’ve been in Yoville since ’08 and back then we couldn’t even sit down. I was pushing empty suits out of Y Town before what ever prepube slimeball in the 3D world decided to sneak into Daddy’s den and create your unimaginative sorry excuse for a digital Colorform avatar, and I will be here long after you and whatever next generation of the matrix comes along. I’m twice as tough as Morpheus and three times as drunk. So, whatever you have in mind ain’t going to work so let’s skip the next 20 minutes of where I pretend you have convinced me to behave and go ahead with your Plan B.
There was silence from the darkness for a long stretch of time. Then from the darkness a throat cleared.
“Very well, Mr. Spade. Jimmy will see you out.”
Jimmy cracked his knuckles.
Tough guy huh?” Jimmy was trying to get a rise out of me.
“No, you’re the tough guy... I’m worse. And I’ll give you a break. Turn and walk away and you won’t get hurt.”
“Ha! I’m the one with the gun, and you’re the one walking to the pier.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “I had a good run, and I pushed it too far. I get it. The way I figure it, there’s no way out of this, since you got my gun.”
“Guns,” Jimmy Krackorn said.
“Right, I should have figured you’d find the 2nd one.”
“Well you figured right.”
“Look, I know you’re probably a little concerned I’ll make a scene, or try to pull something at the last minute, so, I’ll make you a deal.”
Krackorn looked suspicious as well as stupid.
“When we get to the pier, give me a couple minutes to smoke one last cigar and take a pull or two off my flask, and I’ll be civilized enough to take it like a man.”
Jimmy thought it over. “OK, tell you what. My friend here will wait at the entrance of the pier, so if you try anything he can drop you. Meanwhiles, yous and me can go down there and each of us can have a cigar and share that flask.”
“Sounds fine to me.”
We hung a right at Alton Towers and made our way down to the beach.
Krackorn had confirmed my suspicions... He found only two of my three guns, missing the ankle holster.
We got to the beach, found the boardwalk and strolled toward the pier. It was dark, Zynga’s single nod to keeping Y Town interesting was its recent nightfall each evening, but it was still a balmy digitally-enhanced 72 degrees. Foggy and damp in Yoville alleys, but here, a pleasant night except of course that I was supposed to die at the end of the pier.
At the docks next to the pier an 09 Mafia V. Police henchman automaton stayed at the entrance, stringing yellow police tape to keep the curious out of the way and I suppose lending local law enforcement a hand for a possible murder investigation in the morning. Thoughtful.
A digital moon was reflecting off 2D waves. I could see the lights of the S.S. Oscar Wilde, a gambling establishment anchored in Zynga Bay. Sounds of laughter, shouts of wins, groans of losses as Yo cash was tossed on gaming tables like confetti at a New Year’s Day parade.
We got to the end of the pier. I pulled out my flask, two cigars. I took off my jacket and laid it on the bench. “No reason not to be comfortable,” I said to Jimmy, handing him a cigar. He smiled a little, obviously pleased I might be keeping my word.
I loosened my tie, kicked off my shoes, and put my feet up on one of the large cleats that used to tie up ships bringing materials to the Sweets Factory.
I opened the flask and took a long, slow pull of Old Noob Kentucky Whiskey, handed it to my companion. His smile broadened; he drank and handed the metal bottle back.
“Look, Jimmy,” I began.
“Forget it Spade. You seem a nice enough guy, but don’t spoil the moment.”
“Right.”
We traded the flask between drags on Itsaboy cigars. I could barely make out his partner, Giggles, at the entry of the darkened pier.
Jimmy was just slightly tipsy. It was time.
I handed him the open flask, and fumbled it just through his fingers so it dropped to the wooden pier and the elixer of life began dribbling out. He made a grab for it, and I feigned the same, but used the moment to pull the flapper gat from my ankle and brought it up to his face.
He stared into the barrel, transfixed at the sudden reversal of roles and I pulled the trigger.
Little red hearts sprayed out, pummeling his face. He staggered back and went over the rail. I dove after him.
