Previous Post The Moderator Saga: A Pair of Purveyors “With the Silly Suit on over it, it’s hard to tell that it’s even artificial,” Vicki Vee cooed, as she stroked Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove’s Imaginesium left arm through the rubbery fabric of his Impossibilitium costume. “Yeah, I think the Imaginesium prosthesis is … I don’t know, reformatting itself, maybe, using my Impossibilitium body as a template,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! rotated the wrist and wiggled the fingers of his left arm experimentally, apparently oblivious to Velcro Vixen’s physical attentions. “Does it … hurt?” Velcro Vixen suddenly winced sympathetically. “Huh? Oh, nah,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! shook his head, as he closed and opened the fingers of his left hand into a fist. “I mean, yeah, it’s still a little sore around my shoulder … and my chest and back … you know, where the Imaginesium alloy and my Impossibilitium flesh mesh together … but, nah, the arm itself feels … well, it feels fine enough.” “What does it feel like, though?” Velcro Vixen breathed, caressing his left forearm tenderly before applying a brief, testing squeeze to his bicep. CrazySugarFreakBoy! squinted speculatively. “It’s like … you know when you sit cross-legged for too long, and one of your feet falls asleep?” he struggled to describe the sensation. “And then, when you finally shift position or stand up, it starts to wake up, so it’s like … halfway between comfortably numb, and wicked pins-and-needles cramps?” “Well … yeah?” Velcro Vixen prompted impatiently. “Well … yeah,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! nodded simply. Velcro Vixen cast a skeptically sidelong gaze at the self-professed supervillain. “How long have you supposedly been a ‘bad guy,’ then?” “Your guess is as good as mine,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! chuckled. “Sometimes, it feels like I’ve been doing stuff like this all my life, but other times …” he shrugged, taking a swig of Rocket Fuel Soda Pop before offering an unopened bottle to his henchwoman. “So, how long have you been wearing your black mask?” “Long enough to spot someone who’s on the wrong side of the aisle,” Velcro Vixen challenged, as she accepted the bottle and unscrewed the cap. “Your rough-and-tumble personality and working-class egalitarianism rule you out as an archvillain, but you’ve got way too much of a crusader’s zeal and an ideologue’s navel-gazing to be hired help.” “Maybe I’m a righteous rebel,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! winked, before his shoulders slumped. “Look, I’ll be the first one to admit that plenty of my memories are probably about as reliable as a dial-up Internet connection, but one thing I can say for damn sure is, I ain’t not now, and I ain’t never been, no kind of law-and-order guy.” His pensively faded half-smile hardened into a decisive frown. “Speaking of which … I need you to do me a favor.” “Why, I thought you’d never ask,” Velcro Vixen beamed, tugging the pull of her zipper between and below her breasts. “Watch Boaz,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! cut her off curtly. “Jay Boaz?” Velcro Vixen checked, caught by surprise. “Doorman? You don’t trust him? But … he’s a total white hat!” “Yeah,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! agreed agitatedly, “and that’s what I don’t trust about him. The guy was one of The Moderator’s most loyal servants.” Velcro Vixen rolled her eyes. “So were you, CalmSereneFlunkyBoy…” “And if he’d been undergoing non-stop Manchurian Candidate-level brainwashing sessions to keep him that way, like I had, then we might not even be having this conversation right now,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! countered. “As it is … I don’t know. He just feels too good to be real.” “I suppose you’d trust him more if he behaved like Killer Shrike?” Velcro Vixen snorted. “Hey, I like Shrike,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! grinned. “I trust Shrike.” “You can’t be serious?” Velcro Vixen scoffed. “Simon Maddicks would sell out you, me, and everyone else on this team, plus his own grandmother, if his gut or his groin moved him strongly enough.” “Yeah,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! agreed again, “and that’s what I trust about him. Simon has no loyalties and no conscience. However, he also has no control over his temper or any of his other impulses, and he has neither the patience nor the skill for subterfuge. Those are the parts of him I can identify with, and that’s what makes him honest. He’s a goddamn Tony Montana.” “Please tell me you’re not seriously going to quote Scarface at me,” Velcro Vixen shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose wearily. “The scene where Michelle Pfeiffer storms out of the restaurant,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! recalled enthusiastically, dashing her hopes, “everyone else there knows exactly who and what Al Pacino’s character is, but in spite of him being a drug-dealing scumbag who’s just had this huge, public blowup with his wife, they’re all trying to pretend like they’re turning a blind eye to it, yeah? But Tony Montana, he won’t let ‘em. He stands up, and makes the ‘Say goodnight to the bad guy!’ speech – one of the best speeches in movie history, even though Pacino improvised the whole thing, right on the spot – and in the speech, he lets everyone in the room have it with both barrels, because he can’t stand the falseness of their gentility.” His lips curled into a snarl, as he launched into an impression of Pacino’s faux-Cuban accent, delivering his character’s dialogue from the aforementioned film. “Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide … how to lie. Me? I don't have that problem. Me? I always tell the truth … even when I lie.” “So, say goodnight to the bad guy,” Velcro Vixen recited. “Trust me, I’ve worked with enough suburban white boys, who wanted to be black, that I’ve heard those lines enough.” “Killjoy,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! couldn’t help sulking slightly. Velcro Vixen reminded herself that deference was part of a right-hand woman’s duties. “I see your point, though,” she entwined the fingers of his free hand in her own, sipping from the soda bottle that he’d handed her, so that he saw her doing so. “Besides, you’re the boss.” CrazySugarFreakBoy! blinked. “Yeah, I guess I am, huh?” “Definitely not an archvillain,” Velcro Vixen smirked. “Why not?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! objected cheerfully. “Whatever I did before, I didn’t bother doing it by the book. For all any of us knows, you, me and April could have been our own supervillain team … the Menacing Ménage à Trois!” Velcro Vixen gently withdrew her hand from his. “You’re still hung up on that girl?” “Until the stars turn cold,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! vowed solemnly. “Well, let’s rescue her, then,” Velcro Vixen forced a smile onto her face, but couldn’t quite manage to make it reach her eyes, “and get you two back into each other’s loving arms.”