The Xmas Files (Part
2)
by Michael Battaglia
December 1999
Return
to Part 1
Chapter
Three
Assisted
by the city’s SWAT team, Postal Police armored mail trucks descended on the
MegaMonsterMall of North America, specifically, FAO Snorzt’s Toy Depot. As
marksmen took up positions on the mezzanine and got a bead on the main selling
floor, police in riot gear pushed into the aggressive crowd of shouting, cursing
parents. And they pushed back -- still kicking and clawing at each other, some
even turned on the police. Arrests
were made and tear gas canisters were readied.
I
waded through the sea of frenzied parents. Battered by three weeks of ‘extreme
shopping’, the toy emporium was in shambles. I made my way past bent and
battered signs that advertised long exhausted supplies of AmazingAmys, Lego
MindStorms, and other ‘smart’ toys with attitude. My gosh, what happened
those humble kids of yore who were happy with a simple Sega TV video games?
It
seemed we weren’t the only ones interested in bringing in our suspect. Upon
closer inspection, these parents, frantically waving purchase lottery coupons,
revealed a textbook form of mass hysteria -- with murderous potential. Still, it
didn’t jive, I mean all this parental pandemonium by normally God-fearing,
tax-paying, debt-laden citizens over chatty, foreign-made rodents -- Furbies --
at $30 a shot? Speaking of rip offs--move over Mickey.”
Precious or pernicious?
One could be under your tree.
When
we got to ground zero, the last one was being scooped up by a zombie-like soccer
mom who had just muscled in on an elderly grandpa type. I drew my weapon on her.
“Okay lady, put it down -- slowly. Now
step back. That’s it -- real slow.
Watch it, keep your hands where I can see them.” As I took custody of
the suspect toy, I noted upon closer perusal, that the mom had a glassy faraway
look in her eyes, as if possessed. As
the police took her away, I cuffed the Furby and read it its rights. The suspect
defiantly looked me in the eye and squawked, “ok-joo-you-got-mee-yoo-think.”
Suddenly,
bursting from the crowd, a burly father of three lunged at me.
Yanking the prisoner from my hands, he held a gun to its head and issued an ultimatum,
"If I don’t get a Furby, nobody’s gettin’ one!” as he backed out of the store.
Quickly
determining his profile, I knew he meant business.
“Stay back! Lower your
weapons,” I warned the team. “Let him through. That rat isn’t of any use
to anyone if it’s dead.” Holding up a bullhorn, I gently pleaded with him,
“Sir, think about what you’re doing? Is
the newest overrated, battery-powered and really dumb fad toy really worth
it?”
“I’m
not doing this for me, I’m doing it for my kid,” he apologized, boarding his
Jeep Cherokee and squealing up an ice-slicked entrance ramp into the endless
maze of strip malls.
Sulky
always enjoyed taunting me, “Too bad Molder, looks like the ‘truth’
slipped through your hands again. Now you’ll really have to celebrate the
holidays.”
I
shot her that wise guy smile she hates so much.
“Maybe not,” I smirked as I
opened my hot little hand to reveal the Furby’s internal memory chip.
Here’s the real suspect. Have
a nice Christmas Sulky.”
I
decided that I’d keep my little acquisition unofficial. That meant I needed to
have this thing dissected outside the department lab. I brought the chip to some
computer nerd buddies. It was tough going, but they finally downloaded its
program. Most of the data was written in an unknown programming code, but there
was one word -- a name -- that was decipherable. It was enough. I told them to
keep trying to crack the code, then I hit the street.
“Where
are you going Molder?” asked Sulky
“To
visit a dear old friend.” I said mysteriously.
Chapter
Four
When
I caught up with him, he was setting up shop in a notorious club called the
Tertiary, smoking a cigar and chumming it up with some old fossil named Liz. I
tried to draw him out and put him off balance. “What’s wrong Barney boy?
Having trouble getting lucky?” I
invited the lady reptile to slither off, and then we got down to business,
“Sorry to cramp your style pal, I can see you were getting lucky, but if you
wanna’ stick around here to give it another shot, you’re gonna’ have to
answer a few questions first.
"Hey it’s Agent Molder, let’s sing a song."
I
leaned hard on the purple punk, pinning him against the bar. “Don’t get cute
with me,” I warned, “or you’re gonna’ be extinct, you amorphous lump of
lavender. Now listen up blue boy, this can be easy or it can be hard. Who are
you working for?”
“I love you, you love me --”
He
was good. “Oh so you want to
sing, huh?” I taunted.
"Have to go now -- ho ho, Hey kids, I’m going to help Santa now , he
ho -- You’ve got nothing on me -- he ho."
Party Reptile
The
indigo galoot was a dinosaur, but he still was street smart. I didn’t have a
thing I could pin on him, so, I went ballistic. Roughing him up, I cuffed him.
Then I made him a little offer. “Look’it grape head, you can sing the song
I wanna’ hear now, or you can entertain everybody downtown. Ya see, how I
get my evidence, that’s my problem. But, here’s the your problem; over
at PBS they aren’t gonna’ like seeing their kiddy hero pulled from a police
van and paraded in front of those Eyewitless News cameras dressed in orange
prison coveralls. Everybody knows orange doesn’t go so great with purple, now
does it?”
