- Hot tasty apple pie -
From underneath the desk, where the real me had been hiding, I popped out like a "thingy" from a dirty old man's jacket. I rubbed off the dust and grime from my clothes, and smugly went out to face the world. I grabbed a case of diamond head, platinum case, teflon coated .77 calbre Magnum Magnum shells as I went. They'd come in handy. I also grabbed an industrial issue vibro- massager, for relieving aches and pains, even though everyone knows that's not what they're really used for, and headed out into the world.
First stop Dr Eric Nazihider for a face lift and body drop.
"What can you do for me Doc, I want to look completely anonymous, you know,
the sort of person no-one would look at more than twice in a crowd?"
"I can do you a Teddy Kennedy, Six Fifty plus Sales Tax."
"No no, Anonymous, not anal-retentive"
"Well, I've got an Amelia Earheart.."
"What, before or after the crash?"
"After of course, I have some professional standards"
"No, no. Look, I want something that suggests boring, mundane, office job,
virgin till death sort of things"
"Oh, you mean a George Bush"
"No no, he's married"
"Is he, I thought that was his sister! He sure acts like it if you ask me"
"Look, can we cut the crap and get on with the job"
"Job?! Mine is a work of art. Why I..."
The doctor wahhed on for a while while I leafed through his "New Faces" catalog. There were some terrible singers in there - they obviously hadn't won first prize. I found what I was looking for.
"I want something like this!" I said, indicating the face that would take me to hell and back on a three-speed bike - You know, the thumb-change kind that all the gearing's done in the hub where you can't see it, because if you could you'd fix the bit that makes the crank slip when you're in between 1st and 2nd gear on a really steep upward climb, with all your weight on the pedals (before the slip) and all your weight on your groin and crossbar (after the slip)
"Oh!" Doctor Nazihider says "You want the Ronald Gersey, Mild-mannered accounts enquiry officer. $820 per session, two sessions required. Money up front."
"I'll take it." I smile to myself. Doctor Nazihider really thinks he'll be around to spend his money after the operation. Well, me and the Magnum Magnum will have to see about that....
Weeks later, I come out of my drug induced coma a new man.
"What do you think?" the good doctor asks, smiling indulgently
"Yes, I like it" I say, turning around to stare down the barrel of the Magnum Magnum.
"Lookee what I found" The not-so-good doctor lilts.
His finger tightens on the trigger and a slug bites through the atmosphere like a doberman through testicles and I utter my last words "TRACKBALLS ARE FOR WIMPY BASTARDS WHO CAN'T HANDLE PUSHING EVERYTHING OFF THEIR DESKS TO MAKE WAY FOR A GOOD GAME"
The bullet strikes my cigarette case (even though I don't smoke), then my mothers bible that she gave me before the red bucket started, then my pocket watch, and the ricochets off my stainless steel plated platinum Sheriffs badge and hits the good doctor in the head.
It cuts through the years of plastic surgery to reveal..... ....
...his skull.
He falls to the floor dead, and I feel good because people now don't think I'm a bastard for murdering the doctor in cold blood. nyaa nyaa nyaa
I leave the late-good-doctors abode (after burning the photos that he took of Me before and after - silently thanking Harry Harrison for warning me) and head out to the new world I have created for myself.
First stop, The White House.
I join a group of tourist sheep being shown around various places and slip away at an opportune moment that I created with a little stick of dynamite I'd hastily written into the plot as this paragraph started. Isn't it funny how tourists all mill around like computer scientists around the newest X86 when the guide explodes?
I sneak into a back corridor and make my way to the East Wing. I'm almost to my destination when I see an Id Checkpoint ahead, that never used to be there before. I can't turn around, so I'll just have to bluff it. I walk up to the most important looking of the two guards.
"Hi >smile< Olly Stone. Look, I'm thinking of doing this whole Reagan assasination attempt shooting thing as a full-length feature. I figure maybe Deniro as Reagan, Whats-his-name as the misguided assasin..."
"..YOU MEAN COSTNER?" the guard interrupts, excited
"Yeah, that's right - but when need a couple of body-guard figures. Now frankly, the bodyguards I've interviewed today don't really cut it, so I thought I'd just check out some of you uniformed guys to see if you can do the part."
"Wul I guess so!" Guard #2 drawls, smiling.
"I don't know" I say, fingering my smooth acquiline features, "have you had any acting experience?"
"I played the lead role in `Debbie sucks her way thru the mounties'!" #2 says
"So you've got no acting experience..." Ok, lets see if you're right for the part. See, in my version, the two bodyguards get knocked out and replaced with infiltrators who are part of a conspiricy to get arms back from Iran without paying for them."
"Oh Yeah!"
"So would you mind rehearsing?"
"Shore!"
They lean forward, I hit them. Almost too easy.
I sneak past the checkpoint to a convenient hole in the plot where my locker is. The "Richard Nixon for Senator" sticker is still in one peice, so I know that no-one's been round recently.