We hit the water and he struggled in his trench coat and heavy shoes, items I had shed. He looked like he might be going down. Up on the pier his pal, Giggles, was running with his wise guy shuffle to the end of the pier.
I reached James Krackorn and helped him out of his coat, he kicked off his shoes. I reached over and touched him, just long enough to access the pop down menu, choose “Visit Apartment” and popped away.
Jimmy Krackorn’s apartment was loaded with rares. There wasn’t any real decorating, just storage of valuable items, a lot of them animated. Venus fly traps, 09 zombies, Wonderland rabbit holes, the works. He seemed to particularly like 09 Mafia V Cops.
I looked through his messages.
Jimmy Krackorn’s apartment was loaded with rares. There wasn’t any real decorating, just storage of valuable items, a lot of them animated. Venus fly traps, 09 zombies, Wonderland rabbit holes, the works. He seemed to particularly like 09 Mafia V Cops.
I opened his message box, and felt I’d gotten a punch to the gut. The top message: “Pick up Spade. Bring him to the warehouse. --Badd Bart”
Badd Bart had framed me once, and I had served five years in YoYo Pen. Once I got out, I went searching for answers and he tried to frame me again. And he’d killed a friend of mine, Tops, and nearly killed a buddy, DeLong. I thought I’d sent him to prison, along with Frannie Miller, with the evidence I turned, but, apparently he knew how to work that out.
Bart was an oily one. He looked a cross between Jabba the Hutt and Orson Welles just before he got out of the black and white film biz. He was proud that he had moved his business to 60% legit... but the 40% was still going strong and it meant he was happy to settle things with me the old fashioned way.
Now he was back, and had sent this thug to put me at the bottom of Zynga Bay.
The next message was interesting: “unka jimmy. I no find Unka boB. I look and look. War unka BOB go?” It was signed: BBCindyLu.
Cindy Lu is probably one of those seeking Mwommwy types. She was a safer start than looking up Badd Bart.
The job of a private investigator is to investigate. I don’t have to like the answers I find... I just have to find them.
Her apartment was the basic noob set up. By appearances she was real new. I strolled through, she didn’t even have an outside deck yet. On the refrigerator I found what I was looking for…
I didn’t want to lose Cindy Lu so I left a gift and a message. Not enough to make it look like I knew her, but enough she would hit reply and give me a way back.
I had a number of plushes and dropped a goofy looking American Bull Dog no one wants anymore into her box, just the sort of thing a noob looking for a Mwommwy: “I saw you in front of Alton Towers. You were getting the run around. Ignore the dweebs, there are a lot of good folks. Since you are new, here is a welcoming gift.”
Now for Badd Bart. Badd runs a little underworld business in Yotham City and has somehow avoided getting busted by Zynga (one of these days someone with standards will push the Big Dog out of town and he will get his). It is better than even odds he was behind my little stroll to Viking Pier this morning.
Bart looks like a cross between an aging Orson Wells and Jabba the Hut. A thin mustache over a wide, Edward G. Robinson lips, a cigar sticking from one corner (not my brand… I smoke Itsaboys, Badd Bart chews on “Old Stogies Ivafound”). It won’t take him long before he makes a follow up visit.
I dropped Cindy Lu’s artwork into a mailbox to myself. A little insurance that will arrive two days from now, and went back to the office.
I brewed coffee (Yolgers, it’s the richest kind!), toweled off, and changed into dry clothes. I poured a liberal dose of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon into a mug of joe, sparked an Itsaboy, and thought the case over.
The case was simple. Yoville Bob was either alive or dead. If he was alive, then he was either hiding or kidnapped. If he was dead, then he was either murdered, had an accident, or was a suicide. That is five possibilities. Of the five there are three scenarios that could account for things. Either he had personal reasons behind what was going on, or the Zyngoids were behind it, or it was the new guys, the nordic fellows who’ve been mopping up the graft, the grift, the rif raff, and the rags. That makes three times five, fifteen possibiilities.
