'Showdown' Part 17: 'Interlube'
by Jean
'Finished', stated John Doggett firmly,
stamping the last flourishing initial next to every 'whereas'
and 'heretofore' in his and Scully's field report.
'Zzzzzzzzz', said Scully, draped unconscious across the paper
shredder.
Doggett had previously been unaware of the fact that such a mundane
office appliance was capable of chewing up video tapes, worsted
overcoats, Speedos, three aquaria, and an entire sunflower farm,
spitting out the resulting glop in a disquieting fashion, not
unlike being barfed back to life in a septic tank by some backwoods
cracker, a delightful perk of his new assignment, of course, but
causing him queasy unease.
He wondered if the shredded mess was going to achieve critical
mass and morph into something wholly lethal, deathless, and unindictable
like Al Capone or, worse, Sarah Connor. Next time Cameron came
up with a decent script for a sequel, Doggett was going to finally
get that bitch for sure.
In the meantime, he had experienced a nominal first day, (1/365.2
Zulu in Doggett years), if somewhat odd, in his new position on
'Unsolved Mysteries for Paranoids', hunting down the elusive Mulder
or, as Scully preferred, 'Moulder', which was probably a nifty
guess, the way his spirit kept congealing behind the copy machine
like an ersatz Jacob Marley ricocheted through Dickens via The
Gap.
All Doggett needed to do was find the corpse, receive another
commendation and march off, as stoic and well-possessed as a bridge
abutment, to his next assignment, perhaps someplace really cool
like Paris, France or Devil's Island, where the nearest thing
to a human/alien hybrid was David Hasselhoff.
'Will ya look at that.........', murmured Skinner with a religious
awe normally reserved for flagellant monks in the presence of
Alice Cooper, staring at Scully completely metamorphosed into
her dormant stage.
'Sir!' barked Doggett as he rose quickly and stood at attention,
pondering the strength of AD Walter Skinner's impulse control
if he'd arrived a moment sooner and witnessed Scully's chocolate
drooly moment.
'Continue', sighed Skinner, downcast and irritably adjusting his
windbreaker, alligator shirt, slim-fit Wranglers, and calculating
the best ogling position without having to bodily stuff Doggett
through the air-vent like Tooms jelly.
'Sir', Doggett enunciated carefully and softly, so as not to wake
Scully or jolt the AD out of his libidinous revery, causing him
to engage in something unworthy of his stature like sudden-onset
necrophilia, 'At 6:30 hours we visited the Queequeg Memorial,
then we 10-20'd at Denney's where Agent Scully ate the menu, table
condiments, and other peoples' food. Fourteen hundred hours brought
us to 42 degrees latitude where we proceeded to dismantle with
extreme prejudice every waterbed on display at 'Wave'n'Wiggle's
Snooze-Rite' Outlet, then we shopped for a headstone at-'
'Doggett,' interrupted Skinner wearily.
'Sir!' responded Doggett, hoping that Skinner wouldn't demand
that he videotape Scully's every move.
'Any progress on the case?" asked Skinner, now wedged around
the rungs of Scully's chair.
'No progress in determining Agent Mulder's location, Sir,"
Doggett stated regrettably, as if it were his personal failing
that the sap Mulder hadn't phoned home from the Whiner Galaxy.
'Who?' asked Skinner, hung by his clenched ankles from the recessed
ceiling Wood's Lamp above Scully's desk.
'Sir? Agent Mulder?' prompted Doggett, wondering if he would ever
command the intense attention and slack-jawed befuddlement in
others that his dad, Frank Black, always managed to inspire in
others.
'That's your cover assignment', snapped Skinner, attempting to
flatten himself under Scully's laptop with the exquisite elan
of a turbine-shattered and yawing Harrier, 'To execute the required
documentation. Sheesh, Doggett, you'd more likely track down Osama
bin Laden doing stand-up at Graceland.'
'Sir', probed Doggett, dedicated to ferreting out his purpose
with the tenacity of an impacted tooth, and hoping that it wouldn't
involve exhumations, 'What *is* my covert commission?'
But before Skinner could reply, he abruptly succumbed to his latest,
widely known, and deeply aggrieved infirmity, swelling up to twice
his normal size and turning a deep, ropy purple, like a grape
roadmap. He did manage to babble the two devastating words, freighted
with portent, 'Thong of Power', around his eggplant-like tongue,
but to the uninitiated and Rushmore-steady Doggett, it sounded
like 'Funnel Blower'.
This intimation heartened Doggett greatly, now that he had a clear
objective other than starching Kersh's laundry, and accompanying
him on his obsessively jealous search and destroy mission against
Sidney Poitier. Though, under Kersh's tutelage, Doggett had learned
how to maintain the diesel engines on the Queen Mary in tip top
condition.
Before Skinner's dirigible impersonation subsided and he reverted
to his normal breath-taking masculine form, Doggett was out the
door, up the stairs, signed out, and halfway to Mendicino, California.
He finally had a clue! 'Funnel Blower' obviously referred to the
mysterious and illusive Alex Krychek, a former agent now collecting
temporary disability and working part time at an all-night Jiffy
Lube.
To be continued................