"Mississippi Sizzling" 1:1

'Mississippi Sizzling" Part 1 Springtime
1:1 In the Beginning

Jim Garfield mechanically pumped dumbbell curls as he monitored the unfolding events on three separate walls. Each wall was set to a different news channel, two national, one local. From his vantage point on the Marscape fake suede love seat he watched the breaking story. A chemical attack on the Waller County Government Complex had wrought turmoil. It was a great news story and it would have intrigued Jim Garfield even if he had not orchestrated the event.

On his cradle table that sat next to the love seat one of his dozen cells chirped “Auld Lang Syne,” the tone he had selected for the mother of his second child, Mary Elizabeth Jones. “Hello” he said into the receiver that would convert his voice into a reasonable facsimile of Charlton Heston.

“How free are you?” Darth Vader bellowed.

Darth Vader!? Who the fuck was she to Darth Vader me! He planned to address her preferred voice but he first informed her, “It's cold in here.”

Cold was a code word for the word “code.” In other words, speak cryptically. “Are you watching the news?” Darth Vader intoned gently.

“Yes,” a Charlton Heston facsimile replied.

“It pains me to hear such awful news,” Darth Vader stated slowly and then produced a series of labored breaths.

That seemed to Jim Garfield like a neutral tag. She was stating the obvious in an effort to mimic real dialog. Filler and foley that was used to make their conversation sound innocent should anyone be monitoring. So he added, “I don't think anyone is happy about this.”

“I don't understand these terrorists” Darth Vader growled.

“I don't understand why you think you can Darth Vader me!” Jim Garfield screamed. He could not be sure how much inflection the machine would put into the Charlton Heston voice but he hoped it was a lot.

“I thought American criminals did not kill innocents, especially children. This is surely the work of terrorists.” More of the labored breathing followed her comments.

Jim Garfield cringed at the use of the word terrorist. “I'm not sure what you are talking about.”

“Channel 5 is reporting” and she paused for dramatic breathing that made Jim Garfield grind his teeth and grab his cell so hard that he it whimpered a slight beep. “That a mother and her two small children were taken to the ER.” More pronounced breathing.

“I wasn't aware of that” Jim Garfield said defensively. He didn't know how Charlton Heston would inflect the comment.

“Can you come by tonight. After dark?” More breathing.
Jim Garfield wanted to scream at the Darth Vader voice but he composed himself. “I'll be there at 8:30.”

“May the force be with you.”

Jim Garfield terminated the call and resisted the temptation to hurl the phone into a wall screen. Tiffanie Anckles, his 23 year old mistress had wiggled into the room. She immediately recited the litany. “It's one thing taking out the man, but those cocksuckers killed children.”

Jim Garfield resented the cocksucker reference but dared not show his disapproval. What went wrong? he asked himself as Tiffanie continued her commentary. The Fungus. He fucked this up. He said that deaths were unlikely. He fucked this up. That pus popper has some explaining to do.

He was brought out of his internal chatter by a comment delivered by Tiffanie Anckles as she settled herself next to him on the love seat. “Whoever did this should have their balls cut off.”

Jim Garfield diverted her glance and refocused his attention on the walls as he turned up the volume.

The helicopter shot panned the affected area on the local station displayed on Jim Garfield's main event wall. The conventional wisdom is that you can't go wrong with a helicopter shot but gas attacks just don't photograph very well. On Jim Garfield's right wall The Rescue Network solved that problem. They enhanced the video with computer effects that simulated gas. They had scooped their rivals on the method of attack.

According to the Rescue Channel the terrorists had parked four cars at strategic points around the xxx County complex. They left the engines running and the left the doors locked. The cars' exhaust systems served as the dispersal method. The analyst speculated that the terrorists had pumped the chlorine gas into the tail pipes after parking the vehicles. The attack probably took place during a mild thunder shower around 9 AM that decreased visibility and minimized suspicion.

“Damn!” Jim Garfield said under his breath. They called it perfectly.