Hmmmm…
How was Jimmy Krakorn involved? Is Cindy Lu the same as Cindy Loo Who? Is Badd Bart involved? That is three more twists to the tale… Three times fifteen is forty-five.
OK… The case isn’t so simple.
Fortunately I have the perfect solution. I take one private investigation case, pour in a bottle of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon, light an Itsaboy cigar, and take a drive in the rain…
Mona Lott wanted Y Town the way it used to be... which I sort of understood... there used to be a lot of laughs. But it had become a rat-infested dump the sat couple of years and the rats were taking over.
She thought that Y Town Bob's disappearance had something to do with it. True, it was Bob as a vice president of the Widget factory, who had changed the joint over to a Sweets Factory. But though that was still a hot topic for a lot of avatars (what with the protests in barrels, pitchforks, and the regrettable burning of half the factory, Bob redeemed himself by taking a demotion and a cut in pay and happily told folks which buttons to push at the reopening of the Widget Factory.
I pulled in at a watering hole and got something to drink (not water, that stuff will rust your pipes!). There had been a lot of glitches and down for maintenance stuff lately. Perhaps it had to do with the general seedy condition of Yotham City of late, or it was a big picture thing that might be connected to my case. I was on my third dose of cough medicine when she walked in. The door swung open the way they do when they get bumped pretty hard, and her silhouette showed plenty of bumps.
She slid down the bannister as if to dare the hand rail to insult her ample curves with even a splinter. She looked like the kind of dame who could make a fella, or a hand rail, see her point of view.
She pulled up the stool next to mine, though it would have jumped to whatever spot she wanted if she had just asked.
Dames like this are trouble, not that most all dames aren't, but this one looked like she might have had a brother name of trouble, and an Uncle Trouble, and a cousin Trouble, and a boy friend she might call himself anything she wanted and throw in the trouble for free.
So I kept my beak dipping into my drink the way those stupid little plastic and glass birds do (how those drinking birds work anyway...).
The dame invited me in to the "closed group". I didn't know what that meant, but she have me an address and a password. So I looked the joint up. Or rather, down... as it was on the seedy side of Yotham City. I found the place OK. It was called "Club 7", at the intersection of Hate & Trashberry. I knocked and a little door window opened in the steel door and a pair of eyes peered out: "What's the password?" a voice growled. "Ding Dong, the Big Dog's dead," I muttered. a sliding bold slid behind the door and with a slow creak the door opened to smoky pit darker than a tax auditor's heart.
Tacked near the top was either Guido or James Krakorn holding a big fish with... Bob.
I’d been poking into the disappearance of Yoville Bob. I was invited to an interview with a Cops V. Mafia henchmen I took to be Guido,“The Brick” Mattone, but who turned out to be James Krakorn. and managed to leave him floating in Hind Leg Cove. A newbie I traced through him had seen Y Town Bob, and from there I went to a dive bar (they’re the richest kind!) to talk to Joey “The Fish” Beluga at Club 7. He gave me a lead and I found a picture of the missing 2D supervisor of the Widget factory beside either Guido or Jimmy, next to an ad for a charter service. I think I was about to crack the case, if I could avoid getting my head cracked.
“Hi there, fellas. Anyone here seen Bob?”
Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,
And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,
By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down…
(I tip of my Yankee sombrero in recognition to Wally Whitman, a favorite poet.)
The people formed lines at a rows of work stations just like the one at the factory. The tinkle of coins rang dully from behind a wall, no coins danced upon their heads. Above them, on a pillar, a robot presence intoned: “Click to Work!” And above it was a stone horror… a large stone statue of an American Bulldog, with eyes aflame, and a growl emanating from its stone throat.
I stepped on the platform. A factory work station is like one of those tell your fortune and weight things they used to have at Y Town Drug & Mercantile. I clicked the button (that is what Bob meant way back when, and what I suppose the large retro robot above me means by “CLICK TO WORK.”
My energy dropped to 0%, no coins fell. I did hear a tinkle of coins within the machine, but they sounded as if they were spinning around one of those funnel things until they drop and you are supposed to learn something about physics, and donating to a good cause.
