By: Noser the Fishless
[2002-03-04]
Knifekitten vs. the Evil Ray, Chapter 9
as told by the sinister Baron Medusa
I ordered the henchmen to stand down. They would only delay him. Sooner or later,
Knifekitten would penetrate my lair. I had no chance against his lethal techniques, I knew that. My only hope was that, just maybe, he would believe me.
I paced back and forth across the carpet, chewing on my nails and watching the giant radarscope track the inexorable progress of the adorable feline predator. I sighed and thought over, once more, what I would say to him when he entered.
I heard a mew at the steel vault door, and then the horrible squeal of metal against metal as he pawed to be let in. I was not fooled; he could break down the door with one kick. He was being polite. That, I realized, was a good sign. He would give me a chance to talk.
I unbarred and opened the door and looked down at my glittering, deadly adversary. He stared up unblinking and meowed, twitching his little tail. I knew that meow. I knew it well. Bolivia, Morocco, Antarctica... that meow had followed me even to Warp Station V high above Jupiter. All the words I had planned to say fell apart in my mind, and I meowed back.
Knifekitten chuckled, and then said in his coldest tone, "Give me one reason not to kill you."
I nodded solemnly and replied, mentally crossing my fingers, "Peru."
"Meow?" I had his interest.
"The Agency sent you back in to the hotel. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself
just how they knew there was a second bomb?"
"Mew." He seemed genuinely struck by the question. As I had hoped.
"They lied to you, cat. That wasn't the only time, either."
"Mrow. And you're telling the truth? Why should I believe a word out of your mouth?"
"Because you're no fool. They blindered you, but you can still think for yourself. If you want to." I looked down at the dangerously sharp kitty-cat and felt an unexpected sympathy for him. "They've put you through so much, and so little of it was justified."
"You still haven't said one word in your defense, Baron."
"Okay, how about this one: Stoker."
A yowl of surprise. I could nearly read his thoughts. He despised
Stoker, but it was purely professional rivalry on his part. He had probably never stopped to think about the possibility that Stoker had anything other than the Agency's best interests at heart.
I continued with a couple more words. "Project Stringcheese."
He cocked his head and mewed curiously. Despite it all, from the jungles to the lunar mines to the heart of the sun, he was still cute and cuddly. I nearly bent to pet him before I remembered those horrible knives and what they did to poor Harold.
"When you destroyed my volcano, I rebuilt, yes. But it took time, very much time. How could I have continued development of the Evil Ray? I had no resources, no manpower."
"You're saying Stoker..."
"Yes. There is only one Evil Ray in the world, and it's in Washington, behind a door marked Project Stringcheese. That's why Stoker was on the docks, that's why he had seconds on the meatballs, and that's why he sent you here."
"To get me out of the way." The kitten's voice was full of scorn, as far from a purr as it could possibly be. Scorn for Stoker, or for me? Did he believe my story?
"Kill me if you're going to, I've said my piece."
He curled up into a little ball, cutting multiple gashes in the carpet. He closed his eyes... he was thinking, thinking hard. After a surprisingly short time, he made up his mind and sprang to his feet.
As he walked out the door, I reflected on everything I'd said. Despite all the deception, I never had to lie once. The Agency had done that job for me.
But I still picture the beast from Botherhood of the Wolf, voiced by Steven Williams. Gabrielle Byrnes played the Baron in my mind. What's Hammerdog up to?
Too skeery for me! I have worked in vaulted areas with signs on the doors like, "Project Bulldog," "Project Rapid Action," and "Project Diamond Skull" I am glad that the shadow government has gone down the hole in the ground. Now, all of their library books will be overdue, and the penalty fees alone will finance the glorious New Dawn of Bagels&String Cheese for the minions of ring-binder hole reinforcement rings who might yet live on to discover a more flavorful sort of glue. Do not look for prizes or premiums, as the cost of the mucilage prohibits their usilage.
i was sure that the "Evil Ray" was going to be that timecube guy, Gene Ray. i for one would like to see knifekitten go up against the ultimate power of timecube.
Cagematch!
you sound so much like any number of Len Deighton stories it's creepy. Only that Leighton's characters didn't go "Meow" or curl up into a razor-sharp bundle of cutlery cuteness to think about their possible betrayal. I think Knifekitten has them beat already.
Anyone else as impressed as I am with the writing talent in these parts? Keep up good work, Noser!
I like it muchly! Expect this to become part of official canon.
Paperbird beats Hammerdog, but not Knifekitten
That sounds like Rock Paper Scissors. I think someone invented an RPS variant with a fourth object that beat all the others. This is in addition to the Pokey one (GUN).
I wish that Sarah Jessica Parker would get her nose fixed.
let's face it, the rock beats everything anyway. all the paper can do is provide the rock with shade..
