Teenage lobotomy

Few photos exist to prove or otherwise that Your Correspondent ever went through his teenage years. Sure, there's plenty of photos from one's twenties, most of which looked like this


or this


or even this


...but the decade prior? Not so much. Which is probably just as well really.

However some data exists, in alternative multimedia formats. You'll remember the Captain (front right of the last shot above) from previous iterations of the World of Bollocks. To recap:

Captain Stupidity is a mad bastard from back home with a penchant for hitting the skins, hitting the herb, rotaries (the cars not the old mans' clubs), sultana sandwiches, Asian poontang, our lord and saviour Jesus H. Christ (on an inflatable bike or otherwise), breaking people's computers, not turning up on time, and twiddling around with little knobs. The Captain is eleven-tenths of a fucking legend, for putting up with us calling him Captain Stupidity for fourteen years if nothing else. Anyway, the Captain had a saying, steeped in personal experience, which still rings true to this day. Actually, he had two. One was 'Never go out with a violent drug dealer's underage girlfriend' (don't ask) and the other, delivered one memorable evening in the heady rock-and-roll confines of the Yamba Bowling Club auditorium, was 'Cowbells are where it's at.' A sentiment on which southern California's nastiest all-girl rock group the Donnas would undoubtedly agree, and not just because like the Captain's band they featured a feisty five-nine blonde drummer who everyone wanted to snog. (Except in the Captain's case 'everyone' solely meant 'elderly Japanese male tourists mistaking Surfers' Cavill Mall for a walk-in rentboy dealership'. Again, don't ask.)

In short, the Captain (here demonstrating appropriate levels of enthusiasm in the leadup to the housewarming for Chateau Dodgy v2.0) is the sort of bloke whom if he didn't exist, he would need to be invented - much the same as another World of Bollocks legend, the famous Dawso (the dodgiest looking bastard of all the dodgy looking bastards up top in the Hawaiian shirt photo - prematch drinks for a Gabba ODI). I first encountered both Dawso and the Captain in preschool, where the latter distinguished himself by bringing sultana sandwiches for playlunch and the former by falling off the climbing tower and splitting his head open.

The Captain was, and remains, a character. Literally. For Captain Stupidity was more than just a casually-proffered nickname. It was an entire identity. An entire superhero identity, with a superhero adventure series to match. Puerile, juvenile, embarrassing to all concerned (particularly its chronicler), and packed to the rafters of knob and plop jokes - but a superhero adventure series it was, and remains. It began in the early '90s as a parody of the Kids TV Adventure Series - all the usual superhero schtick, Roger Ramjet, Inspector Gadget, Superted, Bananaman - with the main element of parody being the large amounts of distinctly non-family-friendly content which was smeared over it from the get-go. As you'd expect from anything written by This Bastard it eventually grew out of all proportion and became almost unfeasibly ludicrous, with individual eps ending up as long as thirty and forty thousand words. However the primary emergent themes of the work remained and were never compromised: (a) the Captain is an astonishingly mentalist; (b) despite same the Captain almost always ends up on the side of win frosted with same; (c) the Misadventures of Captain Stupidity strongly believe in recycling, mostly of material from other people - Milligan, Python, Slaven, Nelson, as well as a swathe of material based on someone called Wayne King.

Join us now as we go back, back in time to the dim distant past of the mid-to-late-'90s and my mid-to-late teens, and the study in absolute bollocks that was The Misadventures of Captain Stupidity. Here, in the penultimate episode of the series, the Captain is joined by special guest stars Jenko (an old mate of ours who moved to Japan to teach English for a year, and never left) and Elvis (a culpably insane Japanese superbike rider with a penchant for swearing in interviews - any resemblance to persons either living, dead, or Noriyuki Haga is entirely coincidental) in order to take on the greatest threat to humanity he's ever faced. Well since the last one anyway. Other than punting a few of the continuity gags from earlier eps which would have made fuck-all sense in isolation, this is pretty much as-written back in the late 90s.

And an admission, if not a disclaimer: what the following lacks in brevity it more than makes up in self-indulgence. Unless you've got a lazy half-hour to invest in very old jokes and pre-Millennial pop culture references, caveat fuckin' emptor my friends.
__________________________

Faster than a speeding Pentium, more powerful than a Daihatsu Handi...

The Misadventures Of...


"So," the Captain ventured, "the baby, have you heard? Is it a boy or a girl?"

Sir Monty Python, head of the Organisation of Australian Security and Intelligence Services, considered the Captain's inquiry with the wisdom he was renown for. "I would assume so," he suggested. "One or the other. It tends to be a fairly binary sort of result structure. Any beer left?"

Prior to 007's wedding, Sir Monty had never actually been best man before; Drunkest Man was traditionally his crowning achievement. Perks of the job included managing to score a big hug from his old sparring partner's blushing (and, indeed, glowing) bride. Less impressively, he also scored one from 007. It was just as well the old bastard didn't get married every day. Usually he just refused to admit the kids were his, of course.

"So," said the Captain once formalities were accounted for, "not long now, huh? Do you guys know what flavour you're getting? Or are you treating it like the Maxibon Risk?"

Mr and Mrs Bond looked puzzled, because the Maxibon Risk hadn't been invented yet. So the Captain tried again. "Is it a boy or a girl?" he asked.

The couple looked at each other. "No," said Bond with a grin.

"No, you don't know?"

The new Mrs Bond shook her head. "No, it's not a boy or a girl." With a conspiratorial smile shared with her allegedly better half, she added, "It's a boy and a girl."

"Whafuck?" queried Sir Monty.

"Dizygotic twins," explained Dr Yobbo, jamming yet more beers into their hot little hands, and having a damn good thrash at picking up Sir Monty's old mantle of Drunkest On Ground. (Well, it was his ground; specifically, the grounds of his place at the beach, where his boss Sir Monty had unilaterally offered to host the wedding.) Then, realising 'dizygotic twins' didn't explain anything to non-learned dumbasses like the Captain, Dr Y changed his statement to "Fraternal twins. That kind what can look different from one nuther and stuff."

"Roight," said Sir Monty. "One of each. Collect 'em all, kids."

"Christ, you're not giving birth to a Pokemon are you?"

Among a cavalcade of stars at the shindig was the team's expatriate Far North Queenslander, Agent Jenko. These days he was based in Japan, under the auspices of OASIS' overseas intel gathering operations, as head of the old ASIS South East Asia section headquarters in Tokyo. The Captain and Jenko caught up over a bev or sev later in the ev.

"What's doing, Phil?" Jenko wanted to know. "Still drumming?"

"Well," began the Captain, "I've been out of it for a while..." Twenty-two years at least, chimed a voice from across the way. The Captain tried to ignore Dr Yobbo and continued: "...but I'm starting up again real soon. Professionally, I mean." As distinct from amateurly, which was how the Captain did most things. [That wasn't him, that was me - The Author]

"What - you mean, to borrow a line from Elwood Blues, you're getting the band back together?"

The Captain shook his head. "Nah. The band's had it's day. Some of the boys wanted to flog the dead horse a little longer," he pouted, "but I vetoed that little idea - it's obviously devoid of future. In any case, I'd got my own project lined up which is much more musically adventurous."

"Which is?"

"Spinal Tap wanted me as their new drummer for their third world tour."

Now Jenko was shaking his head. "In that case, mate, remind me not to return this suit to the hire place, because I'll need it again for another sort of ceremony... Just make sure, if you're gonna choke on vomit, that it's your own, okay?"

"I know. You can't really dust for vomit... No, it's okay. It fell through."

"Life insurance premiums too high?" suggested Jenko.

"No, actually, the boys found out it wasn't a third world tour they'd been booked for. It was a third world tour. A fifty-city rampage stopping off at some of the deepest, darkest shitholes that civilization never bothered to - Khartoum, Addis Ababa, Timbuktu, Ipswich... so unsurprisingly the tour was arsed forthwith."

