Nope, Nothing Wrong Here.

[Salty]

As the plain Jeep pulls into the driveway normalcy is totally maintained. The house looks much like the others next to it in this shapely neighborhood. The two snowbirds propped up outside maintain this image. Who lives here? Why just a friendly retired couple, skin burnt into a permanent orange glow, hair as blue as the sky on any given day around these parts. The look on their faces is serene, their movements are languid, easy. They look so peaceable and orderly that you don't even remark on the oddity of a man using hedge trimmers on a cactus. Everything looks just as it should.

Now, before we move on to the interior I must explain that this couple (who we can't call living any more than we can call them dead. They are, as so many others, somewhere in between, and, perhaps, that much happier with the lot they've been given*) are not like the rest of the snowbirds who litter this arid, coyote-shit laced town. No. These two kind, soft-spoken folks have an expression of benign joy plastered on their faces. Wild horses could not pull that peace from their faces. The real, live, wrinkled bags of meat that spend their dying days in Not Florida are filled with a kind of fear that is difficult to communicate. Truly, I don't even know where to begin with the retirees who bustle through eco-friendly grocery stores without coming into *gasp* physical contact with one another. Surely, you savvy discobanditos understand The Fear. You know, the one you can only find once you've come to the center of The American Dream**. The white people who've decided that they will use the last of their, probably, pilfered resources in a place that won't make their achy bones creak with the memories of fucking generation after generation with decidedly ZERO sense of the long term effects of their banal actions have nothing but The Fear. Well, that and money. And not all that much money or they'd be in Pheonix. Of Florida, where TEEVEE has told me they belong.

You may now have an image in your mind of the people I'm talking about. Well, those people are NOT the people tending to the sun-scorched lawn outside the Howl Compound.

There is something distinctly "off" about them. Are they robots? Are they zombies? Howl won't say. He just laughs.

Because I'm not an idiot I can tell they are merely a decoy, a semblance of Normal so that the neighbors don't get spooked.
And that's for the best. Because if they had any idea of what was happening inside there they would be a hell of a lot more than spooked. After the inevitable collective pance-shitting there would be so many for sale signs on this block it would make post-Frannie/Freddie meltdown metro Detroit look like...well, anywhere else.

Even the first few feet inside the door look normal. But the smell...there's a reason no newspapers are delivered here. Now, I could not recognize the smell at all. But that's because I'm not used to being around chemicals like that. You may be thinking, is Dok taking his work home? No. Oh god. These chemicals are not recognize by any facility, government institution, or periodic table. These are the smells of raw materials turned into something altogether more horrible through the power of SCIENCE!

Howl leave me to yell at some servitor whose apparent sole function is to withstand a brutal cacophony of verbal abuse. Being a layman myself, I cannot understand a word of it, I can however feel the heat and wander off.

Once I've passed the remains of the domestic front the "house" takes a decidedly industrial tone. Substance over style. There might have been a bed room, a kitchen, a bathroom in this area once. Now there is only a shell. And an elevator, which I take. It only leads down.

The first subterranean floor opens after I can't say how many floors or feet or yards or miles. All I felt was queasy for five straight minutes. I step out propping my body against a wall, trying not to puke. The grey and narrow hallway leads to a steel door; to say it was locked is an understatement. It looks like it's capable of withstanding a nuclear blast. A long, narrow window runs along the wall next to it and I can down into some kind of training area.

A woman stands in front of what looks an awful lot like an army of very unsafe looking robots. She's wearing a long, brown trench-coat which does it's best to conceal long, shapely legs and an altogether voluptuous body. Her hair is wild above and beside and behind her. She is screaming commands and the robots are drilling. One would not imagine vaguely humanoid machines could possess such an air of fear. Nevertheless, each on looks as though it's sweating. They have more fear in their swiveling heads than the aforementioned snowbirds are capable of. Put it to good programming, I guess. Then I see the pile in the back, rotting and rusting heaps of their own brothers. They must be kept there as a visual reminder to the rest. One would think that such fear could be programmed right into them, but then, where is the human touch?

I get back into the elevator. I don't want to end up in the pile.

More queasiness, more movement.

Suddenly I am in a kitchen. A homey, fully normal kitchen. No one is in here and so I take a peak around. Every cupboard, every shelf, the entire fridge, they are all filled to the brim with any kind of food you could ever want. All those sweets and breads and sausages from my childhood are there. And what's more, they all taste like they did when I was kid. Have you ever retasted something you only knew when you just got done shitting your pance and been disappointed that it didn't live up to your memory? This does not happen here. In fact, I would wager that Mezzo Mix did not taste that good when I originally had it.

After gorging myself on nostalgia, and some delicious havarti, I climb once again into the elevator. This time it opens into a very small, warm room with a bed, a lamp, some extra clothes, and the entire collection of Transmetropolitain, which I've never read. Very happily, I doze off.

Later, hours, days, years, I wake. My body feels...it feels great! Even at 27 my knees have begun to change their tune, let's not talk about my stomach or back. But now I feel fantastic! I jump up. I do it again and notice that that's an awful lot higher than I can remember jumping. I do it again and hit my head on the ceiling. I do it again and punch right through, finding my head poking through the kitchen where Doktor Howl and his collective are sitting having some coffee.

"How do you feel, Alty?" he says, smiling, knowing.

I try to answer but the only sounds that come out are this horrible whirring. I struggle back and forth, climbing out onto the floor. I feel heat and movement in my chest and rip my shirt open. I see nothing out of the ordinary. The whirring and buzzing grow and I am compelled. I dig my fingers into my flesh, there is no pain. I rip away skin like it was cheap cotton and underneath is a hideous mess of wires, metal plates, and this SMELL I cannot being to describe even with my new gifts.

I sit down to a cup of coffee, think about it for a second, and grab a beer instead.

I could get used to SCIENCE!







*though SCIENCE!
**PICK YOUR REGION, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

[Freeky]

Heeheeheeheehee! Well described, Alty.

[navkat]

Well, at least there's a Doktor on duty in case anything goes Wrong.

Now, where'd I lay those hedge trimmers...?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sounds like you got properly Tucsoned™.

[Doktor Howl]

Well, at least there's a Doktor on duty in case anything goes Wrong.

Alty will not heed his Doktor's advice. 

[navkat]

Well, at least there's a Doktor on duty in case anything goes Wrong.

Alty will not heed his Doktor's advice.

Right. And those hedge trimmers...? did you see where I left them?

[Doktor Howl]

Well, at least there's a Doktor on duty in case anything goes Wrong.

Alty will not heed his Doktor's advice.

Right. And those hedge trimmers...? did you see where I left them?

Yes.  The surgeon's bill will be forwarded to you.

Around this house, we clean up when we're done with our toys.