The mechanical automaton, or henchman, or whatever it was, the Robot from Throw Back Thursday, said: “CLICK TO WORK.” I stepped off the workstation and a kid with a purple mohawk, studs, piercings, and a teddy bear stepped on.
I glanced at the stone dog… its eyes glowed, but it looked as dead as Zynga support. The robot on the pedestal couldn’t see directly beneath it, and the people were murmuring “Zynga, Zynga, Zynga… ZYNGA!,“ too entranced. They noticed me about as much as a good looking dame notices someone who breaks the high score on Halo… not at all.
I sidled along around the pillar and found a doorway cut into the stone wall.
Stairs led up into darkness.
The joint wasn’t what I expected. If Herbert G. Wells had been right about the 1940s it might have looked like this. A trumpet player was blowing slow and smooth and the mournful wail sounded something like Gershwin. It rolled through the haze and smoke of the bar like waves before a storm.
The place looked like it might have had class back when class meant something, before the turn of the century… The atmosphere was thick, not metaphorically thick, but truly thick, with tobacco smoke, maybe opium… with soot from old lanterns that had years of cheap oil burning a patina onto glass that made their glow look like a piece of amber from the Jurassic.
The bar was old, a huge job made of mahogany and craftsmanship like some great sailing ship that had run aground in a steampunk speak easy, surrounded by reefs of red velvet couches and chairs, threadbare in places, all the good places…
Electric lights fought feebly against the haze, like early experiments of Tesla before he wandered off to make ray guns or transporters.
I couldn’t see the corners, but I could see her just fine. She might have been a singer once, or an entertainer of another sort, but right now she looked like she was about to lose a battle or two with gravity, though she managed to make it work for her.
She turned slowly, making her ample hips come about like the Titanic trying to avoid an iceberg.
At first this seemed like an unlikely place to find behind a Zynga worshipers’ temple, but it made sense. Whoever was manufacturing all those Bobs need factory know how, and who ever ran this place was a steampunk genius.
I raced after Shudsy Dishshoap and entered the lab. I hesitated,seeing the horrors of his experiments. Several Yovites were in various stages of genetic or digital alteration.
In his hurry, Shudsy tripped over the first one, a Frankenstein’s monster on a metal table, and doing a Mary Lou Retton, he landed squarely on a Tesla Coil (Halloween 2009). His clothing, his binary code, his costume, all of it, burst into flames… his skeleton flashing through the flesh. His charred and desiccated corpse might be an inspiration for Halloween 2014… if it hadn’t started a fire.
I raced from the flames I knowing what had happened. How Dishshoap had taken over Yotham City through the gaping holes of Zynga’s firewalls. Those same walls that are now, ironically, feeding the flame as they were made with shoddy digital code rather than an inch and a half of sheet rock or stone. I knew how Shudsy had deftly taken the prepubescent energy of the script kiddies and channeled it into duplicating work stations and cloned Bobs. How he had wielded the angst of confused lovers of Yoville past into a religious cult of Zynga worshippers and coaxed them into turning their energy into coins in his own workstations. And now the whole place would be burning down and I had to save Bob while there was still a chance.
I found my way to the Agnyz Bar and threw open the door. Flames had spread down through the steampunk pipes, various chemicals from the labs forcing through were chewing up the 2009 Police V Mafia bar.
One of the Mafia henchmen, either Guido Nefarioso or James Krakorn, stood in my way…
“Yous thinkin’ yous goin’ somwheres?”
Behind him a legion of steambot droids moved forward.
I hated to do it, but I hadn’t a choice. I pulled out my flask of Old Noob Kentucky bourbon, opened the lid, took a pull, and heaved it at the bar. The explosion knocked down most of the steampunk robots. The henchman just stood there repeating “You ain’t nuthin’ but an empty suit.”
Then the roof started dropping. Chunks of stone slabs, old stalactites, and asylum pipes began falling through the steampunk hanging lamps.
