Gehenna-on-the-Rhine
Instructions for Agents going to Gehenna-on-the-Rhine, Graubünden:
Welcome to Switzerland (Insert Agent name)! The land of chocolate, secret bank accounts and cheese with holes in them! Located somewhere in central Europe, next to France....somewhere, this is a funky place to be sent to, even if it may be the last place you'll ever go to! Did we mention that we are sending you guys up against the Alchemist? Yikes. Sucks to be you!
You will be greeted at the airport on arrival by one of our highly efficient, competent, etc. linguistic experts who shall give you a quick guided tour through the little known town of Gehenna-on-the-Rhine (local name of town currently unavailable) before we get down to business of...er...killing.
A man looking conspicuously like a secret agent waves at me from the taxi rank at the airport, a perfect target for disgruntled postal workers atop towers with high-powered rifles. Mid-30's, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sporting a pornstar moustache that falls from his face every few minutes, Agent Dellwood Gruyère shakes my hand. 'Wow. You're Fatman? Far out man. I thought you'd be seriously fatter. Like a combine harvester or something.'
I grunt in reply.
'Now, weren't you one of the guys involved in the Vegas Incident of a few years ago?'
'Yup.'
'How'd you do it? What was your secret?'
I lean into his ear.
'Identical twins.' I whisper.
Gruyère lets out a long whistle, impressed. His moustache falls off. Gruyère looks over my shoulders and says, 'So, where are the other dudes? Says here on this slip of paper that I'm supposed to pick up Agents Fontina and Pecorino as well.'
'Agent Fontina got seriously ill from mistakenly chewing on some cyanide capsules that he thought were tic tacs and Pecorino fell through an open sewer pipe in Beijing and hasn't been seen of since. If either of them survive they'll be on the next flight in.'
Once all the members of the team in place your contact in Gehenna-on-the-Rhine will fill you in on all pertinent details.
'Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here?'
'Didn't they fill you in with the details back in Beijing?'
Gruyère is driving us down a narrow street dominated by fishmongers and hungry cats. How European!
'Look, sport, they've edited most of the info from my homework and I couldn't sneak a look at any of the other agents' copies of the document because most of the agents had burned 'em before reading it. Why hold a meeting in sodding Beijing when the operation takes place in Graubünden?'
'Because of the German spoon benders that Grimshawe has in his employ.' Gruyère replies, reattaching his moustache.
Me: 'The ex-Bundesnachrichtendienst mind readers. I heard that some of those guys went mercenary after they got booted out of the BND (Germany's Federal Intelligence Service). Rumour is that after they closed down the Psi-Division most of the men extracted revenge by winning an inordinate amount of quiz shows.'
Gruyère: 'True. But some of them were extremely bitter. Way beyond petty quiz show tampering. They sold their services to rebel South East Asian generals and Middle Eastern warlords.'
Me: 'Like ex-CIA agents do.'
Gruyère: 'Your cynicism offends me. We're the good guys. Anyway, we needed the mission to be briefed in another country altogether. Beijing seemed as good a place as any.'
'Skip to the bit where I'm required.'
All Agents will be required to use their skills to the utmost. Not only are we dealing with the Alchemist we are dealing with a lot of other dedicated professionals in his employ. Foreign professionals. With cooler code names than us. Fear them.
'Turns out that some years ago another agency called Yawning Anus,' he spat, 'found that it was having difficulty with some of their mind control experiments. These individuals were labelled 'misfires' by the agency-unaffected somehow by their psychotronic broadcast towers-and filed away for record keeping purposes. Though on one hand misfires could be a potential danger to national, and even international, security, it was decided by the Powers That Be that it may prove useful in the future to know which of these individuals were impervious to mind readers/mind control and to keep close tabs on these individuals.'
'Oh yeah. Psychics have told me that my mind is too chaotic to read properly. Nothing to grab hold of. That's important for this upcoming mission?'
Agent Gruyère turns to face me. 'It's crucial.' he says, and remains silent for the rest of the journey.
Hips don't lie,
Fatman
Welcome to Switzerland (Insert Agent name)! The land of chocolate, secret bank accounts and cheese with holes in them! Located somewhere in central Europe, next to France....somewhere, this is a funky place to be sent to, even if it may be the last place you'll ever go to! Did we mention that we are sending you guys up against the Alchemist? Yikes. Sucks to be you!
You will be greeted at the airport on arrival by one of our highly efficient, competent, etc. linguistic experts who shall give you a quick guided tour through the little known town of Gehenna-on-the-Rhine (local name of town currently unavailable) before we get down to business of...er...killing.
A man looking conspicuously like a secret agent waves at me from the taxi rank at the airport, a perfect target for disgruntled postal workers atop towers with high-powered rifles. Mid-30's, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sporting a pornstar moustache that falls from his face every few minutes, Agent Dellwood Gruyère shakes my hand. 'Wow. You're Fatman? Far out man. I thought you'd be seriously fatter. Like a combine harvester or something.'
I grunt in reply.
'Now, weren't you one of the guys involved in the Vegas Incident of a few years ago?'
'Yup.'
