Congratulations on Tasing the Living Shit Out of Someone!

The laser will have a warmup period of roughly fifteen seconds. You won’t remember the exact scene in Real Genius that informed you of that fact, but you will remember the fact, a shimmering truth in your brain. Fifteen seconds to disarm and disable Dr. Lasercut. Smiling, you’ll know you only need five.

You won’t feel hurried as you move towards him, seamlessly covering the distance in a moment and ramming the prongs of the taser into his stomach. You’ll feel him twist as he wakes, a gesture left unfinished, a simple neurological impulse cut short by the streaming electricity of the taser. It will change into something terrible in his body, sending him to his knees and then the floor.

You’ll follow him down, stripping the laser and moving his hands, quickly and gently like a child’s, behind his back and into a pair of plastic handcuffs. You’ll draw them tight and haul him to his feet, picking up his laser, turning it off and sliding it into your belt all in the same gesture. He’ll hang from the cuffs in your arms, groaning and flopping around, trying to teach his brain how to send impulses to his muscles and get them working again. You’ll grimace as you tug him close , drawing out the caribeeners you’d hidden in your rectum and clipping them on to his belt and yours, then affixing the laser gun and his flaccid body to yourself. Then final carabeener will hook on to the weather balloon.

When it’s hooked into your belt you’ll pull the activation cord and the balloon will rip you out of the window and into the sky, Lasercut’s weight digging your belt into you. You’ll hear the C-130 coming, catch sight of the sun cresting the horizon as you rise and remember how good it is to no longer be a teenager living in suburbia as you feel the balloon catch and the plane reel you in.

Congratulations on Tasing the Living Shit Out of Someone!

Congratulations on Breaking Out of the Hellscape of Your Own Memory!

You’ll sit there for what feels like an eternity trying to scream, watching your childhood self play with your insufferable super villain cousin in slow motion. It will be what you imagined hell to be like, banal shit foisted upon your mind, unwelcome and inescapable and a little bit uncomfortable in a way you can’t quite put your finger on.

You’ll feel, rather than hear, Lasercut’s amusement at your discomfort. Ha ha ha he’ll mind-laugh inside your skull.

You’ll realize suddenly that this is exactly what he expected. He expected you to fight, to return to the present at any cost. You’ll bite your lip and do the hardest thing you’ve ever done: you’ll fall deeper into flashback, trying to take control.

The world will spin around you and you’ll cascade into your own memory, falling through awkward sexual experiences and the first time you shaved your genitals and things of that horrible nature, your consciousness tumbling inexplicably through the framework of your own mind. You’ll scrabble to come to rest before finally catching hold on the film Real Genius.

In Val Kilmer’s eyes you’ll find peace for the first time in days. Staring at him you’ll wonder why you came here and then you’ll remember. The laser.

You’ll watch the film intently, laughing as you recognize the actor who would one day play Uncle Rico in the cult blockbuster Napoleon Dynamite, enjoying every line, savoring every second away from your cousin. In the real world only a few instants will have past but here in the dream it will have been a luxurious two hours spent watching one of your favorite classic films. It will have been divine.

And when the credits finish and Kodak’s logo flashes upon the screen the memory will go black and you’ll find yourself standing face to face with Dr. Lasercut. His eyes will flutter and it will quickly become apparent that he is leaving the flashback just after you. Smiling you’ll flex your fist and tense your legs as you leap towards him

Congratulations on Breaking Out of the Hellscape of Your Own Memory!

Congratulations on Entering a Flashback!

“Accompany me, if you will, into the depths...OF MEMORY!”

Lasercut will finish his statement in all caps, clearly proud of his perceived showmanship. You’ll do your best not to yawn, your desire to be courteous outweighing your desire to belittle the madman sitting before you.

“It all began in the Year of Our Lord Before Lasercut Ninety Eighty-Eight...” he’ll begin, pulling the two of you into the swirling gray mess that is the human mind’s concept of time.

Suddenly the two of you will leave his handsome, if spartan, office and be transported to a suburban neighborhood which looks a great deal more like nineteen fifties than nineteen eighties American. A great deal of that will be the young man dominating the flashback. He’ll be sickly pale and dressed in a v-neck sweater vest, playing with a chemistry set outside for no apparent reason. As he toys with the set he’ll produce what appears to be a highly corrosive acid, which will eat through the beaker containing it and spill on to an anthill, dousing the creatures in horrible melting death.

“Lasercut!” a voice will sound from off-flashback. The young man will turn, abandoning his now burning chemistry set and running towards an attractive older woman standing outside of a house. She’ll smile and shake her head. “Lasercut, are you sciencing again?”

The boy will look at his feet and stammer, “No ma. I were’t just doin’ normal kid stuff. Runnin’ and playin’. You know.”

She’ll shake her head and tousle his hair. “We’ll put you in the lie box later. Come inside and meet your cousin.”

Lasercut, smiling, will trot inside. He’ll rush into a living room where another older woman sits, sipping a cough of coffee. The woman will look very, very familiar. A young man will be seated next to her, dressed normally for the 1980s. He’ll be wearing a Cure shirt and have a bowl haircut and a frown on his face. His eyes will be a little red, as if he cried on the car on his way over. He’ll look like a sensitive boy, familiar somehow.

“Lasercut Montaghue, meet your cousin, Secretassassin Del La Monte,” the first older woman will say, and with her words the flashback will click into place and you will try to scream, but the words will catch in your throat, the flashback drowning out all sound, all future.