"That's a shame."

"Oh, I'm okay with it, I guess. Well, I'd probably feel a whole lot worse if I wasn't under such heavy sedation..." Thus endeth the Author's carefully-plagiarised tribute to the mighty Tap, the greatest rock and roll band never known. "So what's been going on with you, Jenko?"

"Been pretty active actually," he replied, after a contemplative slurp on his Hahn Premium. One green bottle hanging off the Jenko. "With the millennium coming up, we've been kept very busy keeping all the various fucking loony cults and deluded wanker societies in check."

"That's a big problem over in Japan?"

Jenko nodded. "It's a funny thing about the Japanese psyche. They get sucked into strange cults remarkably easily. Capable of amazing ingenuity and intelligence, but fully prepared to make humiliated imbeciles out of themselves in the pursuit of profit and spiritual bliss."

"I know," Phil said, "I've seen their game shows."

"More than that though," Jenko continued. "There's a lot of support for people setting up weird-arse religious groups over there. Tax concessions, ludicrous amounts of anti-discrimination legislation, you name it. Seriously, if that Scientology fuckhead - that old second-rate science fiction writer, what was his name? Ron Cupboard?"

"Hubbard," bleated the Captain, being a connoisseur of second-rate science fiction.

"Whatever. Anyway, if he was Japanese, they'd probably own the country by now. I mean, it's not usually a problem. Most of them are pretty inoffensive. But all that ingrained government and societal support makes it bloody hard to weed out the genuine nutters. You remember Shonko Arsehara, that fucking loony who had his equally fucked-up minions deoderize the Tokyo subway with fucking Sarin gas a few years back? Real fuckin' minty-fresh fragrance. The Japanese authorities tried like bastards to get him after that, but no fucking chance. Protected by his own self-declared godliness. It's... well, fucked."

"That it is," the Captain concurred, reminding himself to get Jenko a Roget's for Christmas, "but how did you get involved in this sort of thing? Thought it was more a domestic matter, not the sort of thing OASIS would get into..."

"Well, Arsehara's lot - Bum Supreme Truth - had a remote sheep station out in WA where they were making and testing their shit before the subway gassing a few years back. That's where I got involved with the Japanese investigations. Since then, I've been lending a hand wherever possible to my mates in the Japanese internal security services. Actually, 007's wedding came at a good time for me - I wanted to get back over here and check out some properties Bum [that's pronounced Baum you infantile tools - The Author] are thought to have their grubby fingers in, particularly up in northern Queensland - heaps of Japanese investment up there. Tell you what, if you're at a loose end, I could use a capable wingman..."

"Hmmm, an expenses-paid trip to far north Queensland... I'll have to get back to you on that one as to whether I can manage it amongst my busy schedule."

"I thought you were arsing about back home as a deckie on your old man's trawler," Jenko queried.

"Oh yes. However did it slip my mind. When are we leaving?"


Agent Jenko learned, or more aptly recalled, two important facts on the drive up into the Atherton Tablelands to check out his shortlist of suspected Bum Sect bases - two vital nuggets of knowledge, independent of each other, yet related to one another at the same time. The first was that Captain Stupidity, for all his other shortfalls, had an uncanny knack for commandeering the stereo controls in any moving vehicle - in this instance, the tape deck of the Department of Natural Resources LandCruiser 78 they'd picked up on disembarking from Cairns Airport that morning. And secondly, Jenko learned another thing about the Captain and stereos. Namely, that the number of times Phil said "You gotta listen to this Jenko, it's real cool hey" was inversely proportional to the number of occasions when a remotely listenable piece of music found its way out of the Cruiser's two tinny speakers. Of course, everyone else in the department, if not the entire country, already know this. It probably served Jenko right for fucking off to Japan so often.

"Not far to go now," he smiled through gritted teeth.

The Captain didn't recall asking how much further it was, but shrugged, and rifled back through his tape collection. "Hey Jenko, check this out, it's got a brilliant groove...."

"Phil... I'm not a vindictive or sadistic man by nature," Jenko began, gingerly feeding the big truck into the first of a series of mountainside switchbacks - not exactly the chronically understeering CannedLoser's forte. "And I take no pleasure from making threats. But I must warn you that under my seat I have a fearful weapon that I may be forced to use if you don't STOP FUCKING ABOUT WITH THE STEREO!"

"What, you don't like Pink Floyd?" The Captain was totally bewildered by this turn of events, unable to comprehend how anyone could dislike the pretentious, pedestrian, overblown flotsam dribbled by that infamous pack of boring, self-absorbed wankers. "There's no need to get violent now, Jenko..."

"I never mentioned physical violence, did I? What I've got," he said, "is thirty-seven mix tapes of Japanese Top 40 pop hits. And if you don't stop fucking about, I'll be forced to..."

But by now it was too late. The Captain had already reefed the bag out from under the driver's seat and was rummaging through like a pubescent lad on a frenzied search for his girlfriend's clitoris. (And after a quick check of the records we can confirm that is the first ever use of the word 'clitoris' in the Misadventures of Captain Stupidity.)

"Coooolllll!!!! Jenko, J-Pop's really good stuff, y'know, you shouldn't knock it man..."

Thankfully, before the Captain could depart on another dissertation about the groove, vibe or other undefinable characteristics of the tunesmithry, their final destination emerged over the ridge. Jenko, not a Catholic, not even that Christian, crossed himself and thanked the Lord benevolent. Who wasn't really responsible for Jenko's salvation, and indeed could be implicated in the circumstances leading to his need for same (i.e. the renown skills of the Captain), but anyway.

It was late afternoon by now. Time was flying despite the notable lack of any fun being had, but they had managed to narrow down their shortlist of possible overseas operations bases for the Bums, in the style of the sheep station in remote Western Australia they'd used back in the mid '90s to manufacture and test their Nasty Shit before taking it back home with them and stopping the trains from running on time.
This being the infamous Deep North of FNQ, most of the sites inspected to date were indeed the secret bases for bizarre millenial cults, but not the one the boys were looking for.

Jenko dialled the Cruiser up the long dirt driveway of the last property on the list, and parked it in the empty front yard of the farmhouse. They got out to survey the surroundings.

"Jesus," commented Jenko. "Who farted?"

The place was utterly deserted, as if the entire populace of the place had decided about five minutes ago that they needed to leave fairly urgently. People had been here though - lots of them, and busy ones at that.

"What's wrong with this picture?" asked Jenko.

"Not enough gamma correction?"

"Leave the monitor controls alone for once Phil. No, what do you see that doesn't make sense?"

"That Grizzly Adams beard of yours, for one... well, it all looks like a pretty standard sort of dairy farm, given that this is prime dairy country..."

"With one small detail missing, Phil. No cows. Which makes this dairy farm pretty non-standard in my reckoning."

"Good point," conceded the Captain. "In which case I don't want to know what they might be doing with all that pasteurization plumbing and other chemical engineering stuff."

"You mightn't want to know what's up with the pumps and pipes, Phil, but we've got to find out," reasoned Jenko, pushing his way through the doorway to the farmhouse. He really shouldn't have. An enormous electronic control console dominated the interior of the building, evidently the security services centre for the whole complex. Why the door to the security services centre for the whole complex was left flapping in the breeze was explained by the digits that dominated the control console, which informed them that there was twenty minutes and thirty-three seconds before 'self-neutralization.' A process unlikely to involve the use of one-molar acids and bases, though perhaps a smidgin of high explosives. Hence, one suspected, the rapid exit of the leaseholders. A quick examination of the rear of the console illuminated an immense wiring loom snaking from deep within the unit towards places unknown, most probably a variety of incendiary devices intended to serve as concealment devices against prying eyes once the previous occupants had left the premises.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," suggested Jenko.

