Wednesday 9 September 2015

Disguises and Diseases

"Y-y-you want what?" Makes-Things backed even further away from the agent. "No. No! That's just... You're even c-crazier than the other assassins."

"Possibly," admitted Sean, not wanting to dwell on his past. "But you've gotta admit, it makes sense."

"Sense? How can that possibly m-make sense?" Eyes darting left and right as he searched the DoSAT lab for a refuge, the terrified technician desperately tried to keep the madman talking.

"Simple. A lot of missions take place in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, where there aren't any Random Orcs to kill people, right?"

"Yes, I know that." By now, Makes-Things had squeezed into the gap between two cabinets and was pulling his labcoat over his head in imitation of Elliot Dunkel's coat of solitude.

Sean started to lean round to get a better view of the man he was trying to talk to, but then decided against it. He took a deep breath and continued as if nothing was happening. "Terrorists are obviously right out because they're in bad taste. Insane serial killers would be good, but what would they look like?"

Some mumbled words came from the hidden figure, but Sean could only make out the phrases "Have you," and "mirror lately?"

Ignoring him, Sean said, "So that only leaves one thing that could randomly kill people."

"Yes, but y-you can't expect me to program that into the disguise generators."

"Why not? They can already turn people into different species, so why not a virus? And there are lots of different types to choose from, so even if Ebola is too difficult, there's always SARS or Anthrax."

"But a single virus cell isn't enough to k-kill anyone."

"Yeah, obviously you'd have to turn us into a colony of the things. And most agents are multi-celled organisms anyway, so that should make it easier for you." By now Sean was enthusiastically gesturing with his hands as he explained his great idea. "And we'd spend the mission breeding and incubating inside the Sue's body, so she would never spot us. It's the perf—"

Sean suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. Slowly he turned and found himself looking at two ogres in FicPsyc uniforms.

"Agent Bellman?" asked the first ogre, the one with his hand on Sean's shoulder.

Sean just nodded.

The other ogre called out, "It's all right. You can come out now."

Makes-Things emerged, straightening his coat. He was holding a mobile phone in one hand. "You got my text then?"

"Yeah. We'll take care of this now."

"Come along, Agent Bellman," said the first ogre. "Doc Freedenberg needs to remind you about the dangers of mixing too much Bleeprin with your prescription antidepressants."


Special thanks to Hieronymus Graubart for unofficial beta reading.