21

PAPANAZI KONTROL – 3RD PERSON

Achtung 66.799 took cover in a newspaper booth. He had to remove a few stacks of newspapers to fit inside, but his body was small enough that he could squat there comfortably. He could almost stand up.

It was a classical Gothic sector. Most of the pedestrians that stumbled up and down the decayed cobblestone street were dressed as monks, vampires, Mr. Hydes, Young Goodman Browns and Phantoms of the Opera. Wooden trap doors had been built into the street. Figures fell in and popped out like gophers. Countless stone gargoyles crouched on the ledges of sharp, black buildings ornamented with stained glass windows. Some of the gargoyles were alive and flew from rooftop to rooftop. Occasionally one swooped down and snatched a baby out of a handmaiden’s arms.

According to the Papanazi’s sources, there had been an exodus of movie stars to this sector earlier that morning. Armstrong Sarks, Dick Doily, Voss Winkenweirder and Hagar Parakeet were rumored to be among them. The reason for the exodus? Nobody knew for certain, but Achtung 66.799 suspected it had something to do with a Hunchback of Notre Dame fetish that had been afflicting certain celebrity factions lately. He kept a special watch for passersby who had strapped bowling balls to their shoulderblades.

Achtung 66.799 received the tip at 5 a.m. and had been staking out the scene for over two hours now. So far the gig was a bust. At one point he thought he spotted Cinnabar Trait, Carmina Burana Award nominee for a recent BBB-film in which he played the main character’s shadow. The man lacked a disguise, but the streetlights were dim and Achtung 66.799 couldn’t tell if it was Trait. And when he crawled out of the newspaper stand and accosted the man, he realized it wasn’t a man at all, but a shadow…

The Papanazi returned to his hideout. Frustrated, he curled up and fell asleep.

A siege of tickling awakened him. Somebody had opened the chute of the newspaper booth and was fumbling inside. Achtung 66.799 excused himself and climbed out. The ’gänger outside had on a shiny black top hat and cape with puffed up shoulders. He glared disapprovingly at the Papanazi, claimed a newspaper, and marched away.

Yawning, Achtung 66.799 surveyed the area. It was light out and the streets were empty now. His stomach growled. He needed a money shot badly. Once he forged a money shot, trying to pass off a photo of a bag lady stealing a hood ornament as a celebrity. His superiors caught him red-handed and cryogenically froze him in a Papanazi penal colony for three years. Right now he would have willingly forged again—at least you have dreams and receive proper nourishment in the Freeze—but a second offense would result in termination of employment and banishment to the rainforests. This, of course, was contingent upon him getting caught. But the proficiency of the Papanazi’s surveillance technology overshadowed that of any other Amerikan social institution, including the Government. Everybody always got caught.

Standard issue depression set in. He was depressed because of his job. He was depressed because of society. He was depressed because his mother-thing didn’t love him. He was depressed because he never found a wife-thing to replace her. He was depressed because, even if he found a wife-thing, he couldn’t afford to support her. He was depressed because he was undereducated. He was depressed because he was hungry. He was depressed because he was depressed. He was depressed because he was depressed because he was depressed. He was depressed because, if he wasn’t depressed, he might miss being depressed, depression being such an essential component of his psychic framework…

He snapped out of it when the signal hit him. Veins of electricity played across the field of jacks on his scalp. The jacks came to life and started arguing with each other. Achtung 66.799 shoved his fingers in his ears and concentrated on the message.

All Papanazi currently not engaged in head-to-head combat needed to report to the nearest Kontrol Center for immediate debriefing on a new story. No information on the story dispatched other than the news of Voss Winkenweirder’s murder and the movie star’s ’gänger’s subsequent meltdown.

Papanazi Kontrol Centers could be found on practically every vertical and horizontal block in Bliptown. Papanazi workerbees like him weren’t allowed inside barring rare invitations such as this one. Standard issue euphoria set in now. If nothing else, the Kontrol Centers were loaded with free hors d’oeuvres…

He sprinted down the street, searching left, right, left, overhead…A trap door flung open and swallowed him. He fell into a long, tall passageway reconstructed to look like a nineteenth century Parisian arcade…Lattice of iron girders, catwalks, glass shop windows, gaslight lanterns, tall artificial plants. Flâneurs and stilt-walkers everywhere…Achtung 66.799 whizzed through the underground commerce, searching, searching…He found a Kontrol Center at the end of the passageway.

He wasn’t the first workerbee to find it. Scores had preceded him, and they were battling for the hors d’oeuvres. Featured today: shriveled meatballs and dried up celery sticks.

Achtung 66.799 burst through the front door and dove into the mix…

Every Papanazi for himself. Karate chops and roundhouse kicks and flying elbows slammed into faces and stomachs and spines. Sound of cracking bones and heated warcries…

“ACHTUNG!!!”

A strike of lightning followed the directive, emanating from a static-electricity disco ball in the ceiling. It temporarily zombified the Papanazis. Their shoulders slouched. Their mouths dropped open. Fistfuls of meatballs and celery sticks fell to the floor.

“ACHTUNG!!!”

Another lightning bolt. The Papanazis fell into formation, scurrying into a line, thrusting out their chests, turning into statues.

The Sergeant General wafted down the rank on a driftdisc and inspected the troops. Most of them wore SS or Grim Reaper fatigues. Achtung 66.799 had on a cheap Goodbody suit. The Sergeant General stopped in front of him.

“What the fuck is this shit!”

“Sir!”

“Who the fuck do you think you are!”

“Sir!”

“How the fuck do you explain yourself!”

“Sir!”