"Nonsense," responded the Captain, fishing a small pair of wire-cutters from his utility belt. "I'll handle this. I'll have you know I'm a fully accredited expert in defusing explosive devices."

"Did a course at TAFE, did we?"

The Captain ignored Jenko's sarcasm and set about separating the dozens of brightly coloured wires in order to ascertain their route, and therefore infer their importance in the scheme of things. "I'll start with the purple wire," he announced.

"Why?" asked Jenko, who to his eternal credit hadn't yet started running like a bitch out the door in fear for his life.

"Because it's never the purple wire. It's always the red or the blue one. Derrrr, everyone knows that." In the background, Jenko began making his move towards the door. "Then I think it'll the lemon one, then chartreuse, then aquamarine... then one of those pretty green ones, the darker of the two I feel... and after than we'll just have to have a real think about it. It's vitally important we snip these wires in exactly the correct order, of course. We'll have to be ever so careful, otherwise we could...."

The Captain, crouching on the floor, heard a heavy slicing sound above him. Shortly followed by the control console whirring to silence, and half of the wiring loom flopping free into his hands. Jenko leaned back against the dead console, an enormous pair of tin-shears dangling from his right hand.

"Fuck that," he grinned. "Fancy a beer?"


"It's definitely biologically derived," Agent Jenko said of the traces of chemical found in the immense vats of the dairy farm's milk storage facility. "And it's not milk."

"It took them five days to work that out?"

"Hey, things move more slowly up here," Jenko quipped. "Actually, we had to send the samples off to be properly analysed - the labs up here couldn't handle it."

"Well, I can't say I minded the time off," the Captain said. He'd spent the time reminiscing about his great times up here in the band - visiting the old pubs and clubs, meeting up with people, getting very pissed, getting very stoned, kicking the keys to the LandCruiser down the main street of Port Douglas at four in the morning, and waking up on park benches. The guys from the bakery opposite the park still remembered his name. Which was nice.

"Yeah, not such a bad place is it," replied Jenko with not a little pride. "Anyway, one of the top guys at the University of Queensland's huge research institute on Heron Island was able to help us out. Dr Yobbo suggested him - an old mate of his from his science days, actually."

"...Great," said the Captain, who'd had the questionable pleasure of associating with some of the Doc's other seedy uni mates. [Hey lads, how's things out there in Readerland. Though I'm aware you're more often to be found in Liquorland.] "So that's where we're headed now?"

"Yes, that's where we're headed now, seated in this southwards-flying Navy helicopter as we have been for this entire conversation despite the fact it hasn't been mentioned at all yet."

"It's fun covering for the Author's renown hypercompetence, isn't it," observed Captain Pot (c.f. Kettle) smugly. The Author immediately wrote in a nasty boil which swelled up on the Captain's arse.

The Navy chopper touched down at Heron on the island resort's helipad and they were escorted through the grounds of the resort towards the research institute by Caitlin and Josephine, a pair of take-charge lab-coated babes who the Captain badly wished would consider experimenting on him. "Nice place for it," offered Jenko. Which it was.

He and the Captain were shown by the heavily-cliched incredibly hot lab-coated research assistants through the spotless hospital-esque corridors of the research institute, pausing at a door marked Department of Virology.

"Virology? You mean viruses?" the Captain queried, to which Jenko replied with an ironic nod. "I thought we were dealing with some sort of nasty chemical shit?"

"Apparently not," Jenko replied. "Seems Arsehara's moved a step up from Nazi-era neurotoxins. Not just the common cold, either. But our man here can probably explain better than I can." They were handed lab coats and gloves, which they donned as suggested, before being allowed to enter the virology research lab.

"Hey lads, what's doing," called a familiar voice as they tentatively proceeded into the research area.

"You again?" the Captain queried incredulously. "You getting paid by the appearance these days or what?"

Dr Yobbo shrugged amiably. "I do seem to pop up in the most remarkable places. I am but the tool of the Author…" Who is himself a tool of an Author, he might have added, but was not permitted to. "Welcome to my research lab. Reasonable location, huh?"

"You're working in virology these days?" asked Jenko.

"Apparently so. Thought I was in developmental biology, but hey presto, apparently I'm a leading expert in novel and hideous pathogenic viruses, and a research group leader for that matter, who happens to take long sabbaticals in order to maintain his career as a crimefighting superhero. Fiction is tops."

"However do you find the time?" The Captain surveyed the surroundings, taking in the clean and modern facility, the neat array of workbenches with dutiful graduate students, research assistants and postdoctoral staff beavering away. And the open door to the bombsite of an office - undoubtedly the group leader's. Some things never change, the Captain reasoned.

"Done all right for yourself, huh?" he suggested. "For a drunken yobbo…"

"That's Doctor Yobbo to you," he grinned. "Want to get on with this? I've got a lab meeting with Cait and Jo in half an hour."

"Pants optional?"

"They're professional scientists, Phil. Bit of respect." Dr Yobbo frowned. "Shall we?"

"Fire away," directed Jenko. "What's the story with this sample?"

"So," began Dr Yobbo. "You lot sent me this stuff to be analysed, hey-nonny-no, with not a fucking clue what it is except that other laboratories say 'it may be a deadly virus'. Just as well we took all possible precautions, because it turns out they're completely right - and were understating the case by a long shot. What you have here from your Japanese friends is a serious fuck-off genetically engineered, or GE, virus."

Jenko nodded. "That's what I was fearing. What's it give you? Smallpox? Anthrax?"

The good (?) doctor shook his head. "Much more... insidious, I guess is the word. This infection isn't associated with a medical condition you can treat the symptoms of." The Captain looked bewildered again, which constituted ground state for this particular electron. So the Doc opted to explain. "Now, you know how the way a virus works in nature is to deliver a package of genetic material into the cell that it infects..."

"No," said the Captain.

"...Anyway, it does," shrugged Dr Yobbo. "Same story for the artificially modified virus too. But instead of introducing the virus genes with the instructions for making more little viruses, the GE virus dumps into the cell a bunch of other genes according to whatever the designers wanted to introduce to the cell. Good platform for trying to remedy genetic disorders, brought about by mutations or deletion of the proper gene..."

"Just get the virus to introduce the right gene, yeah?"

"Basically, Jenko," he concurred, "though the concept isn't quite this market-ready - in fact, I'd have reckoned this form of therapeutics is at least five to ten years away from being workable in humans, let alone getting through clinical trials. Until we had a little look at this fucker," he added, waving his hands (his Italian nature expressing itself) in the direction of the carefully contained vials of virus in the glass-fronted fridge behind them. "Just move away from there a moment, Phil."

The Captain didn't need much invitation to shift forward a few steps away from the boogyman in the fridge. To his alarm, however, Dr Yobbo was concerned not with the Captain's safety, but with withdrawing a vial of the aforesaid nasty virus monster for display. "Looks fairly innocuous, yeah?" he offered.

"Erm... yeah?" The Captain wished he was poolside with either or both of the labcoated cuties who'd ushered them here. To be fair he had ever since he walked into the place.

"Don't let it fool you though. We've codenamed this virus Courtneylove on acount of it being an evil manipulative fucking bitch. We analysed the sequence of the DNA carried in this virus and was very surprised to find sequences very similar to several human genes, mainly ones thought to be involved in developmental neurobiology. As well as modified viral genes encoding enzymes such as sequence-specific transposases and integrases, and we all know what that means..."

"No we don't," said the Captain.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Look - long story short, the viral DNA codes for a bunch of mutant brain development genes as well as the molecular biology machinery, the scissors and glue and shit, for cutting out the proper variants of these genes and inserting these totally fucked-up versions. Okay?"

"Got it," the Captain nodded. Then thought a while. "That'd be bad wouldn't it."

"Pretty much."

"So this virus screws with the development and function of the brain, right?" queried Jenko. "How so?"

