Disclaimer
The following is a work of fiction. Any real names, real events, non-original content, or likeness of celebrities are used in a fictitious and parodic manner. All other character names and events are fictional and any resemblance of real names or events are purely coincidental.
CHAPTER TEN: EVOLUTION OF A WEAPON. OR, IN WHICH JASON SAXON FINDS A NEW THREAT TO OUR SECURITY, KEVIN AND SARAH LEARN A SHOCKING REVELATION, AND WE ARE SORT OF INTRODUCED TO “THE VIISK”…
July 10
Claudia Daring sat in the back of her luxury sedan, waiting for her chauffer to show up and take her to the Daring Foundation’s Darington offices. It was indeed a day of mourning for her new family. Robert Daring passed away in the middle of the night from an unfortunate overmedication done by a rookie nurse. And to add more to the family tragedy, her husband John was savagely murdered in the family estate after attempting to foil some would-be burglars. The police were still investigating the crime scene and thus Claudia was not allowed back on the property until their investigation. Thankfully the new man in her life had a spare bed for her to lie down in for the night. Now today was all about grieving for her enormous loss, but she somehow held her head up in pride – knowing that before the events of the previous night, Claudia Daring would become the new chairperson of the Daring Foundation’s Board of Directors. As the chauffer finally showed up and turned the key, Claudia Daring shed a solitary tear. Learning to show weakness on the outside while concealing feelings of joy was one of the many new skills she learned with the man who was Prime Minister: Jason Saxon.
The car drove Claudia Daring to the downtown core of the city where the Daring Foundation had made its central offices since being awarded the contract to rebuild on the grounds where Edmonton once stood. Despite it being a period of mourning between the deaths of the patriarch and son of the family – and compounded with the Vegreville Bombings – Claudia Daring thought it would be best to address the board privately and let them know that perhaps it will be business with usual with her now sitting at the head of the board.
The car pulled up to the front of the giant skyscraper tower that was the head offices of the Daring Foundation. As Claudia Daring stepped out from the card, she was greeted by a procession line of employees of all walks from the offices – offering condolences and sympathetic hugs for her darkest hour. Claudia swelled up with tears, making sure to carry on the façade that she was in no way connected to what really happened to her husband. As Claudia made her way to an elevator, two men outside watched with binoculars. One of the spoke into a cell phone: “Target has successfully made its way to destination point. Inform Mister Saxon that Operation: Extreme Makeover Business Edition is good to go.”
Claudia Daring made her way into the boardroom, again greeted with handshakes and wishes of condolences from the various members of the board. Everyone took a seat as Claudia made her way to the head of the table. She wiped away some more tears and cleared her throat as she read a prepared statement: “Ladies and gentlemen of the board, it gives me great pleasure to be your new chairperson. I only wish it were under different circumstances that this would have occurred under. But we need not to dwell too much on the past and instead focus on the greatness that the future holds for this corporation. However, in order to move further ahead, changes need to be made. Therefore, I am dissolving the current Board of Directors and offering each of you a generous severance package…” Grumbling and shouts of discontent permeated the air of the boardroom as Claudia Daring looked unfazed by their reaction. Just then, a buzzing sound came from a phone near her spot. Claudia pushed the speakerphone button as a female voice said “Missus Daring? There’s a disturbance down in the main lobby…”
Unbeknownst to the woman who called Claudia Daring, this was part of another elaborate plan as Jason Saxon, wearing a dark blue business suit, entered the building. He was flanked by Agents Black and White, four Strategic Homeland Defense Initiative soldiers and four men in black trench coats
“Gentlemen and ladies,” Saxon proudly boasted out loud, “Let’s broaden our horizons! Whitey? Hit the music!”
Agent White rolled his eyes as he pulled out a portable radio and pressed play as Prince’s “Partyman” begun to play. Saxon nodded his head to the opening beat as the four men in trench coats begun removing items from the lobby, pushing down any attempts of resistance.