"Oh he ho. Okay Agent Molder. Looks like you got me, ho he ho!
Forget Furby. Follow the
random access memory, ho he ho!" he sang.
It
didn’t take a Sherlock to see he was just a stooge and this was another dead
end. Maybe Sulky was right.
Dejected, I drove back to headquarters. Three days to X-day and I had next to
nothing. Then my cellular rang. It was the nerds. They had found and downloaded
geographical coordinates from the memory chip. Pay dirt! I could already hear
Sulky’s protests when I told her she’d be spending Christmas with me and a
dog sled team.
Chapter
Five
Xmas
Eve. The Furby memory chip
coordinates put us smack on the Arctic Circle, specifically, on Baffin Island in
Canada’s Northwest Territories. It was as noir as it gets --
give or take the Aurora Borealis -- considering the Sun wouldn’t be
coming up for another month. Lunar cold too, and us with only our winter
postal uniforms and no mittens. Luckily, we did bring our powerful flashlights.
We trudged through the frigid tundra -- an endless expanse of permafrost,
hostile to most life. But we were on the right trail. Sulky covered the rear.
Suddenly, the unmistakable sound of a frozen plush toy, then darkness. I had
been clobbered from behind. Before
I could recover, I was being tickled -- hard, and for keeps. Just when I was
about to lose consciousness, I heard a gunshot. Saved again by Sulky. When we
stood him up, it was another old friend. “Fancy meeting you in these
parts,” I said, smirking at ‘Tickle Me’ Elmo.” Cuffing him, I pressed my
piece to his oversized head and told him about his new job -- as our guide.
I was a little more than suspicious when he seemed a touch too
accommodating.
He
lead us to an ice cave. Upon entering, we heard laughing. Elmo broke free and
giggled. Then we heard the now familiar language:
“Kah-zzz-sleepy-time-for-yoo-two.”
Furbish
was spoken here. By the time we figured out it was furbish for ‘tranquilize
them,’
it was already too late.
We
came to, each sealed in giant toy boxes. From the cellophane windows we could
see a vast underground complex--long rows of control panels, conveyors and other
industrial equipment. It looked like a cross between Mission Control, Spectre HQ
and a steel mill.
“So
Agents Molder and Sulky, we finally meet.
So many Yuletides have passed, no? A
whole decade for you -- an eternity for us.” There he stood, Teletubby, in all
his plush rotundity, surrounded by his evil minions: thousands of Furbies,
Cabbage Patch Dolls, Beanie Babies, Gigapets, and look who just got here -- why
it’s Barney.
“A
toy who has many friends is a powerful toy -- yes, Mr. Molder?”
“Ooh-u-goo-na-get-yoors-ooh,”
I spat defiantly.
“Very
clever Mr. Molder -- fluent Furbish, the language of my good little soldiers,”
cooed the avuncular toy in his self-satisfied, and undeniably British accent.
“Here’s
something more clever,” I sneered, “What have you done with Santa?”
“More
than the Martians ever were able to do,” he boasted.
“They
never would’ve kidnapped him on my watch,” I snapped.
“Oh
we didn’t have to kidnap him. Look.”
The TV screen in his belly showed
Santa at his desk looking very bored. “It was more like a hostile takeover -- and
he lost,” rasped the day-glo, lime-green rogue. “No need to worry,” he added, “We kicked him
upstairs and set him up with a cushy job as Chairman of
our ‘Educational Toys & Books’ Division. Hmm, I see you’re yawning
already. Let’s face it, he’s older than Bob Hope and Strom Thrumond
combined. He needs a rest -- and his Misses agrees. Of course, Santa’s
operations, being a tad inefficient, were restructured.”
“That
means the elves are --”
--
“Redundant,” sighed Tubby, adding, “I wouldn’t shed too many tears,
Agent Molder, they all received severance pay, extended dental and one way
tickets to Hollywood.”
Top Tubby: Plans for humanity
“But
why do you want to take over Christmas?” asked Sulky.
“Christmas?
This is bigger than Christmas. It seems your partner’s suspicions were correct
all along -- we are aliens. 30 years ago, our probes discovered your world. After
observing you, we concluded your species had potential, though you would need
help to survive this dangerous period in your history. But despite seeding your
world with toy agents to guide and steer the next generation, we noted the
development of some dangerous trends like pop psychology, reality cop shows,
talk radio, deconstructionism and the return of disco that caused us to take a
harder look. It was our discovery of karioke that finally convinced us you are a
hopelessly backward world, actually a danger to other civilizations in the
galaxy. Therefore you would have to be controlled -- or eliminated.”
Then
I asked our host the question on both our minds, “What are your plans for us?
“To
clone you of course. You see, we made a deal with your government. You’ve
become so famous your images have been licensed. Your clones and will be used to
help us complete our takeover. And
don’t worry, you also have a future as ‘Molder & Sulky Action Figure
Dolls’ -- software included, batteries not. Next year, you’ll be under every
Xmas tree in America -- just like our Furby underlings are now.
Happy Holidays my good friends.”
*END*
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