Tales of the Parodyverse

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killer shrike
Sat Apr 22, 2006 at 04:10:36 am EDT
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Anyone remember this: Strong Suit Part Nine
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Strong Suit Part Nine


Previously: Thanks to the machinations of an old enemy, the sentient computer program Hallie has found her technology corrupted and stolen. Stolen in that the supervillain Illusionous is using her holographic designs to begin a murderous crime spree, and corrupted in that the android body she sometimes uses has been infected by a virus, and is now functioning irregularly. In an attempt to adjust to her debilitation, Hallie has turned to Mr. Epitome for aid.

Note: this story takes place prior to Untold Tales #240

There was an orangutan in the casino elevator.

The great ape stood and beat its chest belligerently when the doors open, scattering the waiting patrons like tenpins. As they fled, it became obvious to them that more than a single monkey had invaded the El Dorado. The entire circus had come to town.

A leopard pounced seemingly from nowhere and onto a blackjack table. Two wildebeests clashed on the second floor mezzanine. The bank of slot machines were stalked by lions, tigers, and bears.

“Oh, my!” one especially brave tourist commented while observing the bull elephant masticating at the salad bar. He cautiously reached out to touch the craggy hide of the animal.

“Whoah,” he exhaled as his hand passed through the pachyderm’s right haunch, “It’s a, a hologram or something,” the man turned triumphantly to the serape-wearing cocktail waitress beside him, “They’re not real!”

That’s when the Bengal tiger came up behind the woman and with one snap of its jaws broke her neck.

*****


“Agent Muldrake,” the plainclothes detective with the hangdog expression flashed his identity badge to the police manning the cordon; “this is Agent Lesky. We’re with the Office of Paranormal Security.”

The female agent with the red hair that witnesses would later describe as ‘too red’ spoke, “We’re here to inspect the crime scene.”

The pair was led to the blood sprayed site. The woman’s mangled body lay sprawled across the gold embroidered carpet. While Lesky held her hand to her mouth uneasily and contemplatively her partner bent down to examine the corpse.

A policeman identified her, “Vic’s name is Tianna Youlklis. She worked here at the casino serving drinks.”

Lesky nodded absently while looking through the woman’s online employment and finance records.

“Cause of death is obvious: massive trauma to the head and neck. The coroner said death was probably instantaneous,” the officer went on, “All this other wounds took place post-mortem. Kitty must have been hungry.”

“These bite marks aren’t from the tiger feeding,” Agent Muldrake noted. He reached down and carefully pried one of Miss Youlklis’s nails from its finger, “Where is the animal?”

“Body’s back in the kitchen. Security must have pumped thirty bullets into it. You wanna see?”

Muldrake put the press-on into a plastic bag and stood, “No. We’re leaving. Thank you.”

“Huh? Where-“

Agents Muldrake and Lesky vanished in a blizzard of green pixels just as the proper OPS agents entered the casino.

“Uh Oh,” Lester Dawes said to his partner Abby St. Germain after noting the flabbergasted expressions of the assembled police force, “What’d we miss?”

*****


Brick Basalt grumbled as he used his sand-blasting power to clean out the now vacant tiger cage, “This is the worst damn job I’ve ever been on. Stealing fucking tigers and then cleaning up after them just so that blockheaded spazz can get his jollies. It’s retarded.”

“You missed some shit in the corner over there,” his partner Googol Volt noted with a smirk.

“Then you go get it! I’m freakin’ Grit the Granulated Man! I could have been a member of the godammned Purveyors of Peril!”

“Way I remember it, you were named a third alternate.”

Grit scooped up the offal with a shovel-like arm, “And now I’m doubling for Kitty Litter,” he glared at the whip lean man in the green and yellow costume, “Why are you so chipper?”

Googol Volt shrugged, “Just am. Illusionous’s joy de vivre is contagious, maybe.”

“What?! Who’s Joy?!” the Granulated Man dumped the waste in a trashcan then looked around the room he and his friend stood in, “Just what the hell is this place, anyway?”

“It’s a wind tunnel, Mr. Basalt,” Illusionous explained as he wafted into the chamber via ‘magic’ carpet, “A relic of my old life. The life I left behind.”

“You seem very bent on revenging old wrongs for a guy who claims to have ditched his past,” Volt noted.

If the villains could see past the rotating holographic cube that concealed Illusionous’s face they would have seen him smiled, “I didn’t not say my enemies were done with my past, Mr. Zezkowski.”

“Enough psychobabble,” Grit spoke, “All I care about is getting paid. I’ve called my contact, Illusionous. They’re ready to deal. All we have to do is deliver them HALLIE.”

Illusionous rubbed his gloved hands gleefully, “Splendid. When I’m done, they can have it.”

*****


The digitized woman stared curiously at the tiny diode resting on a sterile tissue in the middle of her rented bungalow’s kitchen table, “It’s a sonic projector?” Hallie asked her partner.

