Tales of the Parodyverse

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dull thud
Mon Mar 13, 2006 at 07:28:44 pm EST
Subject
Market Forces
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Market Forces
a tale of the Parodyverse


The table was mahogany, the atmosphere was menacing and the view was spectacular. High up in the Twin Parody Tower, this was the boardroom of Villainy Solutions Inc., the city's premier evil-plan consultancy. Founder Lucien van der Nasty hung over his doodle pad like a half-starved vulture in weirdly thick glasses.

Along the back wall were framed newspaper front pages featuring the time-poor supercriminals who had outsourced their path to daring heist, high-profile kidnap or all-out world domination. There were robot octopi and gender-bending amulets, tectonic earwigs and flying pirate galleons. Under the swarm of atomic badgers, created for Peter von Doom as Project Greyscale Tide, stood the most recent recruit; he was a biotechnician, young, blond, affable. His name was Doctor Anagram.

"You wanted to see me, chief?" Anagram slurped three-sugar coffee from a mug promoting Your One-stop Henchman Shop!.

Van der Nasty's lip twitched with distaste. "I did." He gestured toward a chair, but Anagram was already slouched deep into it. With his feet on the table. The master gathered his thoughts. "Yes. Let me see if I've got all the details. You've been with us for... nine months?"

Anagram nodded. "Thereabouts."

"Hmm." He made a note. "So, Doctor, let's go back to when you joined the firm. You came straight from college, didn't you?"

"Goth Haven U." He took another slurp. "With the medal for Most Promising Creator of Frankenthings."

The Boss scratched his nose thoughtfully. "Indeed. As I recall, you submitted a strong Nefarious Plotting portfolio, which made play of your experience with zombie pirates, ninja dinosaurs and... what was it? Yes, samurai jet-pack baboons, those were rather good. But since then?" He leant forward to pour himself a glass of water.

"I've brought a new design to every weekly meeting," said Anagram. "And if it hadn't been for Falcon, the samurai baboon Turbo Edition would have made two-fifty miles an hour, easy."

"Granted. I've got some of your recent designs here." He produced a thick folder of blueprints and leafed through the first few. "You see, we at Villainy Solutions pride ourselves on our capacity for innovation. In this marketplace you can't afford to stand still. But in the last nine months what have you given us?" He spread the bundle across the desk. "Zombie ninjas, jet-pack zombie ninjas, samurai dinosaur pirates, jet-pack dinosaur pirates, ninja zombie dinosaur pirates... shall I go on?"

"What about the drunken samurai zombie jet-pack dinosaur pirates? Did you get those?"

"Yes," said van der Nasty coldly, "I also got your proposal for zombie ninja jet-pack buccaneer gibbons."

"From the future," said Anagram. "Zombie ninja jet-pack buccaneer gibbons from the future."

Van der Nasty took off his spectacles and sighed heavily. "Doctor," he said at length, "do you ever feel you're just going over the same old ground? In a bit of a rut, you know?"

"We all feel like that sometimes," said Doctor Anagram. "Don't let it get to you. Perhaps you should take a holiday."

Van der Nasty turned a glare of barely repressed fury on his subordinate, who sat utterly unperturbed. "I'm sorry," he said in carefully measured tones, "but I simply don't think your heart is in the work any more. Perhaps if you concentrated more on your plotting nefariously and less on playing around with Photoshop on company time - "

"Yes. No! Wait." Anagram leapt from his chair and burst from the room, running back moments later with a sheet of paper.

"And what's this?" Van der Nasty held it at arm's length, turned it this way and that.

"It's Visionary," explained the younger man, "but with a few little ...changes."

"You've taken a photo of Visionary and added a clown hat. And a big red nose."

"Only took a couple hours. I'm really proud of the eye makeup and the rosy cheeks."

"Quite well done," agreed van der Nasty. "But I have to ask... being an evil plot consultancy, what actual use do we have for this beyond amusing Christmas cards?"

Doctor Anagram gave a small sinister grin. "If we distribute this widely enough, it'll have a slow but steady effect on the public perception of superheroes. They'll come to associate Visionary with incompetence, falling over and general buffoonery. Their faith in him will be shaken to the core. And with public trust in their heroes at an all-time low, it'll leave the door right open for - "

Lucien van der Nasty crumpled the paper into a ball and flung it aside. "Anagram," he said, "there's no easy way to say this... in fact, yes there is. You're fired."

"No, look, here's one of Dancer done up like a tiger. Look at the whiskers!"

"You're fired."

"Mr Epitome in Gene Simmons makeup? C'mon, at least let's see how it goes!"

Lucien van der Nasty turned to the door and roared "SECURITY!"

Doctor Anagram sat on the kerb, a cardboard box of office tat in his lap. This wasn't a defeat though, no. Not even a minor setback. This was a chance for a fresh start. He'd be back, and this time he'd be unstoppable. He'd just had this brilliant idea for an army of dwarf pirates, riding hang-gliding samurai dinosaurs and shooting jet-pack ninja swords at everything in sight. Oh yes. This time he was onto a winner.


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