The place was literally, coming apart…
There was only one place in Y Town where this could be… the Old Yoville Underground. Zynga had sealed it up years ago, stuck a billboard over it, but there are still maps around that show it. If this enormous cavern was there, then the fire will eat away at the dirt, melt stone, burn through binary code, turn underground streams into geysers, and the whole place would come down.
I had to get to Bob. It was clear that Mary Richman had conned him, got him to Agnyz Bar, she had told me so. Every guy should know better than to trust a dame, but all of us, me included, keep doing it.
The only antidote to feminine wiles is heavy doses of cynicism washed down with cases of Old Noob. Bob didn’t stand a chance. Too nice a fella. And though I figured he deserved the demotion to Widget Factory Supervisor for promoting the Sweets Factory, that doesn’t make him a bad guy either.
I found the trembling passageway and stone stairs leading to the Temple of the Zyngoids. Chunks of Egyptian stone had tumbled down… the three legged dog was in ruins, and the column on which the robot stood had fallen over. I wondered if I was too late.
I leapt over the fallen column, and there was Bob… propped against the wall beside debris and old crates. I took his helmet off gently…
Yoville Bob spent a couple of months relaxing on a beach. This was unintentional as he hired the skipper of Island Charter Service, the same one James Krakorn had used to woo him into Shudsy Dishshoap’s laboratory. (Apparently the Skipper’s first mate had glued a magnet to the back of the boat’s compass so he could stick keys to it.) It was just supposed to be a short tour, three hours. But he didn’t mind, he likes coconuts.
The Big Guy with the silly hat was grateful for locating Shudsy and rewarded me with a case of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon and a yellow hard hat.
Mona Lott paid me the $3,000 YoCash and I’m meeting her at the Los Amigos Lounge later tonight. I’m going to meet her in full cynic mode, and a good dose of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon.
The End
Stairs led up into darkness.
The joint wasn’t what I expected. If Herbert G. Wells had been right about the 1940s it might have looked like this. A trumpet player was blowing slow and smooth and the mournful wail sounded something like Gershwin. It rolled through the haze and smoke of the bar like waves before a storm.
At first this seemed like an unlikely place to find behind a Zynga worshipers’ temple, but it made sense. Whoever was manufacturing all those Bobs need factory know how, and who ever ran this place was a steampunk genius.
The dame circled slowly around the room, making like she hadn’t noticed me, but her spiraling path clearly was headed my way. Even in the deep dark of the sea of smoke, this feminine shark smelled fresh blood.
She had nice curves, and nice... features. She was wearing one of those black, silky, shrink-wrap dresses dames wear to “preserve freshness”. Her hips swayed the calculated way women’s hips sway to makes a man’s brain stop using the upper cortexes. She wore her hair loose and that is more than a metaphor. She had a pair of long, black gloves that ran nearly to her bicep, the kind that look best when the dame is holding an absurdly long cigarette holder.
Her body moved through the haze and smoke, various curves, orbs, lines that would take a celestial mathematician using non-linear fractal geometry to describe adequately. And, as we all know, any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. She was homing in on me like a Kuiper belt comet headed for Jupiter, if you know what I mean (it’s OK if you don’t).
While she circled in I lit an Itsaboy cigar and gave the barkeep the half grin guys use to signal services will be needed as soon as the preliminaries are complete.
“Hello Handsome,” she purred. “You look thirsty. Are you waiting to recharge before hitting the workstation?”
“Yeah. I like doing my part for the cause, but I like a good drink even better. Sometimes I even like a little company... Miss...?”
The dame looked me over slowly. I had made a guess about what this joint was all about, and her hesitation showed I had missed the mark a bit, but not enough to scare her off.
“Mary. Mary Richman. You don’t seem like most of the workers plugging in out there. And I’ve never seen you in here before. Did the boss bring you in?”
“Well, in a way. But I know better than to talk too much. I don’t think the boss would care to know you get so friendly with strangers, either... Mary.”