Congratulations on Entering a Flashback!

Congratulations on Engaging in Some Polite Conversation!

You’ll be standing there in Dr. Lasercut’s office for what feels like a day, but is in fact closer to a minute and a half, staring down the barrel of an argon gas and ruby filtered laser, effective range sixty five meters. You’ll know this because of the surprisingly thorough section about Dr. Lasercut in the CIA World Factbook which you reviewed before coming to his island. You wanted to be able to accurately engage your host in conversational topics of interest to him, like oppression and lasers, and you thought learning about his weird culture would help with that.

But of course Lasercut saw through you and we all know where the situation stands now. With you. Standing. In his office. Like we just said in the previous paragraph.

“We are not so different, you and I,” he’ll demur, looking you up and down like a piece of meat or some sort of woman.

“I disagree,” you’ll grumble gruffly, staring straight ahead at his laser, watching his finger caress the trigger.

“I’m sure,” Lasercut will purr, keeping his laser pointed at you as he strafes around you, smiling. “You’re likely wondering just what I meant by that.”

You won’t nod. You won’t move at all. You’ll just be racking your brain, trying to remember if the warmup time on argon gas lasers is significant. You’ll try to remember the fact book, but the fact book was really boring so you’ll give that up halfway through and start replaying the film Real Genius in your head instead, examining the plot chronologically to be sure you don’t miss anything.

“A fair question,” Lasercut will say, now partially ignoring you. “Would it shock you at all to learn that we are, in fact, related?”

You’ll stop replaying Real Genius in your head and give him a startled look. It will shock you.

“Indeed!” he’ll declare, taking joy at your shock. “Let me elaborate on just how we are related, my dear Secretassassin,” he’ll say, sitting down in a chair and letting his traditional black cat settle into his lap.

Congratulations on Engaging In Some Polite Conversation!

Congratulations on Killing the First Person You Meet!

When the door opens it’ll be a young man, no older than nineteen. He’ll be clean shaven with blue eyes full red lips. He’ll look content, like he’s had a rough life and he’s finally found something that doesn’t just hurt constantly to do, even if that thing is kind of horrible.

You’ll loop the rope around his neck in one fluid gesture and yank him off his feet, collapsing his windpipe with the force of the motion instantly. You’ll keep pulling as his feet scuff the ground just to be absolutely sure, just to be thorough. They’ll stop after less than a minute, panicked scrabbling fading into one last kick.

On his body you’ll find cell keys, a taser and an ID badge. Not much, nothing of real use. He must’ve been unimportant, this young man, barely worth clothing. You’ll have hoped to find a gun or something, something that you could really use to fight, but this will have to do, you’ll think to yourself, pocketing the taser.

You’ll set out into the passages of Dr. Lasercut’s base, moving slowly, stopping and hiding each time you hear footsteps. Five times you’ll avoid detection and barely stay your hand when you notice that the footsteps belong to more than one person. Moving this way it will take you two hours to reach Dr. Lasercut’s office. No search parties will impede your journey, a further testament to the unimportance of that poor, lonely young man already fading into the stone below.

As such you will be largely unexpected when you slip into Lasercut’s office. He’ll be on the phone, yelling at someone about cable installation times or something. The sound of your own blood in your ears will be too intense for you to be able to focus on just what’s coming out of Lasercut’s mouth.

You’ll slowly, carefully creep around the room in the plentiful and somewhat conspicuous shadows populating it until you come to rest just behind Lasercut, watching the hairs on the back of his neck, still not hearing the phone conversation. You’ll watch him hang up the receiver in slow motion, watch his hand tap the desk in a rapid pattern, hearing nothing, only the tap, until he turns towards you and says “Hello Agent Secretassassin.”

“Huh?” you’ll say, still in the shadows, eliciting a cruel laugh from Lasercut. You’ll move towards him with the taser but he’ll spin in his chair, a cutting-laser pointed straight at your chest.

“Not so fast, Agent Secretassassin,” he’ll say, a smile splayed across the functioning side of his face. You’ll lick your lips.

“It appears we have reached an impasse,” you’ll say, lowering the taser.

Congratulations on Killing the First Person You Meet!

Congratulations on Blacking Out Briefly!

When you come to he’ll still be talking and you’ll still be strapped to that god damn table with that god damn laser slowly working its way towards you. You’ll let loose a sigh and wonder why villains always insist on giving you an out instead of just killing you outright.

His guards will have their backs turned to you now. They’ll be convinced that their blows to your head will render you unconscious until the laser begins cutting you in half. They’ll have underestimated you, the last mistake they’ll ever make.

Or so you’ll mutter softly to yourself as you squirm on the table. This will immediately draw the attention of one of the guards who will strike you in the head again, knocking you out much more effectively this time. Blackness will take you.

You’ll awake later, having been removed from the table since Dr. Lasercut decided that it wasn’t “fun” to kill you by slowly cutting you in half with a laser unless you were awake for the entire affair. You’ll be bound to a chair in a basement, hungry and alone and wishing that you’d been able to deflect the laser with a coin and kill the guards in an action packed sequence.

Instead you’ll be left to slowly work your way out of the ropes so that you can brutally strangle whoever enters your cell, hoping that they want to kill you in some horrible way instead of just letting you rot slowly down there.

Congratulations on Blacking Out Briefly!