"To be honest, I can't say for sure. It's far too early to tell, neural development's still a bit of a black box. Or a black hole in the Captain's case. But I reckon this is a given for starters - there is one particular sequence in the viral DNA which is present at very high copy number, so obviously it's very significant to the intended function of the little bastard. This sequence is in fact very similar to a functionally characterized gene known to be present in humans... but only carried by certain subgroups of humans." The Doc consulted his notes. "In particular, individuals predisposed to traits such as compulsive gambling, obsessive behaviours, following bizarre religions, being into modern electronic dance music, reading the Daily Telegraph, and a clinical condition known as Howard's Syndrome, which is the inability to be able to distinguish one's arse from one's elbow without reference to a modern anatomy textbook. Of its molecular functions we know little, but based on microarray expression data, it appears to be also involved in the developmental processes resulting in blonde hair colour. This gene has also been shown to be carried by individuals predisposed to become psychiatric patients, parking officers, PE teachers, rugby union forwards and rock drummers."

"It's the gene for stupidity," declared Jenko.

"Indeed," grinned Dr Yobbo.

"So making everyone as stupid as possible, I would imagine, is the object of the exercise."

"Again, spot on, Jenko," acknowledged Dr Y. "But it's worse than that. It appears that, having discovered the gene for stupidity, these workers - I refuse to call the bastards 'scientists' - in the obviously extremely well-funded secret laboratories of these arseholes, have performed random active-site mutagenesis on the STUP1 gene in order to potentiate its gene function further."

"Ah yes," Jenko nodded. " I seem to recall reading something of this in last month's New Scientist. Molecular evolution in vitro. Targeted mutagenesis with direct selection for the desired enhanced phenotype. What do you think, Phil?"

Jenko and the Doctor glanced at the Captain, as if to prompt him to contribute to the discussion.

"I'll just go check the meter," the Captain said.

"Phil, there's no parking meters on the helipad. You do understand what we're on about here, don't you?"

"Well, after much consideration I would have to say my response would be... Whafuck?"

"Look, Phil - these bastards have taken this gene for stupidity, right, and they've fuckin' gone and fully cranked up its stupidifying ability, ay," explained Jenko.

"In a manner of speaking," nodded Dr Yobbo.

"I still don't get it," the Captain admitted.

"Get a blood sample off him," Jenko told the Doc, "I think he's been infected."

Dr Yobbo sighed. Time for the real lowest-common-denominator approach. "Dude," he said, "those Bum sect fuckwits want to make everyone really fucking dumb so they can more easily brainwash them into accepting their fucking loony religion."

"Okay... but I thought they didn't need any help with that in Japan?"

"They're not after Japan anymore," Jenko retorted. Then realised the significance of that. "Oh Jesus fuck. This ain't a domestic situation any more, is it, Doc?"

"Doubt it," he conceded, "particularly since the virus is remarkably infectious even in aerosol form, which is very rare and very concerning..."

"I should say so... what kind of idiot would want to deoderize themselves with a virus, though?" asked the Captain.

"Jenko," began Dr Yobbo, "on your earlier point - I doubt your colleague has been infected through exposure to the GE stupidity virus, as I am very confident he's actually a carrier of the naturally occurring mutant form of STUP1 anyway..."

Dr Yobbo briefly briefed them on possible infectious delivery systems for the virus, sterilization and containment procedures, and diagnosis and treatment of infected (and therefore infectious) individuals. "If you need more information, email me," he directed. "Sorry. gotta rush, late for an important engagement downstairs."

"Ah, a little lunchtime tete-a-tete by the shimmering aquamarine?" inferred the Captain smugly.

"No, I'm going to feed it to the girls in the spa," Dr Y replied. "What the fuck were you expecting, sonny Jim?"

"Give 'em one for us while you're at it," said Jenko. (Therefore winning that round of GrotFest'99.)


Suzuka Grand Prix Circuit, near Nagoya, had for a long time been by far the favourite motor racing circuit of Captain Stupidity. Not that he had ever seen it before, let alone driven upon its sinuous tarmac in anything other than PC Grand Prix 2. For the record, it looked bigger in real life. More hills, too. And the cars were noisier. And weren't cars but bikes, in point of fact. Superbikes, contenders for the All-Japan championship - for which this was the first official test day of the many scheduled before the new season - dominated the Suzuka landscape, screaming 750cc fours and thundering 1000cc twins accelerating down the hill from the final hairpin sending an immense cacophony of tremelous music echoing off the empty grandstands opposite the pits. The fairing colours betrayed the bike's manufacturers - the traditional blue and white of Suzuki; the tomato red of the factory Hondas; the corporate yellow, black and white colours of Yamaha; and of course, as the Captain had been declaring all morning, there was no mistaking the fetid snot-green of Kawasaki.

Just as he reminded the eternally patient Jenko of this truism of motorcycling, one of the thundering green machines, a V-twin judging from the acoustics, screamed out of the hundred mile-an-hour 130R left-hander right out onto and over the ripple-strips, displacing a plume of dust as the beast did its best to wrestle free of the rough grasp of its handler. He seemed to treat the machine's protests with contempt, winding on so much throttle that the front wheel left the tarmac despite the thing being low-down in fourth gear. The final chicane, Jenko and the Captain's vantage point of choice, rushed at the green bike like a cover-defending fullback. Body language displaying a distinct tone of 'And I Give A Fuck?', he casually left his braking until a good dozen feet beyond even the bravest of the great late brakers amongst the others here today, locked up the rears and backed the big bike into the first-gear hairpin like a ten-year old on his first BMX, leaving a thick black signature on the tarmac (neatly in parallel with several previous efforts that morning - one signature that was proving difficult to forge by anyone else here). And yes, Virginia, he made it into the chicane in an upright fashion, nonchalantly flicking the monstrous V-twin right and left before pulling a monumental mono under full-noise back onto the front straight.

The Captain still hadn't shut up about the whole spectacle until the guy had returned for another performance. Except that he didn't repeat the dose, instead flicking the device to port and howling down pitlane at a speed that would have earned him a stop-go penalty and a serious fuck-off fine during an actual race weekend. Locking the wheels, the lunatic onboard screeched to a halt micrometres from his chief mechanic's ankles. He dismounted, tossing his gloves by the pitwall with a thumbs up to his suspension guy and a short cheery burst of what sounded like Japanese. Ambling towards Jenko and the Captain's vantage point at the entrance of pit lane, the rider whipped off his helmet to reveal a tangled mane of sketchily-peroxided blonde hair and some seriously pointy Manga sideburns, left in his default jet-black colour for contrast. He was Japanese, mid-twenties in age, and not-quite five foot six in riding boots. Grabbing Jenko's extended hand, he shook it warmly.

"How you fucking been, Jenko?" asked the kamikaze pilot with a ready grin.

"Not too bad, Elvis," he replied.

"...This is Elvis?" queried the Captain, referring to the codename of the contact they were to meet here.

"Certainly is," Jenko grinned. "Captain Stupidity, this is Akira Yoshikawa, the Japanese Elvis. As you can tell by the world-famous sideburns."

"Howdy," Elvis nodded laconically. "What the fuck going on, Captain? Heard all about you and shit. Good to be working with you."

"I didn't know we were," said the Captain. "You're Jenko's contact?"

"Say it louder, every fucker should hear that way," issued Jenko.

But Elvis just grinned. "You wonder about the bike stuff, yeah? Just a hobby. The guys at Internal Security think so anyway. Never take it seriously. Fuck, neither do I," he added, laughing. His English was blunt to say the least, a situation exacerbated by his fairly lumpy accent.

"You ride the All-Japan superbike championship for Kawasaki when you're not working for Japanese intelligence?"

