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Rotten Apples
Okay Okay, now we finally have the third episode. Originally, it was written by The Unknown: The Traveler, but he lost the only known copy of the story. Since The Unknown's time to work on fiction has been limited in the past year, he has allowed me to finish the story for him. So we now bring you.....


By
The Unknown: The Traveler
&
The Agent
Part 1

LOCATION: The Usual Suspects' Headquarters

The Usual Suspects are seated around a large table. Their leader Qwert 33, has just returned from his feud with The Agent only two days ago. Now that menace has been trapped inside Qwert 33's digital camera forever sealed in a Kodak moment. Around the table are a few familiar faces. There is Narf 99, the android who's sidekick SHMO-bot had been decimated by The Agent. There is also The Unknown the mysterious Traveler. Days ago he had enough power to rival The Dark One known as The Agent, but mysteriously his power has been drained. Yet, the power he still has retained is still enough to make him more formidable than Qwert 33, making him the second most powerful of the Suspects. The most powerful being of Suspects is the Empress. Yet, like Unknown her powers have also been depleted by half. The most obvious reason for this is probably because she abandoned her neutral posistion as a galactic judge and sided with Qwert 33, thus renouncing all of her dark powers.

There are two new faces among the Suspects these days. First is Gummibear, the follower of The Empress and has the amazing ability to be .......well....gummy. Second is 12 Gauge, a quite large being who is not as powerful in psychic abilities as the others but has great brute strength and is the weapons specialist.

"Let's call this meeting to order," says Qwert 33.

Narf 99 replies, "So what should we talk about?" An uneasy silence fills the room until Narf finally says, "I guess there isn't much to do since The Agent isn't around anymore."

"Wait a minute," exclaims Gummi, "I bought a new computer today. It's the cutest thing!" She runs off to her office and wheels in a roundish object draped in a sheet. "Ready?" says Gummi and then she pulls away the sheet. The object that was under the sheet gives off a bright neon light that shines ten times brighter than the sun. The Empress, 12 Gauge, Unknown fall to the ground and cover their eyes. Qwert 33, Gummibear, and Narf 99 don't react this way because Qwert and Gummi were wearing shades and Narf doesn't has robotic implants as eyes that see every light perfectly without glare. Qwert leans closer to the bright object and sees a multicolored fruit on the "thing" that appeared to be a computer. The fruit was the same fruit that doomed the first humans in the Book of Genesis.....the APPLE!!!!!

Qwert 33 shrank away from the deaded Apple as like a vampire who had seen two crosses sticks.

***
LOCATION: Inside Qwert 33's camera
A dark form rises inside a moment captured in time. This world is an electrical second dimension but the dark form is not. While the dark figure is not recognizable it is unmistakably what used to be The Dark Agent. The form that is currently the Agent looks more like something in Piccaso's worst nightmare than the despotic former ruler of Earth. It's limbs and face are out of proportion. It's once darkly regal uniform is nothing more than a tattered cloak of a zombie. The quasi-Agent raises it's misshapen hand and bolts of electricity shoot out and start to suck the life out of the 2D world. This world begins to lose it's color then the digital pixels cease to exist........thus ruining Qwert 33's vacation photos. When it is finished the world is nothing more that a soild white void with a small dark blemish in the middle. The blemish is of course The Agent, but now since he devoured the 2D world he has regenerated back to his normal self, yet.....something is different. The uniform is the same. The overall person is the same....but. YES!!! The Dark One has become stronger with even more powers to behold, yet still he is trapped in his now faceless prison....brooding. Then the Agent senses something.....something from the outside. The Agent, for the first time in his long long life he senses an evil on the horizon, possibly greater than his own, and......he is afraid. It his twisted mind he says, I feel a great disturbance in the force (edit due to Copyright) thing. He senses Something Wicked (edit: another Copyright) Not-so-Good this way comes (edit: same as before) advances.

***
LOCATION: Usual Suspect's Base
"Oh come on," said Gummibear, "It isn't that bad. Come on Unknown, try my new I-Mac." By now everyone's eyes had adjusted to the brightness. That mysterious Traveler moved towards the thing Gummi just called an I-Mac. He grabbed the mouse and tried to right click.

"Silly me!" said Unknown, "I forgot there is no such device on Mac's, but I'll digress." He took the mouse again and moved it up and down. The cursor on the screen went left and right. Unknown readjusted his grip and tired again. He did the same exercise but this time the cursor went sideways left and right. Then the circular mouse slipped out of Unknown's hand. "AAAAAAARRRRGGGGGGG" cried in exasperation. "It's to round to be effective and small to be grasped by any living being!!! Who could have thought up such an evil device?"

"Plus, where's the the floppy disk drive?" pointed out The Empress who even knew there should be one even if she had never owned a computer in her life. Then Unknown clicked the mouse button slightly harder than a regular click and the monitor, if you could call it that, froze like every Mac before it except much faster. The Unknown was about to say some obscenity until the pseudo-computer came to life. The machine grew two legs made out of wires and stood up. Then, it's impossible-to-use mouse rose from the ground, it's wire acting as an arm. Soon after it did this, it shot out it's rubber mouse ball, which pelted 12 Gauge on the forehead. The mouse became a compact circular flame thrower. The flame was the bluish white of a welding torch. It took a shot at Qwert 33. The hero, still in shock from the utter site of a Mac actually doing any sort of motion, managed to escape the flame but still had his uniform slightly singed. In reaction to this Gummibear pulled out her light-flag, which is a pole with a banner made of super electrons instead of cloth,and can slice through almost anything, and slashed off the mini-menace's weapon. In a split second The Empress also pulled out her weapon, also a light-flag, and sliced the main body of the cyber creature ending its short life.

