“Your rescue sucks,” said Dakota and frowned at the individual seated across from her. Agent Travis glared back and tugged at the ropes tying him down. Dakota blinked several times in an attempt to dismiss her grogginess. Sometime during the third act of Kim Jong Il’s unintentional horror film, her central nervous system decided to pass out in a last ditch effort to save her higher brain functions. When she finally came to, she found herself opposite her would be rescuer, looking a bit more captured than she would have liked.
“It’s part of the plan”, said Agent Travis.
“What plan would that be,” asked Dakota, “The plan to get captured?”
“Sarcasm isn’t going to help.”
“You know what also doesn’t help? BEING CAPTURED!”
Dakota’s outburst caught the attention of their Viking jailers, who up until now had been engrossed in animated discussion about class struggle, herring, and how exactly they were going to kill their prisoners.
“Silence American pig-dog-capitalist,” yelled Erik the Red, and then punched a random Viking within arm’s reach. If nothing else, his leadership style kept those under him attentive. It was also good for the reflexes.
Travis glared at the Viking and then sighed at Dakota.
“I had to get captured so they could take me to you and to whoever was running this operation,” he said.
“Kim Jong Il”, said Dakota.
“Not possible,” said Travis.
“Well… some of him. His head mostly.”
“We killed him in 2032 after the third Korean war.”
“You mind telling me why he’s here-“
“Now.”
“Huh?
“You want to know why he’s now. Trans-temporal grammar can get a bit tricky at first. After a while you used to past post future imperfect tense.”
“Anyway. Why here- er.. now?
“To destroy your accursed experiment,” said a mechanical voice with a thick Korean accent. The clicker-clack of spidery legs skittered out of the darkness, carrying with it an Elvisish head in a bell jar. The pistoned nightmare lurched to a stop so that it could gloat at eye-level with Agent Travis. “Once I have detonated my arsenal, I will have killed the architects of the capitalist virus that has plagued mankind,” said Kim Jong Il’s head. He clapped two of his metal limbs together and several Vikings wheeled a very large looking death ray into view. “This Continental Congress will smother the capitalist infant in its crib and unveil a new dawn on a communist future!”
“No it won’t, “ said Dakota.
“Damn right it won’t,” barked Travis.
“My death ray would disagree,” said Kim Jong Il.
“That’s not what I meant. It won’t work because Marxism was a direct rebuttal to Adam Smith style capitalism. Without post-colonial America’s push against mercantilism, there would be no framework to build socialist principles on. You would destroy communism too,” said Dakota.
Agent Travis blinked. The head of Kim Jon Il brooded silently in the face of logic. He did not like logic. Logic was something people without power had to deal with. He found that given enough guns, logic was whatever you declared it to be. The popular dissent found it hard to give a counter-argument once filled with bullets.
“Yes. Well. I guess we will see what the death ray thinks of your opinions won’t we,” he grumbled something to himself, and wiggled his robotic body to the side. “Guards! Prepare to fire upon my command.”
Dakota made some un-ladylike comments and began to panic.
“Relax. It’s all part of the plan,” said Agent Travis.
“Plan? What plan? The plan where you get captured? Or how about the plan where you leave me to go to a bar and drink?” snapped Dakota.
“I wasn’t there to drink. I was there to recruit,” said Travis.
“Recruit what? An army of drunks?!” yelled Dakota and found herself interrupted by a rumble and a rising tide of shouts and swearing that swelled in the distance. The Vikings became alarmed and scrambled to arms.
Agent Travis smiled. “No, an army of drunk Bostonians.”
Copyright JJ Kahrs, 2007