"Fuck no," replied Elvis. "I ride for Ducati when I'm not working for Japanese intelligence. Ducati 996RS," he indicated with a flick of his thumb. "Painted the fucker green for preseason testing in order to fool stupid wanker bike journalists too fucking dumb to work out that Kawasaki don't have V-twin."

"Ducati? The Italians?"

"Yeah, you see why there are very much wogs in the pitcrew? This will be our first year in All-Japan series. The factory sells a shitload of bikes here, so they thought to take on the Big Four on their home ground. Everyone think they're fucking crazy for trying it, but the whole paddock already think I'm fucking crazy anyway, so it's just as well they sign me to ride the fucking thing."

"You taught him English, didn't you," said the Captain.

"A little," conceded Jenko. "Anyway, we can't fuck about here all day. Elvis, you're finished here now?"

"Yeah, I'm done. Just got to get out of these very much fucking seedy leathers," he replied. "Catch you later."

"A little?" queried the Captain, as Elvis ducked into the back of the garage.

"Okay, a fuckload."

Presently Elvis loped back out of the pit garage, metallic-blue reflective sunglasses perched on his fringe, dressed in dramatically lairy floral-print boardshorts and a black Led Zeppelin shirt. "Howdy again," he shrugged with a grin.

"Welcome back," said Jenko. "The Captain and I were discussing what our next move is gonna be."

"About the fat fuck?" Elvis queried.

"Mal Colston?"

"No, Phil," Jenko explained, "that's Arsehara's official codename."

"Official codename?" the Captain groaned. "Doesn't anyone use 'Mr Big' or anything like that anymore?"

"It's a logical derivation of that," Jenko suggested. "You look like you're about to say something, Elvis..."

"Yeah," Elvis began. "As you probably guess, the fat fuck has very much legal businesses and other groups - charities, youth organizations and shit - that act as a front for his fat fuck activities. After we heard what Dr Yobbo-san report about his plans..."

"What plans?" asked the Captain.

"Christ Phil, were you awake during that talk in the lab, or what?" responded Jenko.

"I was distracted..."

"Come on, Phil, those tidy chicks fucked off before we even got in there. You're kidding. You seriously can't remember what he had to say?" The Captain's witty riposte was to... shrug dumbly. Jenko shook his head. "Do you retain any sort of information these days? Makes you wonder if you might actually be a carrier of this STUP1 gene..."

"I resent that," the Captain declared. "I'm as mentally aware and focused as the next man!"

"If the next man's Muhammed Ali." muttered Jenko.

"That is not fair, Jenko," frowned Elvis.

"See?" the Captain intoned smugly.

"...Muhammed Ali has totally fucked motor neurone, other than that his brain works OK," Elvis expanded. "Whereas the Captain is, to put it politely (as is the custom of my country), thick as two short planks."

"While baiting the Captain is fun and educational, it's not getting Arsehara any closer to the inside of a cell," Jenko reminded Elvis. "Phil, you remember their setup on the Atherton tablelands, the deserted farm which was set for destruction?"

"Yeah... what of it?"

"Turns out we stumbled upon the very end of their moving-out procedure. They'd only just finished shutting down their operations and getting set to transfer all their biotechnological stuff to Japan."

"They were blowing up the place after moving out?"

"Yes, Phil," Jenko said patiently.

"Well they're not getting their bond back," the Captain declared.

"They owned the whole fucking farm," Elvis said. "Also cargo ship which we think was used to transport the storage vats of virus culture from Australia to Japan. That was owned by transport company which is believed to strong link to Bum sect... as does pharmaceutical company in Hokkaido, which is pretty close to port where the ship is supposed to have docked..."

"What I want to know is, do you have really concrete evidence these shadow companies are actually linked to Bum Supreme Truth? I mean, are you sure?"

"As sure as one-armed man swims in big fucking circles," Elvis replied. "I understand your point, Captain, though. Believe me, Arsehara-san can afford very good lawyers, so we are very fucking careful about things like that... fucking shits, they are. Big fucking pack of fags."

"No thanks," said Phil. "Trying to give them up."

"Fair enough," said Elvis, showing just how Strayan his cunning linguist had been. He offered one to Jenko. "Jesus Elvis," gasped Jenko after his first inhalation, "Marlboro menthol 16s? Why don't you just chop up the fucking racetrack and smoke that, you crazy bastard?"

"Less tar, I think," Elvis conceded, "but Suzuka Mild would not have same refreshing minty-fresh taste." He drew heavily on his ciggy. So much so that the pen went through the paper. [Recycling saves the environment again.] "Anyway, we are sure enough that all these things are linked - if I was the fat fuck, I would do these things like this." After another thoughtful drag he added, "I would also run my enormous bulbous arse around the block a few times and eat maybe less pies."

"So, they're using the pharmaceutical company as a place to store the virus cultures?" the Captain mused.

"Wouldn't take a genius to draw that conclusion," concurred Jenko.

"Just as well, cause all we have is Phil," observed Elvis. "My boys think the research labs in this facility was where genetic engineering on virus was actually done."

"For scaling up production," added Jenko, "they must have thought the least hassles would come by setting up a plant in FNQ. Probably true too, compared with here."

"So now they have the virus in Japan... whatever could they be planning to do with it?" posed the Captain, intellectually stroking his beard for dramatic effect.

"...Um, drop it on very big bunch of poor fuckers and make them real fucking dumb, maybe?" suggested Elvis dryly. "You sure he didn't eat some of that shit at the farm while you weren't looking, Jenko?"

"Look, I'm sick of this," said the Captain. "I'm not dumb. I'm not stupid, or thick, or anything. I'm just..."

"...Slow?" suggested Elvis.

"Docile," preferred Jenko.

"Differently abled..."

"Intellectually challenged..."

"Bugger it, Jenko," Elvis decided, "let's keep it simple - just go with Fucked In The Head."

"You're quite finished there?" the Captain seethed. "I'm of above average intelligence, I'll have you cretins know. I went to university..."

"Southern Cross University," Jenko reminded him.

"It qualifies," he insisted. And, technically, he was correct.

"But you failed everything."

"That's not the point," the Captain responded. "It's a life experience, and life is the greatest teacher of all."

"In that case, you need to get a private tutor."

The baiting continued unabated (ahem) throughout the short private jet flight to Hokkaido, Japan's north island.

"Seriously Phil, I'm worried about you. It's just like Elvis says," Jenko began. Elvis nodded, more in rhythm with the driving blues swagger of The Lemon Song through his headphones than anything he didn't hear Jenko say. But the latter took it as support, and continued upon the same thesis: "I think you've been exposed to infection by the virus. At least, I hope it's just infection by the virus..."

"Oh ha bloody ha Jenko. I seem to recall you weren't exactly Rhodes scholar material yourself back at in the day. You couldn't stop shaking long enough to finish a chem practical..."

"Neither could you, but at least my shakes had nothing to do with Clare de Piaf and that fucking short skirt of hers."

"It was simple division of labour," the Captain offered. "You got the shakes, I stared at Clare's arse all period, and Craigos and Dr Yobbo argued over who was the least misguided as regards how the experiment was actually supposed to go. God help the world if they're the next generation of research scientists..."

"For good mates," Elvis piped up, "you guys sure fight a fuckload. Very competitive, I think."

Jenko looked across at the Captain, and conceded, "Yeah... we have a history of competition between us."

The Captain nodded. "...Dates back from when we were sporting rivals at the highest level."

"Yeah?" said Elvis. "What in?"

"We were engaged in a death-or-glory struggle every year," the Captain recalled. "The war would rage all year, regardless of the passage of the seasons, but each year there would be one battle that would decide who was the winner, and who the loser, for that glorious twelve month lap of the sun..."

"What sport, wanker boy?"

"Um... cross-country running," Jenko admitted.

"High school cross-country running," the Captain corrected him. "Remember, one year I only narrowly missed out a top three and a place at the regional titles...."