“All hail the new king in town. Young and old, gather 'round yeah. Black and white, red and green, the funkiest man you've ever seen.”
Jason Saxon begun to dance as a young intern tried to stop him, only to be greeted by a pieface from Jason Saxon and a Rodney King-like beating from the Initiative troops. Two of the blackcoats went over to a wall where pictures of the Board of Directors hung. Jason pantomimed “Take ‘em down!” to the blackcoats as he continued to dance like any other white man in his mid twenties would trying to seem hip and cool.
“Tell you what his name is - Partyman, partyman. Rock a party like nobody can.
Rules and regulations - no place in his nation. Partyman, partyman.”
Four other blackcoats came in from the lobby door carrying a giant box. They took it over to where the portraits were and opened it to reveal a portrait of Jason Saxon, in all his heroic glory from Toronto. Another portrait was of Claudia Daring, smiling in front of an indistinct grey backdrop. One other portrait was of Sloane, looking stern-faced and emotionless as possible. The blackcoats hung them up with pride, eliciting an enthusiastic thumbs up from Jason Saxon. Then Saxon, Black, and White made their ways to the elevators and got into the cart. White pushed a button to their destination, which was the same floor Claudia Daring was holding her meeting with the now deposed board. Saxon kept nodding his head to the beat of the song as the elevator made its way up and stopped then at its destination. The three of them made their way to the boardroom as Black and White opened the doors for Saxon as if he was a king making a grand entrance.
The song continued to this point: “I rock the party, I rock the house. I rock the whole world, north, east and south. In the west - 17 horns blowin'…” as White put the radio on pause as everyone else in the room looked in hushed awe as Prime Minister Jason Saxon had decided to grace them with his presence.
“Mister Prime Minister? What are you doing here?” an old board member frankly asked.
“Well I heard about the recent passing of both of my biggest campaign contributors and wanted to offer my personal condolences to the entire board and to the now widowed Daring.” Saxon said as he blew a kiss to Claudia, who bashfully smiled. “And I am sure that the board, in order to maintain a high standing with a Saxon government, is willing to do whatever it takes to keep me happy,” he went on to say. “And Claudia Daring as the new chairwoman of this prestigious company will certainly keep me happy.”
“She just fired the whole lot of us!” the old man snapped back at Saxon’s peppy demeanor.
“Such seriousness here, people!” Saxon gently laughed. “We need to lighten up people, I mean yeah there were two good men who died, but no reason for this to be their wake yet.” Saxon looked at the man who seemed to be offering the most resistance. “You there? Wanna see a magic trick?” The board grumbled in confusion as Jason Saxon procured a pencil from inside his suit jacket and then slammed it into the table, making it stick standing up. “Now, watch me make this pencil disappear!” he said as he grabbed the man and slammed his left eye on top of the pencil with great force. The man slumped down with the pencil gone and gasps of disbelief came from the board. “Always wanted to that! Such a rush! Woow!” Saxon said very giddy like. Then he turned serious, “Now then, the way I see it, you have two options. Option one is you take up Miss Daring’s generous offer. Option two, well I didn’t bring enough pencils for you but… ” Saxon paused as Agent Black proudly showed off the bag that contained the Lazarus Glove. Saxon then went on. “… Doesn’t mean I’m willing to make you think you’re all presidents of jellybeans.”
The board reluctantly agreed to the terms with nods of their heads. Claudia then said “Now then, my receptionist will have the appropriate information for you as well as a reminder of the non-disclosures clauses you all signed. Now, dismissed.”
The board members left the room as Jason Saxon mockingly waved goodbye to them and feigned wishes of good luck in their future endeavors like an underutilized member of the WWE roster. Agents Black and White also followed suit, dragging away the body of the now deceased board member. With the door soundly closed, Claudia Daring breathed a huge sigh of belief and sat on the table, seductively crossing her legs. “Well, Mister Prime Minister,” Claudia said as Saxon walked over to her and placed himself between her well toned legs “The board yields the floor to you.”