“Easy, big fella. I wasn’t talking. I was just making sure you were on the square. We can’t be too careful. Not with that viking dude sniffing around.”
“Right.”
“Seriously, I thought you were suspicious and I was just trying to get you talking.”
“R-i-gh-t... Well, I don’t kiss and tell. Not with all we have got on the line here.”
She was buying it. She was exactly the type I thought she was. One of those dames who sniff out power and attach themselves to men like a remora.
“Hey! Take it easy! You don’t have to go all nervous on me. I can tell you are on the right side of things. I just couldn’t tell from across the room, so I came to check things out. The boss pays me to be friendly with strangers and I’m just doing my job.”
She pulled out the absurdly long cigarette holder from an improbably small purse and wedge a thin, pink, cigarrete into the end. She took my cigar out of my mouth and lit up, anding back my smoke with a wink.
“OK, Doll. I’ll put in a good word for you when I see the him.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it. Is there, uh, any way I can thank you? I am, afterall, very grateful for anything you can say for me.”
I had her.
“Well, tell you what. Let me buy you a drink to patch things up seeing as we got off on the wrong foot. And you can tell me how you are going to be a help to the organization in the big move coming up.”
Every club has a big move coming up, certainly one that has mesmerized Yovites plugging into hacked work stations without pay while a robot exhorts them is up to something big.
“Barkeep! Bring a bottle of Old Noob and two glasses!”
I laid a 5 YoCash note on the counter and turned to the gal beside me and smiled...
“So Sam… What do you do when you’re not plugged into a workstation for the cause?”
“You’ve got lovely hair, Miss Richman. Did you know most ladies have to brush their hair for 15 minutes a day to properly keep their hair manageable? That can damage it. The finest fibers for your type of hair come from the bactrian camel of northern Mongolia. That’s right Sweetheart. I sell brushes.”
“That’s interesting,” Mary Richman lied.
The best cover story is one which you can pretend it is interesting but no one wants to talk about it.
“I also sell perfume. Our newest line is ‘Funeral Home’. Lovely fragrance! Just lovely. Very soothing.”
She smiled weakly.
That did it. She was sure not to ask further questions.
“Well, Doll. I need to shove off. The big man is expecting me, and you know how he gets. All that day job stuff just pays the bills. But this operation… THIS is going to put us on Easy Street.”
“How well do you know the boss?”
“Is that all you can call him? I know him from way back. We first met up when the Mosaic browser came out, the first in line text and photo browser. No one called him boss back then. How well do you know him?
“I met Mr. Burr just a few months back. Zynga announced they were closing the place down, and he had work for me. It looked like things were about to fold, so I went to work for him.”
“Do you still call him Mr. Burr or have you gotten to a first name basis yet?”
“No, it is still Mr. Burr. He doesn’t like to be called Timothy. We are strictly business.”
That is what I needed. A real lead. Anything more will be gravy on the stuffing.
“Well, Tim and I are close. He usually doesn’t mix business and pleasure. What did ol’ Tim have you doing for him?”
“Well there were a number of store owners who couldn’t see their way to his point of view. There was Rawkin Rowl at the music store and Bob at the factory. I just got them here, got them drunk, and he took care of the rest.”
Bingo.
“Well Doll, I’ve got to go. Time to meet with Tim.”
“Will you be back? I thought we could have a little fun.”
“We’ll see, Angel.”
I gave her a peck on the cheek and squeezed her hand. The henchman in the shadows by the back door was watching.
She patted my thigh, stroked my arm as I left. I’m glad I keep my Norton Anti-virus up to date.
I strode to the back door.
“Mr. Burr is expecting me, Pal.”
He nodded and opened the door.
Past the bulk of animated pixels making up the henchman in Agnyz Bar was a foyer, an anteroom to the chamber of the “the Boss”.
Straight ahead one could assume was his office. It was appropriate that the doors were of wood between and Tim Burr.
To the right was a door that looked like it might lead to a lab, probably where he conducted nefarious work, work that was behind the disappearance of Yoville Bob. To the left was a channel of water leading off into darkness.