"Narrowly missed out meaning disqualified for taking a shortcut through the stables at the showground."

"Never worked out how those bastards got me on that, either," the Captain confessed.

"Probably the minor factor that around you for the rest of the afternoon was an all-pervading stench of horse shit," Jenko suggested. "Even so, I think I'd prefer it to New Lynx Loser, or whatever the fuck you're marinating in."

"It's Lynx Africa," the Captain said sniffily. Then he had a bit of a sniffily, and mentally resolved to back the cologne off a couple of hundred decibels for the next time they were in a confined space such as a Gulfstream jet. After he'd regained consciousness.


The Gulfstream dutifully dropped anchor and the lads piled out, gasping for fresh(ish) air after the combination of the Captain's aftershave and the pressurized cabin's recirculating air-con. Hmmm, tasty and fresh. They were met in the terminal by a brigade of neatly-presented black-uniformed operatives of the Japanese internal security bureau, who were clearly used to taking orders from a scruffy-looking dude dressed more for the beach or the Byron blues festival than for running a major anti-terrorist task force. The eight present all, to a man (and a few women), spoke clear and fluent English, partly in respect for their international guests, but mainly because I don't speak Japanese and I'm the one making up this shit.

"What's going on?" Elvis wanted to know.

"Sir, our forces are currently on standby in the vicinity of the enemy facility, awaiting your orders." The speaker, most logically the leader of this particular brigade (though subordinate to Elvis) spoke in such a crisp and businesslike fashion that it was hard to fathom, given that even in the unspectacular special-operations uniform she wore, she was Something Special. Her short, slick hairstyle was businesslike yet still very spunky; her face was free of makeup, and yet still her natural beauty shone through, like a single lily floating on the limpid surface of a dank, murky pond. In his own professional opinion, Captain Stupidity reckoned she'd copulate with great force and intensity. He'd reached this conclusion based on his previous experience of Asian babes (mostly as the stars of badly-pixelated MPEGs involving large German men with large German fists. Achtung, schnell schnell, mein lieben gott in himmel etc etc etc). Jenko, more tastefully, had focused on the girl's nametag, which denoted her as Midori Sashimi, rank unstated.

"Sounds champion," Elvis offered. "You guys up for busting up the cult?"

"...I thought the Cult broke up years ago?"

"No, Phil, fuck ya... I meant, are you keen to join the fucking mission?"

The responses of Jenko and the Captain were at the keenest end of the spectrum. In fact, they seemed each at pains to seem keener than the other. In hindsight, it had been a Big Mistake to bring up the topic of cross-country again - old wounds are best left unopened. (Marshall RA and Atkinson GF, Journal of the American Medical Association 32: 1323-1326, 1967.)

Elvis and his off-sider led them through the terminal to the carpark and a waiting platoon of charcoal-grey Lexuses (Lexi?) which bore the insignia of a local software company (who didn't really exist, but noone had told the people who worked there yet.) A few moments of leather-clad luxury (but not the kind the Captain was kinda hoping for) later, they stepped out into an anonymous-looking underground carpark, dark and dank and not at all reassuring. The Captain jolted sharply when he felt a small, cold hand on his arm. He needn't have; 'twas only Midori Sashimi, rank unstated.

"You look a little confused, Stupidity-san," Midori offered politely.

The Captain didn't really feel like admitting he always looked like that. Dammit, it was someone else's job to be contributing those sorts of lines. Everyone else's job, usually; in any case, it wasn't in his contract.

"Where are we?" the Captain wanted to know, as they blindly followed the group across the tarmac and herding around the lifts. Elvis was the first one to start up with the bleating and baaing.

Midori smiled. "This is the corporate headquarters of Happy Thinkings Software Company."

"This carpark?"

"No," she replied with a sweet little grin, "Upstairs. The Japanese internal security bureau purchased the company two years ago. This building is situated in a very fortuitious location, recessed into the mountainside immediately overlooking the valley in which the Bum sect's pharmaceutical factory is itself situated."

"Oh," the Captain said. "That's an amazing coincidence, how lucky was that?"

Midori laughed at that. "You're funny," she smiled. "Obviously, we're always paranoid about trying to conceal from our neighbours what we're really doing up here - as they are from us, of course! So, when we took over the company, we changed nothing in the running of its day-to-day operations. The only changes we made were to the building. Ask anyone in the building about what sort of things happen on the eleventh floor and they'd just laugh at you. There isn't one, to them. The lifts inside the building only go up to ten. This one goes up to eleven."

"It goes up to eleven? Why not just make ten louder?" the Captain quipped with an expectant grin.

"...Sorry?"

"Um, nothing," he mumbled. Well that pop-culture reference certainly got him a long way. "I guess this carpark isn't accessible by the regular employees either?"

"Naturally," she nodded. "Very good, Stupidity-san. Maybe your name is perhaps a little unfair!"

"Don't fuckin' count on it, babe," Elvis interceded chirpily as they filed into the express elevator.

As per international lift etiquette, everyone in the elevator stood totally and silently still and stared at the floor for the thirteen-second duration of their journey. The floor was quite taken aback by all the attention it was getting. At least it would have been had it been a sentient being. In which case it would generally be a very pissed off sentient being since all people ever did was tramp all over it and only pay it any attention in occasional thirteen-second installments.

The top floor looked like any office space - corridors and doorways rabbit-warrening all over, branching away from the central departure point of the lift lobby. Elvis took shepherd's duty and the rest followed. "Don't worry about him," Midori said, to the Captain, meaning Elvis. (Got all that? Good.) "He's a bit... blunt, but he means nothing by it. He's a very good operative, and leader of other operatives. He does swear a bit though..."

"I hadn't really noticed."

She prodded his ribs with her cold little fingers. "Stop it, I'm not supposed to laugh on duty."

The Captain paused to think. Everyone else kept walking, because they had the ability to do both at once. When he caught back up to them (after getting lost three times) he said, to Midori, of Elvis (again), "I'm surprised he's so high-up in the ranks though - not because he's not talented enough, but because he doesn't fit the traditional Japanese mould. If it's fair to generalise like that." The Captain was always polite and reasonable when on the pull.

"Ah yes," Midori nodded. "But you'd be surprised by how professional Yoshikawa-san becomes when on duty."

"I'll believe it when I see it," the Captain replied.

His opportunity came very shortly, once the assault team was assembled for its final briefing in the conference room situated along the southern wall of the building, whose windows looked out upon Bum Valley. At the whiteboard was mission leader Akira 'Elvis' Yoshikawa, dressed head-to-toe in black action jumpsuit, leather boots and gloves.

"We depart in thirty minutes from the moment this meeting concludes," he began brusquely. "By now all of you know your duties, with the possible exception of our foreign guests." With reference to a projector-screen schematic depicting the layout of the complex in the valley below, and to the view down into the valley itself, he began to briefly outline their plan of attack. "Essential systems and services for the complex, such as electricity, water, gas and such are controlled through this substation here on the north-western perimeter of the property facing into the mountainside, i.e. that nearest us. This is the obvious weakpoint of the facility in terms of an assault from this direction. Alpha team led by myself and Agent Jenko-san, will mount the assault upon this vulnerability. Once the facility is crippled, Omega team, led by Special Operative Midori Sashimi and Captain Stupidity, will infiltrate the main building through the air-conditioning vents in the roof, while Alpha team will conduct a ground-based assault through the delivery dock. Everyone understands their role, I assume?"

"No," said the Captain.

"Just follow Midori," Elvis replied, "and do everything she does, except do it more masculinely or people might talk. Now, I would like to remind you at this stage that we do have several undercover agents in place within the Bum sect facility, and I and my supervisors would appreciate it greatly if you would refrain from shooting them about the head. I would also warn you that we suspect strongly, repeat strongly, that some, or indeed many, of our agents may have been effectively 'turned' to the opposition's side through the agent of infection with the genetically engineered STUP-1 virus about which you have been briefed. As such, take care when approaching any individual you know to be an agent of our organisation."