“Yes,” Dominic Clancy said, “Concealed in Miss Youlklis’s artificial nail. It released a powerful hypersonic signal, I assume, to antagonize the tiger. Meaning, Illusionous was very specific in whom he wanted dead as a result of the attack.

Hallie nodded, angry that the hologram-using villain had murdered another innocent while using her technology, “I wonder why.”

“I wonder how Illusionous planted the device on Miss Youlklis.”

It only took the computerized intelligence a few moments to cybernetically access the woman’s bank records, “She got her nails done three days ago at Miss Tsang’s Nail Salon.”

“You pulled that information off the internet?” Dominic asked.

“Yup.”

“Is there a way you can look for any connections between Miss Youlklis and Mr. Spender the same way?” Epitome mentioned Illusionous’s first victim.

“I can run a cross reference search, sure,” Hallie sat at the table and folded her hands.

The big man with the army crew cut turned the chair opposite her around and straddled it, “Proceed,” he intoned.

Hallie gave Dominic a smirk and continued her online investigation, “Okay, let’s see… there’s several actually. Most about the murders... wait: here’s a hit on the IMDB- that’s the Internet Movie Data Base,” she preempted Dominic’s coming question, “Spender is named as a producer and Youlklis an extra for a movie; Fatal Umbrage IV.”

“Interesting. How many other names are listed?”

“Forty three.”

Dominic leaned forward, “Can you run checks on all of them as well, but this time against the El Dorado Casino?”

“Good thinking. Wow, yeah. One guy, Milo Brown, has a bunch,” Hallie’s face broke out in a Cheshire grin, “He was the film’s Special Effects Director.”

“That would make him an excellent suspect, it would seem.”

“Especially since he was sued by the casino four years ago for negligence. According to Nevada Civil Court records, Brown did the pyrotechnics for their hotel’s cabaret and his work led to a serious fire. The jury found him guilty and awarded the El Dorado fifteen million dollars in damages.”

“So there’s motive,” Epitome said excitedly.

“I’d say so. I think we got our man.”

For several moments the two grinned at one another, exhilarant in the discovery. Finally Dominic spoke.

“This isn’t really how I expected the investigation to play out,” he admitted somewhat ruefully.

Hallie agreed, “I know what you mean. We’re in Las Vegas; there should have been more action. At least a car chase down the Strip or something.”

Dominic got into the spirit of the banter, “Or roughing up mobsters for information.”

“A high stakes blackjack game against a criminal mastermind.”

“A showgirl with a heart of gold who Has Seen Too Much.”

“Heh; we’ve just broken up and already you’re thinking about convivial strippers?” Hallie quipped, but turned embarrassed immediately after the jibe was spoken.

“Is there more information online about Brown? Does he live in Las Vegas?” Dominic asked, his professional poise returned.

“Um, no. His last known address is in Albuquerque. And… he used to have a warehouse/studio outside of Reno, but he went bankrupt because of the lawsuit so the property was auctioned off to, hm, a West German investment group. A connection to Rikka Ulz Hagan, maybe?”

“Sounds reasonable. I wonder why she chose Brown in the first place.”

Hallie concentrated, “Checking…. I don’t see any mention that would link the two of them together.”

“What about Brown and yourself?”

“Right. ‘Milo Brown and Hallie’…. Oh,” her eyes narrowed, “Yes. Mr. Brown knows me. And he’s not a fan.”

There were several online interviews of Brown when he was in his salad days, in various technical and entertainment journals. The man seemed to resent the growing presence of Computer Generated Images in his chosen profession, going so far as to call such work ‘soulless trash.’ He worried the efforts of men like Harryhausen, Savini, and himself would be ignored in favor of the ‘pixilated productions typed up by some computer nerds and their supposedly sentient creations.’ Hallie relayed the information to Dominic.

“So Hagan helped outfit Brown because he’s a disgruntled artist?” the federally trained investigator shook his head, “What ever happened to crime for profit?”

“It’s Rikki’s way of taunting me,” Hallie scowled, “Helping a bigot show me up by using my own holographic technology. That’s probably Brown’s line of reasoning too.”

Dominic shifted uncomfortably, “I’m not sure I’d classify Brown as a bigot, based on what you’ve told me.”

“I would,” Hallie stood, “So what do we do now?”

“The warehouse bears investigating.”

“I thought the same thing. Er, do you think I should suit up?” the woman jerked a holographic thumb to the bed where her robotic form rested.

“Yes. It will be an opportunity to see if you’re training has paid off. I plan on going in my uniform myself,” Dominic rose to change, “The investigatory phase of the operation is over. Now we confront Brown and arrest him.”

“If he’s there,” Hallie disassembled her hard light form to better download into her robotic form.

Epitome expected he would be. Illusionous has been set up to provoke a confrontation with Hallie. It was time to oblige him.

Next: It’s fight time. Mr. Epitome versus Grit and Googol Volt. Hallie versus Illusionous. And then the really scary villain shows up to open a can of Whoop Ass on everybody. Out soon.





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