18 - Brett Plastic #32
From Brett Plastic #32
Brett Plastic moves carefully through a derelict warehouse building, gun in hand. He’s immaculately dressed, as ever, but his collar is loosened and there seems to be a glazed, almost Messianic, look in his eyes.
He edges around a corner, but a shot is fired and he ducks back. He hears the steps of someone running away and continues the chase, avoiding another couple of shots in the process.
Finally, he emerges into the open upper floor of the warehouse. His would-be assailant, Oscar Vimt, is standing in the middle of the room, a gun in his hand and surrounded by an array of weaponry on the floor. Vimt is tall and powerfully built and dressed in dazzling white combat fatigues. As Brett walks in, Vimt is already laughing like only a super-villain knows how.
‘So, Mr Plastic, you think you have the power to put Oscar Vimt out of business?’
Brett approaches slowly but is casual as he says, ‘I don’t want to put you out of business, Oscar. I just want to talk, try to persuade you to modify your operations. You know, there’s plenty of money to be made legitimately nowadays. If you harnessed your undoubtedly impressive intellect to the cause of capitalism, you’d probably be richer than you are now.’
But Brett has come a long way from the days of Cyrus Crane. Vimt looks briefly baffled and says, ‘And what would be the fun in that? Anyway, I don’t want to talk to you, and I refuse to modify my business, so if you want me to stop, you’ll have to kill me.’
‘I don’t want to kill you, Oscar,’ explains Brett patiently, ‘I want to reason with you.’
‘Reason with this!’
Vimt attempts to shoot Brett Plastic, but with remarkable speed, Brett fires first and shoots the hand that’s holding the gun. Vimt is stunned. He looks at his bloodied hand, then desperately reaches for a gun with his other hand. Brett shoots a second time, and Vimt slowly stands upright again, looking down at his two neatly disabled hands.
‘Ow! That hurt!’
‘I know, and I’m sorry about that.’
Vimt shakes his head in disbelief and says contemptuously, ‘What kind of superhero are you, anyway?’
‘A really nice one.’
Vimt swiftly stamps on a rocket launcher at his feet and Brett fires at the same time. The rocket fires off but hits a wall some twenty feet to the left of where Brett is standing, the foot not being the most accurate limb to employ when it comes to firing a rocket launcher. Brett doesn’t even flinch as the rocket explodes through the wall. Vimt doesn’t flinch either, but slowly looks down at the offending leg, which has been shot and has a bloody patch on it.
‘One who even wants to help bad guys.’
Vimt is actually finding Brett Plastic’s niceness more painful than his three gunshot wounds. He screams in despair, ‘So kill me! Kill me!’
Vimt turns and tries to pick up what appears to be a heavy machine-gun. Brett watches for a moment, his face furrowed with sympathy, but when it looks like Vimt might manage to pick up the machine-gun, even with shot hands, Brett has no choice and shoots him in the base of the spine.
Vimt collapses onto the floor. Brett approaches until he’s standing over the injured man, who’s laughing manically now.
‘See, you did want to kill me. Admit it.’
‘That shot was carefully aimed not to kill you, Oscar. You will be a paraplegic, but to show you there are still no hard feelings, I’ll visit you in the hospital, and I’ll help get you through this. There’s no reason why we can’t be friends.’
Vimt shakes his head uncontrollably, shouting, ‘I don’t want to be your friend! You’re insane. You are insane! Evil. Hear me? You’re evil.’
Somehow, Vimt manages to pick up a gun and promptly shoots himself in the head with it.
Brett looks down sadly at Vimt’s lifeless body. Almost despairing, he says, ‘Why don’t people understand? I just want them to understand that if we talked, communicated with each other, tried to understand each other’s problems, there wouldn’t…’ His following words are punctuated with gunshots as he finally vents his frustration on Vimt’s corpse. ‘Be. A need. For all! This! Violence!!!’
Brett Plastic moves carefully through a derelict warehouse building, gun in hand. He’s immaculately dressed, as ever, but his collar is loosened and there seems to be a glazed, almost Messianic, look in his eyes.