"What the heck was that?" said Narf 99, "It just came to life, and Mac's don't have enough energy to run program much less itself."

"It's worst than I feared," said Unknown, "It's an I-bot." the rest of The Suspects look at Unknown with total confusion. "There is a legend that an uprising of would enter our world....an uprising of evil. In fact during this uprising evil will split. One faction would be called 'pure' evil and the of evil 'lite' like the beer. If the 'pure' evil is subdued, the evil 'lite' will replace it. While 'pure' evil is like having all dark power concentrated into one being, evil 'lite' shares it's darkness with many beings. The 'pure' has it strength in quality while 'lite' has strength in overwhelming numbers. Now that the Dark Agent is in confinement, my fears have come true. One, the Agent, was the main concentration of 'pure' evil. And two, Apple, a company that has mass-produced inefficient evil for years, is releasing it's new I-Mac model to destroy the Earth since the Agent out of their way."

12 Gauge, who only caught about 25% of what saying, said, "What does this had to do with beer again?"
"I don't see what's the big fuss is about," said Qwert 33 ignoring 12 Gauge, "This I-bot didn't seem to powerful. Sure it burned my coat and gave 12 Gauge a lump on the head, but it was relatively weak."

"Yes," relpied Unknown, "But like I said, The Agent was all powerful. These I-bots are just fractions of the whole. Have you even seen the shirt that 'says never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups'? It's the same situation here except magnified. These thing are being produced in the millions. There is no way we can defeat them all by ourself."

"Well, we can try can't we." said Qwert. "Narf 99, give me you observations on how the I-bots activate."

Narf 99 stood there computing for a moment and then said, "I appears they activate into their violent mode when they freeze."

"Oh great," said Qwert with exasperation, "at the rate Macs freeze......it's going to be a long day."

Gummibear sat down and started sobbing, "I'm so sorry I brought this on us! But I just had to buy it. It looked like a Gummibear so I just had to have it. I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," said 12 Gauge, "You were temped because of it sickening cuteness that you had to buy it. I'm afraid that is also why people are going to buy it and doom the world without even knowing it." This comforted Gummi some, but she still had a bad feeling inside.

Suddenly, The Empress expresses her thoughts. Since she used to be a guardian of the universe she felt a need to preserve it no matter the cost. "We could let the Agent loose to battle the I-bots!" she exclaimed.

"No way!" replied Qwert 33, "I spent most of my life trying to eliminate that menace off the face of the Earth. The last thing I want to do is have two evils, 'pure' or 'lite', running around destroying the planet! It would be suicide.

"But he's the only one powerful enough to stop them," rebutted the Empress, "if we could convince him to fight with us we would have a better chance."

Qwert 33 still refused, "I rather take my chances against a bunch of defective computers than I would that thing that calls himself the master of all darkness. I bet if we let him out, he'll fight us without question and if we have enough power to overcome him, we will be so exhausted from fighting him, we won't have the energy to fight thing 'diet' evil.

"That's 'lite' evil," Corrected Unknown.

"Okay," said The Empress, "Let's put it to a vote. All those in favor allying ourselves with The Agent and having a much higher success rate raise your hand. Both The Empress and Gummi raise their hands.

"Now," said Qwert 33, "All those in favor of defeating the I-bots alone and letting The Agent rot in his celluloid prison?" The entire male portion of the Unsual Suspects raise their hands. "Then it's settled. We go at it alone. 12 Gauge, let's go to the armory."

***
LOCATION: APPLE CO.
Behind a desk at the evil "Apple" company lies a dark figure. No not a figure wearing a black suit, but in Andrew Lloyd Webber terms, "A Technicolor Dreamcoat". Though brightly dressed this is an evil being. His face.......his face......we cannot see. He spins a around in his swivel chair to the large window behind him. The window opens up to the "assembly room" where hundreds of thousands......no!...millions of I-Macs are being produced. A grin comes across the unseen face of the brightly dressed dark figure. He looks to the right of the hellish assembly room and sees a black door. Behind that black door lie unspeakable horrors.

Part 2: Invasion/Infestation

LOCATION: THE STREETS OF THE CITY

Much like the showdown in Tombstone, the Usual Suspects walk side-by-side down the streets toward the Apple Headquarters. They stop just ouside the gates. They wait....wait.....wait.....wait....and then.....wait. Then ......wait again...wait, wait, wait, wait, wait WAIT!!! The some more waiting here, waiting there, and waiting. The door open to the HQ and then.....they wait some more. The door closes and so they wait. Now the authors of this story run out of ideas and they wait. We wait wait....hey I got an idea! Whoops, no I don't. We wait.

Finally we are done waiting and an idea pops in our head. The door opens and five I-bots pop out. The Usual Suspect pull out their weapons, standard issue plasma laser pistols, and annihilate the I-bots. Then ten thousand I-bots come careening out of the doors.