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Episode 01x06 - Return of the Slappy

Malex:

It was late, and Icepunk had beaten me to the apartment.

“Well,” said I, as I surveyed the sorrowful lack of edibles in our cupboards, “apparently you found a job at MicroSlop as well as I. What skills did you tell them you had?”

“I told ’em I could whip up on video games,” said Icepunk, as he used his precious Z-Box as a conduit through which he could defend the entire population of Earth from horrible creatures.

I eyed him suspiciously. “Video games, you say?” He ignored my sarcastic question, and I continued my search for food.

I knew there wouldn’t be any food in the fridge, but I was getting desperate. Perhaps it contained milk or something. I tried to open the fridge, and the door came off in my hands. No milk. I leaned the door back against the front of the fridge, so as not to let the cold air out, and gave up trying to eat.

I pulled up the news on my computer as I prepared for sleep. One glance at the headlines set me bolt upright. I recognized the face in a picture on the front page. The man in the picture had been one of the duller people on my team, but apparently, he had been arrested for conspiring to commit cyber-terrorism.

“Get this!” I said. “I guess Dingo isn’t showing up for work tomorrow... It’s strange though, he couldn’t have conspired to tie someone’s shoelaces together, let alone organize terrorism!” I looked over at Icepunk, and shook my head. He sat in front of the glowing screen, holding his Z-Box controller limply, his head resting at a strange angle. He was snoring softly. “Bah,” I said, and promptly went to sleep.

Icepunk:

When I awaken, I make an astounding discovery: I’m awake, and it’s still morning!

I notice Malex getting ready for work, and pull myself out of bed.

“Hey,” Malex says when he notices me awake. “Up at the crack of noon I see. Do you know anything about the Strayhound bus that’s blocking the neighbors in?”

“Oh, sorry,” I say as I get ready for work. “I couldn’t find any other place to park it.”

“Uh, where did you get a bus?” Malex asks.

“Well, see, there was this old guy driving the bus, but he wouldn’t give me a ride-”

“Ah, so you beat up an old man and stole his bus. For a moment there I was worried that you might have done something illegal or unethical...”

“Oh, glad we’re on the same page on this one,” I respond. Malex inexplicably rolls his eyes.

Malex and I walk outside and step onto the bus. “Take a seat while I start the old gal up!”

Malex sits down and clutches his laptop, eyes darting around warily.

“Relax,” I say reassuringly. “I’ve driven this bus twice already.”

“Oh, well, that’s good to know.”

We drive off, headed for a blissful day of productivity, unlimited gourmet coffee, and guns.

As we drive along, I contemplate telling Malex what I do at MicroSlop, but remember Jennings’ departing words as we left the building: “Icepunk, Mr. Bates would greatly appreciate it if you would keep your piehole shut about what your work involves. Keeps the body count down, you know.”

Nope, can’t tell Malex.

Our bus whizzes under an overpass, and we hear a loud ‘thump’ on the roof.

“What the?!” I yell.

Slappy’s misshapen head appears outside my windshield.

“Holy mother of cheese!” Malex exclaims.

“You remember the scary old man I told you about?” I explain. “I think he wants his bus.”

“I’m never gonna make it to work,” Malex states resignedly.

Slappy’s head disappears and we hear him scrambling back, toward the emergency exit.

I’m about to pull into the MicroSlop parking lot when I hear the shearing of plastic and metal, and Malex screaming, “Back, you horrible, brittle spawn of some hellish retirement home!”

As soon as I find a big enough parking space, Malex leaps off the bus and sprints for the building, accidentally knocking a few protesters down in the process. I get up and turn toward the back of the bus where Slappy is standing near the remains of the emergency exit.

“You accursed varmint,” he screams, “ah’m gonna slice you into little ribbons!” He brandishes his sword-in-a-cane. “Defend yourself!”

I pull out my own dueling weapon - a Beretta .9MM.

“Whoa, hey!” he yells. “That’s not fair!”

He grabs my Beretta and flings it out a window. “You’ve gotta be a good sportsman about this whole dueling thing and use something sharp!”

“Fine,” I say as I unsheathe the sword I have strapped to my back - hidden under my layers of clothing.

We step onto the parking lot, facing each other.

“To the death, I assume?” I say, yawning.

“Yup,” Slappy responds, “that’s usually the way duels work, pardner.”

Malex:

As I entered the lobby, I looked back and noticed Icepunk dueling with the horrible little man. Icepunk sure knew how to make strange enemies.

I went up to my cubicle, greeting the frighteningly perky receptionist on the way, and prepared to finish an early version of my operating system. “Just a few more loose ends,” I thought, “and I’ll be able to show this beauty to Mr. Bates.”

I smiled at the thought of leaving the slackers on my team behind, and promptly got to work.

Later that day:

I rode up the elevator with my demonstration installed on my laptop. Mr. Bates had been extremely pleased and anxious to see the progress I had made. He had even raved about how quick my work was.

“Come in, come in!” Mr. Bates said as the elevator opened. “I just can’t wait to see what you’ve got for me!”

“Thank you sir. I think you’ll be pleased with what I’ve got.”

As I showed off the operating system, it became apparent that Bates didn’t understand the foundational work that had been put into it. “Well, I must say,” he said, “I’m disappointed. We can’t sell a black screen full of letters and numbers! People will only buy it if it has pictures!”

“I know that sir, but it’s still too early to have that stuff. I’ve been focusing on the foundation. If I can make the foundation as solid and secure as is possible, we can use it to not only build a good user experience, we can use it to build the BEST user experience!”

“Secure?” He looked at me strangely for a moment. “Didn’t you attend your team meetings? Surely Poo informed you...”

Suddenly anxious, I responded, “Well no, I didn’t actually attend.”

“Blast it boy!” he said and pounded the desk with a fist. “I don’t want this operating system to be secure! I want this operating system to be useful for espionage! I want this operating system to accept commands from us no matter whose computer it’s running on! I want to infatuate the whole world with our software, then bring those stupid lemmings to their knees!”

I was, needless to say, surprised. “But, sir, that’s not an ethical means of doing business...”

His laugh sounded as though it had come from the most fiery pits of Hell. “Ethical? Why did you think there are people picketing our building around the clock?!”

“Sir,” I responded, “I refuse to compromise the quality of my work by stooping to an unethical level. If you want somebody who’ll intentionally do a bad job, you’ve hired the wrong person.”

“Well,” said he, his eyes smoldering, “a mistake in the hiring process is easily rectified. Get out, and take your dratted software with you.”

I gloomily rode the elevator down to my floor, and shuffled over to my cubicle.

I suppressed a sob as I began packing up my stuff. “It’s amazing,” I thought, “how much junk you can accumulate even,” I looked at my watch, “when you only work for a company for 1.43 days.”

Icepunk had never shown up, so I couldn’t depend on him for a ride. Resigned to the bitter fact, I began to walk home.

As I walked, I became increasingly bitter. I was bitter that my honesty-is-the-best policy had backfired. I was bitter that my slob ex-co-workers were getting paid to lounge around and do nothing. I was bitter that I was having to carry this stack of junk home myself. Good grief I WAS JUST BITTER!

“Oh yes,” thought I as I staggered toward home, “they’ll pay for this. Oh yes...”

Icepunk:

I return home victorious, having defeated the evil Slappy, and find Malex sitting on the edge of his bed with a gun in his hand. I plop down on my bed across the room. “I’ve heard cyanide is a better way to go.”

“I suppose you’ve read a subjective review, eh? Perhaps you’re even speaking from experience...” Malex trails off.

“Bad day at work?”

“Oh, they’ll pay...”