He edges around a corner, but a shot is fired and he ducks back. He hears the steps of someone running away and continues the chase, avoiding another couple of shots in the process.
Finally, he emerges into the open upper floor of the warehouse. His would-be assailant, Oscar Vimt, is standing in the middle of the room, a gun in his hand and surrounded by an array of weaponry on the floor. Vimt is tall and powerfully built and dressed in dazzling white combat fatigues. As Brett walks in, Vimt is already laughing like only a super-villain knows how.
‘So, Mr Plastic, you think you have the power to put Oscar Vimt out of business?’
Brett approaches slowly but is casual as he says, ‘I don’t want to put you out of business, Oscar. I just want to talk, try to persuade you to modify your operations. You know, there’s plenty of money to be made legitimately nowadays. If you harnessed your undoubtedly impressive intellect to the cause of capitalism, you’d probably be richer than you are now.’
But Brett has come a long way from the days of Cyrus Crane. Vimt looks briefly baffled and says, ‘And what would be the fun in that? Anyway, I don’t want to talk to you, and I refuse to modify my business, so if you want me to stop, you’ll have to kill me.’
‘I don’t want to kill you, Oscar,’ explains Brett patiently, ‘I want to reason with you.’
‘Reason with this!’
Vimt attempts to shoot Brett Plastic, but with remarkable speed, Brett fires first and shoots the hand that’s holding the gun. Vimt is stunned. He looks at his bloodied hand, then desperately reaches for a gun with his other hand. Brett shoots a second time, and Vimt slowly stands upright again, looking down at his two neatly disabled hands.
‘Ow! That hurt!’
‘I know, and I’m sorry about that.’
Vimt shakes his head in disbelief and says contemptuously, ‘What kind of superhero are you, anyway?’
‘A really nice one.’
Vimt swiftly stamps on a rocket launcher at his feet and Brett fires at the same time. The rocket fires off but hits a wall some twenty feet to the left of where Brett is standing, the foot not being the most accurate limb to employ when it comes to firing a rocket launcher. Brett doesn’t even flinch as the rocket explodes through the wall. Vimt doesn’t flinch either, but slowly looks down at the offending leg, which has been shot and has a bloody patch on it.
‘One who even wants to help bad guys.’
Vimt is actually finding Brett Plastic’s niceness more painful than his three gunshot wounds. He screams in despair, ‘So kill me! Kill me!’
Vimt turns and tries to pick up what appears to be a heavy machine-gun. Brett watches for a moment, his face furrowed with sympathy, but when it looks like Vimt might manage to pick up the machine-gun, even with shot hands, Brett has no choice and shoots him in the base of the spine.
Vimt collapses onto the floor. Brett approaches until he’s standing over the injured man, who’s laughing manically now.
‘See, you did want to kill me. Admit it.’
‘That shot was carefully aimed not to kill you, Oscar. You will be a paraplegic, but to show you there are still no hard feelings, I’ll visit you in the hospital, and I’ll help get you through this. There’s no reason why we can’t be friends.’
Vimt shakes his head uncontrollably, shouting, ‘I don’t want to be your friend! You’re insane. You are insane! Evil. Hear me? You’re evil.’
Somehow, Vimt manages to pick up a gun and promptly shoots himself in the head with it.
Brett looks down sadly at Vimt’s lifeless body. Almost despairing, he says, ‘Why don’t people understand? I just want them to understand that if we talked, communicated with each other, tried to understand each other’s problems, there wouldn’t…’ His following words are punctuated with gunshots as he finally vents his frustration on Vimt’s corpse. ‘Be. A need. For all! This! Violence!!!’
posted by Kevin Wignall at 1:16 AM
1 Comments:
As someone pointed out in an email yesterday, it's a shame this isn't a graphic novel. Of course, a more insecure person might take that as a criticism of my writing (!) but I agree - it would have been nice to have at least some visual content. But that would have taken forward planning, and this is me we're talking about. You have to realize that a commitment to posting once a day is the most organized thing I've ever done. So on that note, more tomorrow.
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