“What the fuck!”

“Sir!”

“What the fuck!”

“Sir!”

“What the fuck!”

“Sir!”

“What the Fuck!”

“Sir!”

The Sergeant General was a behemoth, seven-foot-tall cyborg. Outsized mechanical hands hung from his bulk like crab claws and he had a giant papier-mâché Joseph Stalin head. His dialect even had a tinge of a Russian accent. He lightly smacked Achtung 66.799 and told him to mind his fashion sense. The blow severely dizzied the Papanazi, but he remained standing in rank. The jacks in his skull, however, were knocked out cold.

Somebody down the line sneezed.

“What the fuck!”

The Sergeant General glided over to the insurgent. His punishment turned out to be stiffer than Achtung 66.799’s. Luck of the draw.

“What’s your name soldier?” the Sergeant General asked in a decidedly feminine voice.

“Sir! My name is Achtung 446.5—”

The Sergeant General grabbed his head with one great hand and squeezed…The sauce of the soldier’s head oozed through the creases of his metal fingers like Play-Dough. He loosened his grip and kicked the corpse in the chest. It sailed end over end across the Kontrol Center into a body basin.

“Anybody else need to sneeze? Anybody have to use the toilet?”

A Papanazi at the end of the rank tentatively raised a hand.

“I admire your honesty,” said the Sergeant General. He pulled out an antimatter pistol with an elongated barrel, aimed and fired. The atomic structure of the Papanazi twisted into infinite knots. He melted, molted, congealed, contorted, sparked, flared…Primordial soup was the end of him.

The Sergeant General liquidated two more Papanazi with the antimatter pistol for no reason. He sheathed the weapon. “Enough fun and fucking games. You’re here for a reason. Brass tacks.”

“Sir!!!”

“At ease then. But stay away from the hors d’oeuvres until we fucking convene.”

“At ease” meant the same thing as “achtung” in terms of a soldier’s standing position. It just meant a soldier was safe from being murdered by an authority figure.

The Sergeant General quick-drew the antimatter pistol and reduced a Papanazi standing next to Achtung 66.799 to soup.

“I couldn’t resist, goddamn it! Pretend I didn’t say at ease before. At ease for real now.”

Achtung 66.799 flexed his jaw…

The Sergeant General glided to the opposite end of the room. A 3D holoscreen sprouted out of the floor. The heads of a human and his ’gänger dissolved into view and rotated around a central axis like planets around a sun. A code of schematics unfolded beneath them.

“Observe the future of Papanaziism,” the Sergeant General said, clicking his heels together. “By future, I mean the next twenty-four hours. Possibly the next twelve hours. Maybe one hour. It all depends on the Media now. It all depends on you now.” He slammed his fists together. “These are the perps. They killed Voss Winkenweirder and emotionally incapacitated his ’gänger. They’re plaquedemics! They teach English! They’ve already committed two holocausts this morning. The Law has calculated that they will commit up to eight holocausts by noon. Reasons unknown. Reasons incidental!” He slammed his fists together. “The ’gänger’s name is Dr. Identity. It is rumored to possess superheroic strength and scikungfi skills. It stands six feet three inches tall. Its sense of fashion is stable. Its psychological disposition is unstable. It has a distinguishing scar on its forehead. Currently it has no publications under its belt. The human’s name is Dr. ———. He is rumored to possess limited strength and scikungfi skills. He stands six feet three inches tall. His sense of fashion is stable. His psychological disposition is unstable. He has no distinguishing scars. Currently he has three publications under his belt. All are literary criticism. His most recent essay, ‘The Post(post)/post-post+postmodern Icklyophobe: Ultra/counter\hypernihilism in Fiona Birdwater’s Megaanti-micronovel, The Ypsilanti Factor,’ appears in Issue 2, Volume 6 of an underground, staple-bound journal whose name is irrelevant.” Slam! “Nicknames for the plaquedemics currently include the Dystopian Duo, Team Hatewave, Warlords of Wickedness, the Dawgs of Plaquedemia, and Bartleby’s Fangs. New nicknames are being considered for publication. Submissions should be forwarded to Papanazi headquarters. Payment for publication is a get-out-of-death-free coupon at any Littleoldladyville.” Slam! “Payment for footage of the plaquedemics, footage of any fucking kind, is full retirement with benefits. This is a code blackhead, gentlemen. The plaquedemics should be treated like red hot movie stars straight out of a Big-Budget, Hackademy Award-winning blockbuster. Bear in mind they prefer the air to the streets. Jetpacks and Stickem suits are highly recommended. Questions?”

A Papanazi raised his hand. The Sergeant General hurled a throwing star at him. It slammed into his forehead. He flew backwards in a snarl of limbs and landed in the body basin like a slam dunk.

The Sergeant General passed through the holoscreen, which disintegrated into the floor behind him. He nodded at the remaining soldiers. “You have your orders, gentlemen. Semper fee-fi-fo-fum…I smell the blood of an everyman.” The Sergeant General’s driftdisc morphed into a black hole and sucked him into it. Then the black hole imploded with a dull snap.

The Papanazis’ chests popped like balloons. Gasping for air, they peered at each other out of the corners of their eyes, watchful, calculating…

They fell on the hors d’oeuvres.

Achtung 66.799 salvaged a meatball, then crawled into a storeroom and signed out a jetpack and Stickem suit with accessories. He was billed a pound of flesh. He was billed another pound of flesh for the cost of the surgery it took to patch him up.

For the first time in his life, Achtung 66.799 felt a sense of hope. He wondered how long it would last.

He wondered if it had already passed…