"Sorry, Elvis..." interceded the Captain again. "Jenko and I aren't going to know anything about these people - how are we gonna recognise them?"

"Well, you're probably not," their fearless leader pointed out. "But what I can do is pass on the list of active infiltrant agents' codenames. Of course, this constitites something of a security risk, but," he said, dropping back into Elvis mode, "I can't be fucked worrying about that fuckin' shit this late in the day, ay." He coughed. "Now, we have the advantage that all our agents are colour-coded, to the end that we can recognise them up to a degree while undercover, on the basis of a preponderance of a certain coloured element about their clothing or person. In light of this information, you may have more success identifying our operatives on active duty within the compound, who are White Rabbit, Yellow Daffodil, Green Thumb and Brown Hornet..."

"Right," said the Captain. "Got it..."

"Also, Golden Honeyeater, Azure Kingfisher, Turquoise Lesser-Spotter Dung-Warbler, and Orange."

"Sorry... just Orange? Not Orange Orange?... No, I think I see why not now."

"No," said Elvis, "just Agent Orange."

"Oh," said the Captain. "Okay, I think I've got them all."

"Good. Now, in addition to those personnel we also have Tartan Sock, Blue Harpic and Technicolour Yawn..."

"Yes, well I..."

"... as well as Paisley Tie, Golden Circle, Beige Volvo and Crimson Tide...

"Um..."

"....plus Yellow Peril, Brown Mullet, Grey Power and Blue Balls..."

"Uh, Elvis...."

"...and not forgetting Token Black, Purple Helmet and Chocolate Speedway..."

"Look, can I write all this down?" the Captain finally protested.

"No way," replied Elvis. "It'd be a monumental security risk, besides which you'd probably go colourblind."

Elvis did relent slightly on this point, however. When Omega Team departed to take up their position for the assault, he permitted the Captain to take one memory aid - last season's Dulux colour chart.


"What - a daylight assault?" the Captain thought aloud.

"Captain," replied Midori gently, "you mean to say we've been sitting in this horrible hot van, staring at our centrally-synchronized mission timers counting down to a start time of three in the afternoon - and you've only just realised it's going to be a daylight assault?" She shook her head sadly. "You are something of a worry to me, you know."

She glanced out the window of the E-series Mazda van at the rest of Omega team taking up their positions on the north-eastern perimeter of the Bum sect compound, readying grappling hooks and climbing gear for the ascent up and over the nearest wall of the building.

"You must admit, it's a bit... audacious..."

"Maybe," she reasoned, "but all the security personnel will be patrolling after dark. Our intelligence suggested the best time to attack was mid-afternoon, the time during waking hours when the body's biorhythms are at their least active, and thus the security staff on duty will be least ready to respond."

"You've thought it through," conceded the Captain. "I'd have to say, I wouldn't have thought of that."

"You know what?" she replied wryly. "I think I believe you when you say that."

"Hey, not you too..."

She giggled. "I'm sorry, Phil. I am only kidding, you know. I realise the others give you a bit of a hard time about your... quickness of wit, shall we say."

"All of which is unfair and prejudicial," he maintained.

"Captain, I'm totally behind you, and everything, but... you've tied your shoelaces together."

"You're meant to," he responded wilfully. "Or am I somehow mistaken in this assumption that you're supposed to tie your shoelaces together?"

"Not each to the other foot," she replied.

"Look," he said, "it's not fair, I'm used to my rocket Stupidoboots, they snap on like ski boots... but they wouldn't let me take them on the plane. I ask you, what's so bloody dangerous about bringing two high-pressure hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells onto a Gulfstream private jet?"

Midori didn't get a chance to reply, for Three Of The Clock had approached and arrived. On cue, the lights in the windows above dimmed and died. Powerless, in more than one sense. Omega Team sprinted and grappled and clambered up the side of the facility wall, the Captain again finding reason to mourn the absense of his beloved rocket boots as old blisters and calluses from his fishing days (or so he claimed) returned with a vengeance on his palms and fingers. Finally, he reached the summit, wrenched over the brink by his colleagues.

"Bloody hell, that's a climb," he gasped.

Midori shushed him sharply and pointedly with a finger to her lips.

"Oh, sorry," he laughed, embarrassed.

Everyone shushed him this time. Very sharply, and very pointedly.

"Oh yeah, right," he whispered. "Sorry again. Where to now?"

Midori, much less successful at staying angry with him than the rest of the team, signalled towards a large system of air-conditioning vents around twenty feet away. The Captain nodded, gave a thumbs up, and purposefully strode forward. The first he knew of the skylight was when he regained consciousness on the floor twenty feet below, looking back up through it at the anxious faces of his team. Well, one anxious face and several disbelieving grimaces.

"Well," reasoned Midori," it's as good an access route as any..."

The rest of Omega Team repelled down via the skylight and joined the Captain amidst the broken glass on the top floor. The latter was preoccupied removing bits of skylight from his arse.

"Seems pretty quiet," he offered.

"Yeah, apart from your incessant talking..." Midori observed pithily.

"Hey, be nice to me, I just found you guys a way into the building that didn't involve crawling around in cramped airconditioning ducts and getting Legionnaires disease."

"Funny," she said, "I imagine this skylight was on the blueprints that Technicolour Yawn managed to obtain for us... I wonder why Yoshikawa-san chose not to utilize it as an access point?"

"Because," began the Captain, but didn't get very far into his intended big old gloat session about how he'd shown up the legendary intelligence operative Elvis Yoshikawa on his home turf, because the corridor had exploded.

Well, not 'exploded' per se. It was still present, and largely intact. But it was rapidly filling with some form of gaseous combustible substance, moving as a firestorm from the far end of the corridor towards them. Equally problematic was the total lack of doorways, fire escapes or other exits around them. Most of the team still had their grappling ropes attached to the roof, and were scrambling hand-over-fist up the ropes like their arses were on fire. Which they would have been, had they not conducted themselves in such a manner. However, their team leader (having been first on the scene after the Captain - technically, first of those using a conventional means of descent) had already cut herself adrift of said means of descent, and there just wasn't time to fire off another hook. Save yourselves, was her final order to her subordinates, before they lost sight of her, and the Captain, in an unholy sea of flame.


"What's it made of again?"

"Tetrapolypropylnylothenic dacryl-5-oxyacetylone tylenol hydrocarbonylglycolinoleate esterified polymer. Commercial name 'Fire-Prüph' with little heavy metal accents over the U so you don't bugger it up and pronounce it Fire-Pruff. Trademark of 3M Industries, patents active or pending in most countries."

"You can remember all that," Midori asked," and you needed a pen and paper to remember Blue Harpic and Chocolate Speedway?"

"It's written on the washing instructions on the tag," the Captain replied. "Wash separately, drip dry, cool iron. Do not dry-clean..."

"Anything about 'Do not use as fire-retardant blanket'?"

"Nope," he said. "Bit late if there was, anyway." He was right. The new Fire-Prüph™ cape on his Stupidosuit was looking decidedly second-hand at present, its charred black tone a long way from the silken purple of five minutes previous. "Funny thing is, our technical staff only started using this stuff because they were pissed off with me setting fire to my cape with my rocket boots."

"I'm just glad there was room in there for two," she reflected graciously. "Thanks for sharing, Phil."

"No worries," he smiled. "Sharing is caring."

The pair surveyed the smoking, charred remnants of the corridor, which now more closely resembled a squared-off section of a smoker's bronchials. The place stank of napalm (which they'd apparently used to coat the walls of the trap), smoke, and burnt Fire-Prüph™.

"Do you think they knew we were coming?" inquired the Captain.

"Oh, come on, Phil..."