I realize that Knifekitten might well be a sleek, shiny, sinister, and silent stalker, but it occurred to me that Knifekitten might also have great difficulty in the hunt for the reason of making more ching chang noises than a silverware drawer when opened ond closed rapidly. Knifekitten might have more difficulty than Wile E. Coyote in sneaking up on arch enemy, Rock Rat. The only known enemy of Rock Rat is Sporksnake.
Knifekitten chuckled, and then said in his coldest tone, "Give me one reason not to kill you."
I nodded solemnly and replied, mentally crossing my fingers, "Peru."
"Meow?" I had his interest.
heh heh
Peru has a tremendous sardine industry. It would be enough to give pause to a Knifekitten.
Unless I missed some of the chapters, I like stories where I get random chapters. I randomly like them in any event. "Life is like a box of kitty litter." --Forrest Katz
... is Knifekitten clawing at the door to be let in. So he may have the mind of a super-spy, but the instincts and mannerisms of a cat.
Who am I kidding, I'd probably make the very same mistake Harold made, Knifekitten sounds like such a charmer.
I too like the random chapterness of this.
This read like a segment of a good "Origin of ..." installment to anyone else? Too keep the random element, ideally Chapter 10 would be told by Stoker, in a sort of "Rashomon" style of narrative. Each chapter gets it's own narrator, with a different voice and view of events, no-one REALLY thinking of himself as the bad guy: Stoker sees his part in the Affair in Peru as necessary for the greater good perhaps, and only had seconds on the meatballs because they were delicious.
Then the closing and ultimate chapter would be told in the voice of Knifekitten, a gripping monologue edged with feline despair, leading to the scene where he gathers them all in the drawing room and lays out, with steely precision, the role they all had in the Mystery of the Evil Ray. Then rounding on the REAL mastermind (who was playing Baron Medusa as a mere stalking horse, a pawn in a much more complex game,) while caught in a the grip of a sudden sense of Justice, combined with a lifelong rage spawned and fueled by the Agency's denying him any kind of normal life (ala Wolverine) he launches himself at the perpetrator in a display of animal fury which combines the best aspects of an episode of "The Crocodile Hunter" and a terrible accident involving a wood-chipper.
And thus his termination from the Agency, the twelve-step progam Animal-Tool Hybrids Anonymous (where of course he meets with Hammerdog,) and his entry into the private sector as a hard-boiled private dick, with a history of alcoholism.
Brings a tear to my eye, it does...
This is very provocative speculative fiction for the reason that it provokes speculation, what if's, and what next's. It has a strange focal quality, much like Sartre's explanation of the absurdity of consciousness' lens-like nature, in that by focusing on something, everything else around is distorted. Indeed, it may be an obverse of this process at work defocusing the consciousness on the fictive nature of Knifekitten thus bringing an increased lucidity to the peripheral.
Sartre's explanation seems in tune with Zen, in which only by not focussing, by clearing the mind of thought, can one acheive enlightenment, by dismissing the humdrum details and concerns of daily existence. Then one acheives the Zen mind, which does not expect or focus on any one thing, yet which ascertains the truth of everything instantly.
In the meantime, my opinion is that we can only know life subjectively and experientially; only through interaction can we know each other, and only through presentation to each other through action or words can we make ourselves known. Occasionally, we get the opportunity to veiw something previously unknown, which may encourage us to view differently things we though long-familiar. This is the beauty of fiction.
In this instance, that of many subjects commenting on a particular object (i.e. a fictional account of a tragic hero) we are learning about things which, though they are filtered through the lens of consciousness, are reactions which otherwise we would not get to see in our fellow man. When discussed, it creates new objects, new ways to focus or unfocus the mind and come to know how people tick. This is the beauty of thingsihate.
Thank you Noser. I have access to fish and will gladly share in gratitude for these experiential moments.
I feel compelled to respond to the last two comments made by Jacques and Darkness, cos they're so freaking good. But I don't think I can add much to it.
So I'll say this: if each chapter is told by a different narrator and we're already on chapter 9--assuming our story is reaching its climax and there are only a small number of chapters left--then that's a lot of major characters. Maybe not necessarily, but the thought occurred.
I place a premium on subjectivity, and enjoy psychological novels, and other events. There are two moments in fiction and reality, the psychological moment and the existential moment, which can and usually happen at different times: the psychological moment might preceed the existential moment, and the event itself might be anticlimactic, several variations of precedence. The psychological moment might happen much later, or never. Some behavioural psychologists entirely discount the subjective, some try to account for it. Some think of Stimulation-Integration-Response, and some "Black Box" only Stimulus&Response. The bell rings, the dog salivates. Curiously, the Russian Pavlov Institute stopped publishing results after 1934, they still research, just no longer make public their progress. So, mechinical animals make interesting fiction. But still, I know why the dog salivates.