An unmarked white utility van drove down the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, making its way to Calgary. Driving the van was Kevin Brody, along with Sarah Bellum in the passenger side, and the Ryan Jeffries Memorial Squint Squad in the back of the van.
“I still don’t know why we needed to go to your farm first. We could have easily leapt into Calgary and leapt out if what they told us was right.” Sarah said with a yawn.
“Stretching out the narrative? Or allowing room for other parts of the narrative to flow?” Benny chimed in with.
“What are you talking about? Or more importantly, who are you talking to?” Lucas asked.
“I dunno. No one in particular.” Benny said with a smirk on his face.
“Will you two knock it off or I swear we won’t go the zoo afterwards!” Kevin demanded from the two male nerds as Rachel quietly read the latest issue of MacLean’s magazine that bore Jason Saxon’s smiling mug and a headline “CANADA’S NEW PROTECTOR?”.
“Aww! I wanted to see the new lemur exhibit!” Lucas whined.
“I want to go settle a score with some smartass chimpanzee I met there five years ago. Try squirting water on a man who can limitedly defy the laws of time and space, you damn dirty ape!” Benny exclaimed.
“May I need to remind you that our hosts have allowed us to travel anywhere for the sake of finding out if our mysterious Looking Glass has anything to do with this object they lost – not to mock our lesser evolved cousins!” Kevin chided Benny.
“Still can’t believe you convinced me to do this, even after knowing how Donnie is going to react.” Sarah said as she rolled her eyes at the conversation between Benny and Kevin.
“Well, I guess if we weren’t declared legally dead after what happened in Vegreville, your passwords would have been still valid and we could have gotten what we needed either back on the farm, or in the comfort of our new hosts.” Kevin told Sarah.
“Still don’t see how this is going to make a difference. None of my files have anything on this ‘Project Looking Glass’. Until I took over, none of this mad science stuff wasn’t even in my area of expertise.” Sarah replied back.
“Well, since our new friends were reluctant in helping us hack into the ARC’s computer network from their locale, we had to go the next logical step: going there in person.” Kevin said.
“Technically, we could have easily done it from the farm.” Lucas bemoaned.
“Well we could have, but someone had to download some kind of file from Japan that contained a very well timed virus and it crashed my network.” Kevin said, quickly glaring at Lucas.
“Oh. Right.” Lucas said.
“If it’s any consolation - before Lucas downloaded his fresh batch of tentacle rape porn, I was able to pull something from one of my conspiracy newsgroups.” Benny said as he pulled out a piece of paper from inside his vintage U.S. Army combat jacket. He handed it to Sarah and asked her “Does this look like anything you’ve come across?”
Sarah studied the paper: a printed version of a molecular structure. “It looks like it’s some kind of formula. For what exactly, I’m not sure,” she said and looked at the bottom part of the paper, which bore both the Daring Foundation logo on the left and the words “Yellow Light” on the right. “Where’d you get this from exactly?” Sarah asked Benny.
“One of my online sources came across it from a former Section 31 lackey. Word on the street is she was last seen wondering the streets in Prince Albert babbling about sausages and chains.” Benny answered back. “Why?” he asked back.
“Might be hard to believe. We may not be able to find anything on this Looking Glass thing, but there may be another mystery for us to solve.” Sarah said. “And it may have to do with the Daring Foundation.”
“Even better!” exclaimed Benny. “I get to regain an upper hand with that chimp and we may get to prove that an evil multinational corporation really is evil!”
“We’re really not going to zoo, Skippy.” Kevin said dryly
“But, the lemurs!” Lucas whined.
Benny crossed his arms and muttered “Stupid monkey.”
“Chimpanzee, actually.” Rachel finally chimed in after putting down the magazine.
“Whatever,” scoffed Benny.