I had a choice.
I could scout the other rooms, perhaps learn more before I confronted Mr. Burr. Information is useful, especially in dealing with dangerous men.
But, that works two ways and I did not want to give Tim Burr the opportunity to gain information about me. He could talk to Mary Richman, or the henchman at the door, or spies in the temple. Heck, the goofy robot exhorting his workers might have cameras feeding him my approach.
Information may be useful in dealing with dangerous men, but… as many have learned, I’m not particularly safe either.
I decided to use another tool of my trade, surprise. I would rather surprise him than have him surprise me.
I took a pull from my flask of Old Noob, lit a fresh Itsaboy cigar, pulled out my gat… the impressive one, the 50 caliber ACME special, and pressed my ear to the door. It seemed quiet. I turned the knob and shoved the door open…
I took a pull from my flask of Old Noob, lit a fresh Itsaboy cigar, pulled out my gat… the impressive one, the 50 caliber ACME special, and pressed my ear to the door. It seemed quiet. I turned the knob and shoved the door open…
Tim Burr was standing near a sort of series of steampunk control panels. I rushed him. He tried to brink some sort of rifle to bear but I had him covered.
“Drop it Burr! One tiny little move, just a flicker and you’ll find the business end of this pistol rearranging your pixels so no server back up could ever put them together again. Take a seat.”
I tossed his gun across the room.
“OK Sam… What will it take for you to make this go away?”
“Simple. I want you to go away, and I want Yoville Bob.”
“Bob? That grinning goof? Well, you can have him, I don’t need him.”
“Yeah… I saw you had spare Bobs on hand. I want the original.”
“Well, you can have him. All he is good for now is using him at the same job he had before, but I don’t even need that anymore. We’ve cranked out all the Bob’s, we are geared up to change their appearances, and replace unused accounts with them. Soon all the coins in Yotham City will be run through our knock offs.”
That was all I needed. I knew where Bob was.
“Who is behind this?” I hammered. “I don’t believe YOU did it. You just don’t seem to have it together enough.”
One of his eyes began to twitch.
“You Noob! What do YOU know about what it takes? You are like the rest! There are 10 kinds of people in the world! Those who understand binary code and those who don’t!”
“Well…. I’m no script kiddie, Tim Burr! I play by the rules and if the rules need breaking, well, that’s someone else’s job.
“Script Kiddie!!!”
Now both eyes were twitch asynchroniously, and one was larger than the other.
“You sir, are an unknown USB driver!”
Now he was twitching so much he seemed to be vibrating.
He hopped up on his desk, frothing at the mouth.
“I’LL TELL YOU WHO I AM!!! I AM SHUDSY DISHSHOAP!”
“I thought so,” I whispered. I have a second client. A fellow with a silly hat. A nordic fellow, and he has asked if I might locate you as well as Bob.”
Dishshoap began tearing off his steampunk clothes and degenerated into a disheveled lab coat and flipped backwards, straight through the book case. It was from a halloween theme a few years back, and as it rose up, he flashed out of sight through a rear door…
Dishshoap began tearing off his steampunk clothes and degenerated into a disheveled lab coat and flipped backwards, straight through the book case. It was from a halloween theme a few years back, and as it rose up, he flashed out of sight through a rear door…
The place was literally, coming apart…
There was only one place in Y Town where this could be… the Old Yoville Underground. Zynga had sealed it up years ago, stuck a billboard over it, but there are still maps around that show it. If this enormous cavern was there, then the fire will eat away at the dirt, melt stone, burn through binary code, turn underground streams into geysers, and the whole place would come down.
Yoville Bob spent a couple of months relaxing on a beach. This was unintentional as he hired the skipper of Island Charter Service, the same one James Krakorn had used to woo him into Shudsy Dishshoap’s laboratory. (Apparently the Skipper’s first mate had glued a magnet to the back of the boat’s compass so he could stick keys to it.) It was just supposed to be a short tour, three hours. But he didn’t mind, he likes coconuts.