True, but that's only if they need be major characters ... perhaps there could even be some throwaway characters, like the drunk in the alley who sees a meeting between shadowy figures, and the self-possesed businessman who, stuck in traffic, becomes an unwilling particpant in a gunfight and becomes a shrieking, hysterical mess. Neither sees the big picture, yet provides essential detail.
We should outline a story, get volunteers to write chapters, collate the bitches, and market it to the Harry Potter people. Or maybe the people who did that book on Fairies, with the drawings of them pressed between the pages; that's closer to the target market. It's got possibilities...
You mean Brian Froud?
porcupine in german is "stachelschwein" -- stingpig or spinepig.
perhaps at some point a bump on the adorable little head will awaken knifekitten's repressed memories of his days as Das Messerkatzchen, the most feared operative of the Sturmkleinsaeugetiertruppenkommandos.
and jacques if you haven't you should try reading gravity's rainbow by pynchon. it combines things like pavlov, rocket science, sulky octopi, coprophagy, bad hawaiian shirts and knifekitten-style conspiratical intrigue -- and that's just one page.
I think that I read "Gravity's Rainbow" some time back. I only recently got the only copy of "Confederacy of Dunces" that the local library had. I was a bit disappointed because I was expecting something else, but the antihero was pretty good, and the handcart wienermobile was funny. "The Professor and the Madman" by Simon Winchester was a good historical novel on the compilation of the Oxford Dictionary, more than one would expect for a book about a dictionary: murder and madness!
yeah, i especially liked that dictionary guy's phobias... he thought irish people were climbing out of the woodwork and conducting experiments on him in his sleep... marching him across the moors and defiling him, that sort of thing. one interesting thing about that book is that it has at least three different titles -- the professor and the madman in the us, The Surgeon of Crowthorne in the uk, and The man who loved words in germany. check it out for yourselves at amazon.com, co.uk, and .de if you're dubious...
The mystery of Anna deepens... As recently as February, 2000, she went by "
Annnna"!!
naomi, sex at noon taxes, i moan.... i am also fascinated by the liberties annnnnnnnnnnnnnna has taken with her name, a man, a plan, a canal, panama.... where the hell are ya, madam i'm adam? much speculation has been wrought in your name... and then dennis sinned, you racecar radar
DO YOU MEAN BRIAN FROUD?
1. We don't know the Evil Ray _isn't_ Gene Ray. Remember, Baron Medusa never completed his experiments, so even he is uncertain of their final outcome. Only Stoker and the mysterious figures controlling him know that.
2. I had a Chapter 33 in mind (in which Knifekitten confronts the Subdeacon on the roof of the towering Catholicism Building), but since there seems to be a group-project consensus it'd be selfish of me to skip that far ahead.
3. Evil Ray is the 9th book in the Agent Knifekitten continuity, if anyone cares. The Baron was introduced in book 4, Knifekitten Does Peru (later retitled as Knifekitten vs. the Killer Volcano to match the "vs." titling scheme of the rest of the Agent series).
4. I nearly mistyped "anyone" as "mayonnaise" in the above statement.
I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME.
No idea, I only saw it once at a friend's house. If it contains squashed faires, I imagine so. Unless it's a series, but I wouldn't buy more than one, would you?
We'll write the ninth book first, followed by the tenth and eleventh, and parents of pre-goth children will be frantic in their efforts to locate the other eight, then WHAM! Twenty years later we pull a Lucas, and pump out prequels which though technically advanced far beyond the original, are still soulless crap. But people will buy them anyway.
disclaimer: The author HAS NOT seen Star Wars: episode two yet, but, I mean "Attack of the Clones?" Who does that? How about "Send in the Clones," or "The Phantom Fanbase?" ANY title except "The Clone Wars" would have been a mistake, but this is taking comedy to the point of tragedy.
BTW, Jonas: wasn't on until then, so I wasn't ignoring you.
I note that your fishlessness continues. A can of "Chicken of the Sea" lies in my larder, awaiting boxing, weighing, and posting. It truly is yours for the asking, yet you have nobly declined to notice my offer. Truly this is a man whose lack of fish might, to the shallow of perception, to those concerned with only the material, hide personal greatness. But consider, friends, to trudge on in the face of such personal shortcomings...
Sir, I salute you!
I just thought it would've looked funny that way,
as if I was being ignored. Such is my sense of humour.
There is
Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book, by Terry Jones and Brian Froud. Froud is most known for being responsible for the Skeksis and the Mystics, but he's illustrated lots of books on fairies, notably the canonical
Faeries, and
Good Faeries/Bad Faeries.
"I... am... still... ...EMPEROR!"
I liked it better as Petey canon though...