Sloane marched down the corridors of the Saskatchewan-based warehouse with a purpose. She opened a door to a room where three men were watching various television and computer monitors. Sloane went up to the one man in the middle and spun the chair he was sitting in to make him face her. And to make him answer her upcoming questions with quicker urgency, Sloane grabbed the man by his throat and sneered at him: “This had better be important.”
“Y-yes ma’am!” the man said in between gasps and choking sounds. “Mister Saxon wanted us to pour over all video evidence of the Vegreville Bombings and we found something that may be of interest.”
“Show me it now!” Sloane said, releasing her death grip and spun the man back to face the wall of monitors.
“Look right here,” the man said pointing at a screen showing the Vegreville Six sitting in the VIP section just as Megan sat down beside them. “Moments before the explosion, this occurred,” the man pointed out again as for a brief second a flash of light went over the ten people that Sloane was focused on, which was mere seconds before the explosions went off.
“Has anyone else seen this?” asked Sloane.
“No ma’am,” the second man from the left said. “We were wondering if this would be important to inform Mister Saxon…”
Sloane violently slapped the back of that man’s head and snapped “What do you think? Give me a copy now and I’ll bring this to his attention!”
Jason Saxon made his way back to his Hummer after his productive meeting with Claudia Daring. As he got into the back, he noticed his laptop was still open and was displaying a video conference request. “It’s always something,” Saxon said as he clicked the “accept” button and on the screen appeared Sloane. “Sorry to interrupt your private time, but I thought this may be of interest to you,” Sloane said as the video she watched earlier played on Saxon’s screen. “Hmm. That blue-coated woman?” Saxon pondered aloud. “Well, was hoping for them to be blown to bits with everyone else, but since they too may have survived, looks like we may have a new semi-legitimate scapegoat.” Saxon said to Sloane.
“There’s more, sir. Preliminary intel reports that someone tried accessing government computers using Doctor Bellum’s password.”
“Well, either she cheated death, or some prankster is using her password for shits and giggles.”
“Another report also has her and Mister Brody making their way to Calgary right this moment.”
“Well, that is kind of unusual. Maybe we can use this to our advantage. Take a team down to Calgary and bring back Doctor Bellum to me, alive.” Saxon commanded.
“And this Brody person?” asked Sloane.
“Do with him as you please.” Saxon said with a sinister smile.
“Speaking of which, permission to activate your special units?” Sloane asked.
“Well, that depends,” Saxon answered back. “I assume you watched the informational video?”
“Yes sir.”
“Are they even ready?”
Sloane pulled a man in a white lab coat into view and he stammered “The first generation isn’t ready yet. But the source material is ready as ever, Mister Saxon.”
“Well then,” Saxon said to Sloane. “If you feel you are ready, then by all means do it”
“Yes sir.” Sloane coldly smiled as she ended the video call. Sloane then looked at the man in the lab coat and told him. “I think its time I’m properly introduced to them. Show me these… Viisk.”
Claudia Daring finished buttoning up her blouse and readjusted her skirt. Just as she had finished doing so, her phone rang in the boardroom which today had seen a magic trick go awry and the most intense and passionate sex Claudia Daring had in months. Claudia pushed the speakerphone button and heard Jason Saxon’s voice. Saxon said “Hey, a couple of things I would like to do for me please.”
Claudia Daring, still in the afterglow of passion, replied back “Anything for you, Prime Minister.”
“Super. First, I need you to write me a stirring Old-Testament-God-Shall-Smite-You type speech for a big announcement I have planned for tomorrow.”
“Seems easy enough.”
“Second, well, how would you like to go to Calgary and serve as a non-threatening distraction to a couple of potential flies in my ointment?”
Claudia smirked and replied back “How soon can I get there?”
Saxon answered back with “Just ask one of the blackcoats, he’ll give you the right equipment. Oh, and tell them to go to Medicine Hat and pick up two targets for me. I’ll inform them later who they are. Just tell them to be gentle to them, they’re going to play an important role in convincing someone to see things my way.”
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