'How'd you do it? What was your secret?'
I lean into his ear.
'Identical twins.' I whisper.
Gruyère lets out a long whistle, impressed. His moustache falls off. Gruyère looks over my shoulders and says, 'So, where are the other dudes? Says here on this slip of paper that I'm supposed to pick up Agents Fontina and Pecorino as well.'
'Agent Fontina got seriously ill from mistakenly chewing on some cyanide capsules that he thought were tic tacs and Pecorino fell through an open sewer pipe in Beijing and hasn't been seen of since. If either of them survive they'll be on the next flight in.'
Once all the members of the team in place your contact in Gehenna-on-the-Rhine will fill you in on all pertinent details.
'Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here?'
'Didn't they fill you in with the details back in Beijing?'
Gruyère is driving us down a narrow street dominated by fishmongers and hungry cats. How European!
'Look, sport, they've edited most of the info from my homework and I couldn't sneak a look at any of the other agents' copies of the document because most of the agents had burned 'em before reading it. Why hold a meeting in sodding Beijing when the operation takes place in Graubünden?'
'Because of the German spoon benders that Grimshawe has in his employ.' Gruyère replies, reattaching his moustache.
Me: 'The ex-Bundesnachrichtendienst mind readers. I heard that some of those guys went mercenary after they got booted out of the BND (Germany's Federal Intelligence Service). Rumour is that after they closed down the Psi-Division most of the men extracted revenge by winning an inordinate amount of quiz shows.'
Gruyère: 'True. But some of them were extremely bitter. Way beyond petty quiz show tampering. They sold their services to rebel South East Asian generals and Middle Eastern warlords.'
Me: 'Like ex-CIA agents do.'
Gruyère: 'Your cynicism offends me. We're the good guys. Anyway, we needed the mission to be briefed in another country altogether. Beijing seemed as good a place as any.'
'Skip to the bit where I'm required.'
All Agents will be required to use their skills to the utmost. Not only are we dealing with the Alchemist we are dealing with a lot of other dedicated professionals in his employ. Foreign professionals. With cooler code names than us. Fear them.
'Turns out that some years ago another agency called Yawning Anus,' he spat, 'found that it was having difficulty with some of their mind control experiments. These individuals were labelled 'misfires' by the agency-unaffected somehow by their psychotronic broadcast towers-and filed away for record keeping purposes. Though on one hand misfires could be a potential danger to national, and even international, security, it was decided by the Powers That Be that it may prove useful in the future to know which of these individuals were impervious to mind readers/mind control and to keep close tabs on these individuals.'
'Oh yeah. Psychics have told me that my mind is too chaotic to read properly. Nothing to grab hold of. That's important for this upcoming mission?'
Agent Gruyère turns to face me. 'It's crucial.' he says, and remains silent for the rest of the journey.
Hips don't lie,
Fatman
posted by Fatman | 5:54 pm
7 Comments:
So, Fats. I hope this little Trans-Siberian trip of yours isn't going to delay the next episode. It's just getting exciting.
'The ex-Bundesnachrichtendienst mind readers. I heard that some of those guys went mercenary after they got booted out of the BND (Germany's Federal Intelligence Service). Rumour is that after they closed down the Psi-Division most of the men extracted revenge by winning an inordinate amount of quiz shows.'
Now that's a fucking classic.
Yes it's true about the Misfires. I'd like to add though that if harnessed correctly they can form a structurally functional segment. That is one of the many challenges facing the agency today, but it is of a lower priority. This time of year we function more reactively than proactively, but later on we become proactive and assign priority to these types of projects.
Broadzilla- I really, really, really want to finish this bitch of a project before I head to sunny Vladivostok (17 days and counting). No offence to Grimshawe, Fontina, et al but I just want to wrap this sucker up. It was only supposed to be a 3 week project dammit!
Yawn-
a) Heh. If I were a disgruntled, recently fired, top secret Psi Division agent I think I'd use my powers in mundane ways to eke out a petty, yet comfortable, existence.
b) I liked the 'misfire' posts. I always thought I could somehow incorporate it into my own warped world. After the HIEROPHANT incident I realised I could, albeit in a clumsy manner.
Maybe your fellow 'contributer', Rupert, can keep the momentum going if you have to leave before you've wrapped things up.
(Who the hell is Rupert and why have I only noticed this now?)
Back in the days before I knew what a 'blog' was I'd send (almost) weekly group emails to my friends in the vain hope that at least one of them would reply (Note how the first eighteen months of posts are in letter format. A direct cut-and-paste job). One day someone did.
Rupert: You should collect all your old emails and start a blog.
Me: Gesundheit!
Rupert:....it...it means a web based diary.
So Rupert started up this page for me which I ignored for about six months and then I started to post on a semi-regular basis depending on how drunk I was. A much healthier hobby than butchering drifters.
Check out his adventures with his friend Trev. Pretty funny stuff (Rupert is a theatre-type guy. Directing plays and whatnot. He currently works for the Melbourne Theatre Company)
You come up with such interesting back-stories for your imaginary friends, Fats.
Post a Comment
<< Home