MSTing: HELIOPOLIS (1/5)
a.ca...@genie.com
[Theme song]
[1...2...3...4...5...6...]
[SOL. Mike and the bots are dressed in all kinds of wild costumes, eagerly
waiting for the show to start. Crow's wearing a big fake mustache and an
enormous polka-dotted bow tie; Tom's sporting a tuxedo and a monocle; Mike's
dressed in some kind of lizard outfit and has on a pair of 3-D glasses.
Cambot blinks on and they all spring to life.]
Mike: Hey, everybody! I'm Mike Nelson up here on the Satellite of Love and
today we've got a hilarious musical comedy sketch I've been working on for
months! So sit back, relax, and enjoy--
[Yellow light flashes.]
Crow: Aw, man!
Tom: I spent weeks memorizing my lines!
Mike: Well, I'm not going to give them the satisfaction. We're just going
to wait here till they turn the light off.
[Time passes. The yellow light continues to flash.]
Tom: Maybe you ought to just get it over with.
Mike: No way! We're in control here. They can't hawk their products till
=we= let them. I'll wait all day if I have to.
[More time passes. The yellow light switches off.]
Mike: There! See? Now, for the first time on this or any other stage, I am
pleased to present--
[Enter Gypsy. She appears to have something caught in her throat.]
Crow: Hey, Gypse, some other time, huh? We're busy here!
Gypsy: *hack* *hack*
Mike: I am =not= a hack! I'm an artist! You critics are just afraid of the
light I'm shedding on your own moral corruption!
Tom: I think she's coughing, Mike.
Mike: Oh.
Gypsy: *hack* *haaaaack* [coughs up a roll of Mentos]
Crow: Gypsy! How many times have we told you you have to unwrap those first?
Gypsy: *hack* *hack* *hack*
Tom: Who would've thought? Our very own Gypsy =is= the Freshmaker!
Gypsy: *hack* *haaaaack* [coughs up an Aptiva]
Mike: Gypsy! You swallowed a desktop computer?? A ThinkPad I could see,
but a whole desktop system??
Tom: I think there's something much more disturbing going on here. Maybe
you shouldn't have tried to mess with the commercial sign mechanism.
Crow: Yeah, Mike. I think you may have tampered in God's domain.
Gypsy: *hack* *haaaaack* [coughs up Penn Jillette]
Penn: [dusts himself off] We'll be right back for more of the T&A Matinee
here at Comedy Central!
Gypsy: *wheeze*
Penn: I am =not= a weasel!
[Commercials]
[Back on the SOL. Mike and the bots are back in their normal clothes (or
lack thereof, in the bots' case.) Penn is tied up and gagged in the back.]
Mike: I think from now on we'll just get our commercials the old-fashioned
way.
[Red light flashes. Mike and all three bots pounce on it at once.]
Mike: Let's see what Teller wants.
[Deep 13]
Dr.F.: *yawn* Oh, it's you again.
[SOL]
Crow: Hey, isn't your mom supposed to be visiting?
[Deep 13]
Dr.F.: Hmm? I dunno. I guess so. I can't get cable where I live. Anyway,
you're all starting to bore me. I'm tired of having to find cheesy stories
and fanfics for you to read.
[SOL]
Mike: Cool! So do we get the week off?
[Deep 13]
Dr.F.: Of course not! I've just decided to automate things a little. Allow
me to present my latest evil invention: Beta-Nine!
[Dr.F. wheels in a cart with a dropcloth over it. With a dramatic flourish
he rips away the dropcloth, revealing an odd-looking monstrosity made of
various pieces of junk wired together. Identifiable pieces include a
Betamax VCR, an Atari 2600, a Speak-n-Spell, a toaster oven, and a Sony
Trinitron.]
[SOL]
Crow: I'm scared.
[Deep 13]
Dr.F.: Now for the coup de grace!
[Dr.F. switches on the TV monitor. It flickers for a moment and then,
horribly, appears the face of Marrissa Amber Flores Picard. But when she
talks she doesn't sound like Marrissa. She sounds like one of the phone
sex ads that play during the 2 AM syndicated MST3K.]
Beta-Nine: I'm going for a ride tonight. Would you like to come? We can
talk along the way, about =any=thing you want. I'll share my deepest
fantasies, and you can tell me your most sssssecret desires. So call me
now, sssssweetie, and I'll take you for the ride of your life!
[SOL]
Tom: You monster!
Mike: This is the sickest thing you've ever come up with.
[Deep 13]
Dr.F.: Thank you! Anyway, Beta-Nine here will be running all your future
experiments. She's specially programmed to maximize the pain content of
each and every one. And what do you have in store for them today, hmmm?
