Donny and Portia's parents arrived at the GAG festival together but
soon split up once they found a nice place to pitch their tent and their dad
used the new chemical toilet, which made a lot of instant enemies out of their
neighbors.
The place was like a fast-growing refugee camp, except with all the
amenities, including tofu hot dog vendors, California tofu pizza vendors,
organic tofu juice vendors, a fleet of ambulances and the equivalent of a
M*A*S*H unit, staffed by, believe it or not, credit-card slave doctors.
Hailey Summers went off through the tent-city to find some weed or, if
lucky, some acid, though in a pinch, she'd take the designer feels-good
pharmaceuticals she'd lifted from behind the pharmaceutical counter in the
store she managed. She was here to get
stoned out of her konk and "party!" and so, in hopes of stumbling on
something upon which to gamble her gray-matter, she was determined to "go
ask Alice." It appeared that, so
far, Alice hadn't arrived.
Donny's dad was looking for cute teen girls with nice bra-less,
artificial breasts in halter-tops -- but there weren't any. Everyone in the place was at least 60, except
for the obvious middle-aged kiss-ups who were there to make their bosses
happy. These guys were terribly obvious
because they were all wearing Feedbaq players and SPECTACLs, something with
which no self-respecting Boomer rock fan would be caught dead.
Mr. Summers had convinced himself that young girls would be there and
he was looking forward to ogling them.
There were two well-preserved and friendly dyed-blondes two tents down
with breasts of respectable size, but he already had relatively unfettered
access to a couple of those and he was hoping to get his hands on a new set, at
least for a little while during his vacation.
The prospect that most of the women within 100 yards would be
irresponsibly out of their heads (on whatever mind-bending stuff became the
buzz du jour) fostered the illusion that these enticements would somehow bobble
within reach.
In his own mind, Mr. Summers thought of himself as
more of a rogue than a lecher -- a kind of James Bond in cut-off stretch
blue-jeans, sandals and white socks.
Reed Inkelis was also at the GAG festival. He told his latest girlfriend they were on
vacation but he was also looking for someone -- someone to kill.
Reed was a former astronaut but in his later years he came under the
wing of the security establishment of the United States government as well as
certain commercial interests. His
security clearance was the highest possible and his access to information was
as high as the director of the C.I.A. -- whose predecessor Inkelis had killed
on orders from higher ups in the banking community.
Inkelis was a covert spy and an assassin for the people who were
really in charge -- not the government, not the military/industrial complex --
the dry cleaning industry. He
occasionally free-lanced and had just returned from Milwaukee on a special hit
for a friend who had helped Inkelis get a job in sales just after Inkelis left
the space program. Inkelis felt a little
tired but he never let them see him sweat -- or bleed or whatever.
Inkelis was above suspicion because of his degrees in science and his
years in space, so he could travel freely, meet many beautiful women, have
adventures in exotic locales, drive motorcycles or speed boats on foreigners'
rooftops and then shoot some meglomaniacal government functionary all the while
earning exponentially huge amounts of frequent-flier reward miles. It was a good life -- except for the whole
murder thing over which he was always a little bit guilt stricken.
Prior to his life as a paid assassin but after his life as an
astronaut, Inkelis worked as a salesman for a petrochemical company. The petrochemical company saw his status as a
mission specialist for NASA as a contribution to public relations as well as a
leg-up on any sales to the wide variety of companies that purchased products
and services for the space industry.
Inkelis worked tirelessly; wining and dining prospective clients;
writing lengthy proposals and prospectuses; sacrificing endless hours of free
work in order to ingratiate himself with the decision-makers.
Yet, deals would consistently slip through his fingers at the last
minute due to details over which he had no control and which were usually
unstated and part of the internal politics of the prospective client
company.
After losing over 10 deals in as many months, Inkelis was certain he
finally had his first big sale. A large
satellite manufacturer was looking for a massive order of propulsion fuel for a
series of rockets that would be sent into low Earth orbit the following
year. Inkelis wooed the contact: former
astronaut John Acton, the Vice President of Purchasing. Inkelis fed him dinners at the finest
restaurants, paid for the buyer's luxury vacation with his wife in the clean,
warm and sunny Boreal beaches of James Bay.
He paid for the prospect's car lease payments and personally built a
deck in his backyard.
4 months after doing everything possible to grease the wheels of the
sale, (including presenting the best proposal the client had ever seen with the
lowest price among all the other bidders), the tender went to a company in
Mexico because John Acton neglected to mention that his boss, Mr. Rodrigues
would be making the final-decision.
Inkelis got upset. Inkelis
hacked into the client's computer using a little known anti-hacking technology
and obtained the minutes of the meeting between Acton and his boss: the company
president. The notes showed that Acton
never even mentioned Inkelis' company.
Acton never even discussed Inkelis' lower bid. Acton barely did anything except smile and
listen to his boss and agree with whatever his boss said. Acton wasn't stupid.
Inkelis got mad. Then he got insanely
furious. He went over to John Acton's
house and seduced John Acton's wife.
Then, when John Acton came home, Inkelis shot Acton twice in the head. Acton's wife was ecstatic; she hadn't had
such a good day in years.
Inkelis got to thinking -- maybe I'm in the wrong line of work.
That's how it all began. That
evening, later, after spending some more time with Acton's wife, Inkelis called
the National Security Office in Washington and asked an old friend if the job
he'd offered to Inkelis was still open.
The old friend said, yes, the "job" was still open. Inkelis said he'd take the job on one
condition -- he had a mess that needed cleaning up.
About 10 minutes later a large contingent of people who are usually
called "spooks" descended on John Acton's house from a silent
helicopter. They took Mr. Acton's body,
and that of his protesting wife in two body bags, and left as quickly as they
came. The Actons' disappearance remained
unsolved until a Webisode of "Unsolved Mysteries" revealed that they
were killed and buried by a drifter named Sam Eaglefeather, who was currently
in prison in North Dakota. Yeah, right.
Next: The Fuzzy Navel Nuptials
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