Beta-Nine: I've been essssspecially naughty today, Sssssteve! Not only
will they have to sssssuffer the torment of Neal Mentech's HELIOPOLIS, but
I've even thrown in a short from the student newspaper at Minot State
University in North Dakota! It gets pretty cold there... but I'll make
sure things here stay nice and =hot=!
[SOL]
Mike: I said it once, I'll say it again. This is the sickest thing you've
ever done.
Crow: So what are you going to do while that contraption's running the
experiments?
[Deep 13]
Dr.F.: Easy. I just launched a bunch more people into space. But for now
you'd better just worry about yourselves...
[SOL. Lights are flashing.]
All: WE'VE GOT BETA-NINE SIGN!
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
>Red & Green ONLINE! - "Porcupine Sighted Near Olson Library"
>
>A PORCUPINE WAS spotted on campus Thursday.
Crow: OH MY GOD!
Tom: Stop the presses!
Mike: Fire up the Emergency Broadcast System! And tell 'em this time it
AIN'T NO TEST!
>
>A porcupine was seen near the doors at the bottom entrance to the Gordon B.
>Olson Library at approximately 9:30 Thursday night.
Tom: It would've been spotted sooner, but everyone was watching "Seinfeld".
>Jack Spencer, a senior majoring in Biology, was one of the students who saw
>the creature.
Crow: He wet 'em.
>
>Spencer was rollerblading near the library when he heard a scream.
Mike [Spencer]: "Whatsa matter? You never seen a naked rollerblader before?"
>He went to see what was wrong and found a female student who had been
>scared by the creature as she was walking up the stairs near the library.
Crow: Huh-huh. Girls're fraidy-cats.
>
>"She said, 'Wow, I can't believe that there is an animal down there,'"
>Spencer, a Crosby native, said.
Tom: Me neither. I thought the toxic gas coming from the uranium refinery
had rendered the area devoid of natural life years ago.
>
>The animal was feeding on deciduous plants
Mike: Mmmmm... decidulicious!
>growing on the slope near which lead from
Crow: "Near which lead from"? Look, just pick a preposition and go with it!
>the bottom entrance of the library. Spencer, a self-proclaimed "wildlife
>freak,"
Mike: Actually, only the "wildlife" part is self-proclaimed.
>watched the creature for about 25 minutes.
Crow [hick]: "Them porky-pahns is FAS-sinatin'!"
>He said that it continued to feed in the area near the library and Cyril
>Moore Hall. The porcupine did not seem to be bothered at all by the human
>traffic on the stairs.
>
>"It did not move," he said. "It just kept on feeding like no one was there."
Mike: That explains why the porcupine was there so long. What's your excuse?
>
>The animal blended in well with the surroundings and, according to Spencer,
>went generally unnoticed by students until he pointed it out to them.
Tom: Okay, let me get this straight. Some loser sees a common woodland
creature -- an event so inconsequential that it has to be =pointed out= to
passersby -- and this is front page news?
Mike: Hey, it's North Dakota. The headline the day before was "Wilson
Purchases New Tractor".
>
>"Even though it was 10, 15 feet away in a fairly well lighted area, people
>would pass right by, totally unaware of its existence," he said.
Crow: "It's like it was on the CBS prime-time lineup or something!"
>
>When Spencer showed them the porcupine, students generally seemed to be
>worried about their safety.
Mike: Not so much because they feared the animal as because some freak with
knee pads kept dragging them aside and ranting about showing them his
"porcupine."
>
>"All the people were shocked," he said. "Some were asking whether it was
>going to hurt them.
Crow: --only to learn the tragic answer when the porcupine hurled itself at
their faces and gnawed out their eyes.
>But a porcupine is primarily a vegetarian."
>
>Spencer is an avid hunter
Mike: So I take it he's =not= primarily a vegetarian.
Tom: Nope. In fact, once the press had cleared out, he bagged the porcupine,
cleaned it, ate it, and picked his teeth with the quills.
>and wildlife enthusiast
Crow: A hunter =and= a wildlife enthusiast? So he gets all mushy over the
animals before he blows them away?
Tom: Well, you always hurt the one you love.
>who earned an associate degree
Tom: Oh, one of those Sally Struthers things.
Crow [screechy]: "...animal care specialist, gun repair, porcupine
identification..."
>in wildlife and fisheries technology
Mike: Usedt'be ya'd tie a piece a' string to a rope an' go fishin'. Now
what with this newfangled technology y'gotta getcherself all kahndsa
microchips'n whatnot.
Crow: Is that really what people from North Dakota sound like?
Mike: I have no idea. I figure, who's gonna know?
>at NDSU-Bottineau before coming to Minot State.
Tom: After all those years stuck in a backwater like Bottineau he finally
decided to strike out for the big city.
>He enjoys watching animals and had some theories about where this particular
>creature came from and why.
Crow: In order: Neptune, and to enslave all humankind.
>
>"On the outskirts of Minot, people move in
Mike: Uhh... no they don't. No one moves to North Dakota.
>and take away natural habitat," he said. "Some species are highly adaptable
>to urban areas.
Crow: I hate to break it to you, buddy, but... Minot, North Dakota isn't an
urban area.
Tom: He gets away from Bottineau and suddenly he's down with the street.
>
>"Also, porcupines are not really a hunted species
Mike: "Least, not till Ah showed up! Ethel, git th' rifle!"
>so the population can expand. When the population expands, some of the only
>places it can go is urban areas.
Crow: "Some of the places is"? Now we know why he goes to college in North
Dakota.
>It's home range can include urban areas, including college campuses. During
>nocturnal hours,
Mike: Most of which occur at night, I take it.
>when most people are asleep, they can come and have a variety of species to
>feed on."
Tom: I hear a pack of porcupines can skeletonize a cow in a matter of
minutes.
>
>Approximately half mile from the back of the Dome are fields which could
>sufficiently serve as habitat for animals.
Mike: Yeah, just a few fields. We call them North Dakota, South Dakota,
Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
>
>Spencer did not report the porcupine to anyone.
Crow: "Shhh! This'll just be our little secret, okay?"
>When contacted, employees of the library said that they were unaware of the
>situation and had received no reports from students.
Mike: Which was strange, since midterm papers had been due for days.
>Always on the outlook for wildlife, this is the third wild animal Spencer
>has seen in Minot this semester.
Tom [laughing]: Someone =really= needs to get this guy to a zoo.
>This semester, he found a rooster pheasant near the Broadway Minot State
>sign.
Crow: The really tragic part is, this may well be the defining accomplishment
of his life.
Tom: Annnnnd... we're clear! Okay, time for a quick breather before the
main event.
[All take a deep breath]
Tom: Okay. Let's do it.
Mike [muttering]: I think I inhaled a fly or something...
>HELIOPOLIS
>by Neal Mentech
>
> Abruptly, the Dreamer
Tom [singing]: o/~ Don't faaaaallllllllll in love with... this guy... o/~
>realized that he was awake.
Mike: "Hmm. My eyes are open, I'm aware of my surroundings, my delta waves
have stopped... why, I reckon I'm awake, dagnabbit!"
>He felt a soft downy pillow nestled under his head:
Crow: "Wait, what the hell's that? A beak?"
>he was laid out flat on a spare single bed in a small blue room. Minute
>breezes, coordinated by some unseen ventilator,
Tom: He makes it sound like there's some guy up in the pipes carefully
directing all the air currents. How silly.
Mike: Yeah. The only person with a guy like that is Martha Stewart.
>massaged his face and body. He tasted the dry, temperate air.
Crow: Tastes like chicken.
>It was quiet.
Tom [ominous]: =Too= quiet. [pause] I'm sorry, I've always wanted to say
that.
>He stretched his warm body carefully, tensing and then relaxing each muscle
>as if it were a new-found thing.
Crow: "Man, this Thighmaster was worth every penny!"
>He felt cleansed, purified. He looked up... and without warning he suffered
>a sudden vision that the ceiling was falling down on him from an impossible
>height, falling terribly fast, about to crash.
Tom: That'll happen.
Mike: That happened to me in Oakland once. I was just lying in bed when,
bam, the ceiling caved in on me.
Crow: Really? Earthquake, huh?
Mike: Nah. Buildings in Oakland just do that sometimes.
> The vision passed quickly, but it scared him. Now fully awake, he
>tried to remember what he had done the day before, but he could remember
>nothing.
Tom: Oh, I get it! He's the lead singer for the Black Crowes.
Crow: Cypress Hill, maybe.
>He tried again, harder --
Mike [Merrill Markoe]: "Here's a tip for guys. If you don't know what
you're doing, for God's sake, DON'T DO IT HARDER!"
>still nothing -- but he noticed in one of the countless corridors of his
>mind a black, ugly fog crouching low to the floor: all that remained of
>some terrifying experience in his immediate past. A sudden urgency gripped
>him in his bowels,
Crow: Eww! Look, Neal, you don't need to go through =every= aspect of this
guy's morning regimen.
>as if he were in great danger. He ransacked his brain again, looking for
>=anything=, but all he could find was the fog.
Mike: I get the feeling this Mentech protagonist is going to be an awful lot
like the last one.
>He nearly panicked.
Tom: He considered running madly around the room, arms flailing, bashing into
the walls and screaming like a maniac. But he decided to make himself a
sandwich instead.
> Instinctively he tried to grab hold of the fog, to find out where it
>had come from or what it meant, but it had no substance for him to grab hold
>of.
Mike: Sort of like a local newscast.
Tom: "Tonight on Eyewitness News: nuclear mishap kills millions. But first,
the heartwarming story of a kitty who wandered into a moving van and wound
up in Argentina! And later, Chuck Henry reports on bikinis: they're smaller
than ever, and our cameras are there!"
>It floated up, out of reach. He could only watch, helplessly, as this last
>vestige of his past slowly dissipated... and then was gone. There was
>nothing more he could do:
Crow: Of course not! This is a Mentech story. If you get to tap your foot
while you stand around you're in the thick of the action.
>his mind had been looted of nineteen years of memory and then scoured clean
>so only blank walls and empty passages remained.
Tom: He's a walking Packwood diary.
Mike: I was going to say Watergate tape.
Crow: I was thinking along the lines of Iran-Contra, myself.
>Plaintively, he stared at this impassive, marbled ceiling that would yield
>no more visions.
Tom: Of course not. It's opaque.
>He felt hollowed inside.
Crow: He's a big chocolate bunny.
>In the cavity of his mind he felt a dull ache,
Mike: He should've used some of that mental fluoride.
>like that after surgery.
Tom: They must've removed the part of his brain that made him remotely
interesting.
>So this, he thought, was called "waking up."
Crow: Anyone doubt Neal made quote marks in the air with his fingers while
typing this line?
>
> Looking across the room he saw an oval porthole of darkened glass,
>and in it, his reflection. He sat up to get a better look.
Mike: "Sure, I have no idea who I am or where I am, but is my hair okay?"
>Strange -- he thought after a moment --
Crow: Wow! For a Mentech protagonist, that =is= strange!
>the image had no meaning for him. Was this how he really looked? he
>wondered. Was it good? He examined his body, and as he did so, an odd
>feeling of familiarity deepened into conviction.
Mike: Too bad he doesn't live in LA. It would've deepened into acquittal.
> He was of slightly less than average height, but this was rarely
>noticed because of his intrusive presence.
Tom: He was constantly going up to people and poking them.
>It was something about the eyes. They moved quickly, and they were always
>=watching=.
Crow: I guess it's better than if his eyes were always smelling stuff.
>When his mood was intense, his eyes commanded the rapt attention of anyone
>he looked at. Complicating this appearance was an exceptional, but
>understated attractiveness: he had blue eyes and tan skin;
Tom: Beats the other way around, I suppose.
>he wore his straight blond hair without affectation; and he could assume a
>tight, clean smile when it suited him.
Mike: He's George F. Will!
> The Dreamer lay down again,
Crow: He's plumb tuckered out! And who's to blame him? He's had a big day.
>frustrated with his apparent amnesia, and he stared up at the mesmerizing
>marbled swirls of blue and white that covered the ceiling. The colors were
>very soothing.
Tom: They made him want to go to the store and buy meat.
Crow: That's green, Servo.
Tom: Oops. [clears throat] They made him want to go to the store and buy
milk.
Crow: That's better.
>He wondered why they drew his attention -- maybe they reminded him of
>something? =Yes=, he decided, =they did=. It was a twinge of memory. But
>of what?
Mike: Memory, dummy. Haven't you been paying attention?
> He concentrated intently for a while, following each individual
>swirl to where it blended with the others and he could discern it no more:
>searching, searching... but he still felt as blank as ever.
Crow: Naturally. Neal finds coming up with personalities for his characters
so tedious.
>He wrenched his eyes away from the ceiling
Tom: Oh, you'll need a 5/8ths for that. This is a 9/16ths.
>and let them rest idly on his sweater.
Mike: Eww. Isn't he worried about them picking up lint?
Crow: Yeah. They're probably extra sensitive after he gouged them out with
a piece of hardware.
>Perhaps he would try again, later, he thought. He laid his head back down
>on the bed. Then, just as he was relaxing, the connection eased into his
>mind. It was the sea.
>
> Daniel (ah, the Dreamer remembered his name!)
Tom: Oh, good. I was worried we were going to have to deal with that
pretentious capitalized title the whole experiment.
>had lived by a sea on the white sand. It was home to him,
Crow: The sea was home to him? What, is he the incredible Mr. Limpet?
>and each curve of the shoreline held private memories for him as if they
>were pictures of old friends or pieces of broken china.
Mike: Or maybe pieces of broken old friends.
>His family's home was too small to afford
Tom: The rent was inversely proportional to the floor space.
>him his own room, and it was hidden away on a street which, like all of the
>streets in the City, was a mere slip of a street
Mike: Uhh... quick poll here, guys. Ever heard the phrase "mere slip of a"
without it being immediately followed by the word "girl"?
Crow: Sure. I've heard it followed by derisive laughter.
>that languished between cubicle-style apartments stacked half-way to the
>bubble-sealed sky.
Tom: Looks like Neal had a few spare hyphens lying around.
[Commercials]
[Continued in part 2]