"Hang on, that time I was genuinely being ironic, not stupid, I'll have you know."

"So you weren't being a dumbarse, you were being a..."

"Smartarse," he volunteered. Caught out, he countered, "And what sort of language is that from a nice girl like you?"

"English, I thought," she smiled. "Okay, so I've been under Yoshikawa-san's jurisdiction for a little too long. Finally someone noticed."

"Look, before this lot notice that their first line of security didn't totally dissuade their visitors, we'd better scram."

"I was just thinking that. I think there would have to be some form of exit down the far end of the corridor, where that device that developed this firefront is situated." She began to sprint down the corridor, closely pursued by the Captain, gathering a good-sized bundle of charred cape together in case they needed to envelop themselves in same once more. The trigger-unit for the napalm-swathed Corridor of Flaming Hell (for that was what the Captain declared when first challenged by the notion thereof) was a large gas-burner recessed vertically into the far wall, under some form of remote security control one would assume (one being Midori, for the Captain was preoccupied estimating how many T-bones he could fit on a grill over this bloody thing. Or maybe oyster-blade. No, make it ribeye. A very underrated cut of moo, ribeye...

Meanwhile Midori had calmly squidged a couple of thimblefuls of Semtex into balls and had Blu-Tacked them over the heavily armoured hinges of the only door that seemed to lead into the corridor, for service reasons she presumed. Into the yellow blob she pressed a timer the size of a watch battery, before quietly taking the Captain aside for a little walk down the corridor a way. The second explosion for the corridor in the last four minutes aside, their passage through the service door was relatively uneventful (save that the door was now flat on the floor, a testament to the poor investment choice that four deadlocks and an old-fashioned bolt lock had been for the security boys here.) A plethora of sharp approaching footsteps in the middle distance coaxed Midori into grabbing the Captain's collar and dragging him sharply through a door marked 'Storage' before the owners of the aforesaid footsteps could locate their collective arse. The room was dark, musty and uncomfortably quiet... but it was safe. So there they hid.

Even as a schoolgirl growing up on a farm in northern Japan, Midori had always hated playing hide-and-seek. The tension of it had always unnerved her. Being the hunter was no problem; they had nothing to lose, they had freedom of movement - they had control. Power. It was the hunted who were the powerless ones. They could only wait to be found. Wait... and hope. So, just like in the playground twenty years ago, Midori waited. With every muscle tensed, every nerve jangling, every sinew on absolute alert, she waited.

Until she heard the footstep behind her. Not footsteps, just footstep. Singular. But it was enough to trip her trigger. In one fluid motion, faster than conscious thought, she raised her weapon and flicked the torch button with her thumb, her fingers crooked around the trigger with full authority to obliterate everything that was to be illuminated in the microseconds before the electrons started flowing between battery and halogen filament. All she found, however, was a dopey-looking round-eye squinting and cursing at the sudden and violent lack of dark. She flicked off the gun's torch and groaned deeply, releasing a healthy amount of that pent-up tension with one long, agonised exhalation.

"Phil," she stated quietly, "you are far more trouble than you are worth. What are you?" But he was still rubbing his eyes and swearing fluently. Multiskilled if nothing else, our Captain.

Midori sighed. "Phil, why did you leave your post?"

"It's got dry-rot," he offered.

"Old jokes won't save you."

"They saved Hale and Pace, and that's good enough for me."

If Midori had known who the hell Hale and Pace were, she'd doubtless have answered that the duo's audience were the ones craving salvation. "Look, Phil - it's very simple. There are two doorways to this room. I told you to guard one of them while I guarded the other. I'm already guarding this one. This door's guarded as of this moment. It requires no additional guard, guarding or guardation. Whereas, in point of fact, the other door..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get your point. Doors plus - no fuss. But check it out, I found something."

He handed her a thick, laminated piece of cardboard, which she examined by gunlight. It appeared to be some sort of label for a storage cylinder of some description. The label bore prominent Biohazard logos and cursory warning legends: Hazardous bioactive agent. Class GM2: Genetically modified virus.

"Where did you find this?"

"On one of those," he replied, thumbing over his shoulder.

She gasped, running the flashlight's beam over row after row of metallic-grey cylinders, each about the size of a domestic gas bottle, stacked several deep and thirty feet high to the ceiling.

"Fuck," she could only say. Apart from the other things she said, which were, "How many hundreds of litres of virus culture do you think they have stockpiled here? How many potential victims?"

"Um, I would estimate... lots. To both questions."

"That's nice and scientific, Phil," she commented. "Let's at least try and catalogue how many bottles they have here." She swept her flashlight briefly along the breadth of the stack. "There's about twenty bottles in each row, the rows are about... let's say, seven or eight deep... how many rows? How high do they go up?"

"I'll just check, said the Captain, withdrawing his gun and pointing the flashlight somewhere towards the higher rows of cylinders. Unfortunately, but somehow predictably, he found the wrong trigger. A short, sharp blast of automatic gunfire ripped two cylinders apart like over-shaked Coke cans, and sent many, many others on a rapid descent towards Earth. They scrambled for shelter beneath the forklift that stocked the shelves, though what manner of shelter it was remained to be seen. Midori doubted it would provide much use against the contents of those two burst cylinders...

"Is your mask okay?" she wanted to know, referring to the anti-viral aerosol-resistant respirator they'd been issued with back at Happy Thinkings Software Company. "Mine was destroyed in the fire..."

"Same with mine," the Captain moaned. "Oh shit."

Hefty steel cylinders crashed and pounded on the forklift's cabin from the ceiling around them, but Midori's concerns were much more along the lines of the humid air that seemed to have newly surrounded them. Concentrated virus aerosol. She was about twelve seconds away from outright blind panic.

"WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO NOW?!?" cried the Captain, who'd beaten her there by a good half-minute.

"Um.... look, whatever you do, Phil... DON'T BREATHE IN!"

"Oh shit," he gasped.

"What?"

"I breathed in."

"Fucking hell!"

"Oh, it's okay," he sighed with sudden relief. "Don't worry. I breathed out again."

With that, the entire shelving structure upon which the Bum sect's viral stocktake was based, collapsed dramatically. Under such heavy bombardment, the cabin of the forklift gave way, cracking the Captain across the back of the head and Midori over her temple. Blackness descended. And by the Captain's reckoning, that was pretty much fine by him at that particular instant.


Akira 'Elvis' Yoshikawa was hunched over his desk, losing a staring competition with the Active Mission Report form on his desk. He'd been sitting there twenty minutes at least, pen drooping from his fingers like a wet Winfield, stuck on the very first item on the form: Current Mission Status. He glanced up at Jenko, who sat opposite on the couch staring blankly at nothing in particular. Jenko interrupted his blank-staring responsibilities to shrug emptily at his old colleague in league. Elvis echoed Jenko's shrug, sighed deeply and picked up his pen. Next to Current Mission Status he scrawled 'Totally Fucked' in big letters, then sat back to admire his handiwork. Then balled the form up and tossed it in the bin.

"Fucking paperwork," Elvis cursed. It was the first thing said since they'd staggered back into Elvis' office after the surviving strike-force operatives had made it back to base. Which now was totally blown as an undercover installation for spying on the Bums. On top of the loss of the Captain and Midori, which was pretty much putting a dampener on the party atmosphere at Happy Thinkings Software Company. Silence resumed service after that brief interruption.

Totally ruining the miserable melancholy of the moment, Elvis' desk phone rang.
"Yeah?" he answered wearily. "Oh, howdy Doc, what's going on. Me? Don't ask, mate, don't fucking ask... Hang on - Jenko's here, I'll just put you on speaker-phone."

"Think I might have something useful for you," the good doctor related, once pleasantries had been exchanged. "An anti-viral agent specific against the genetically-engineered Bum Supreme Truth virus. Can you lads fly down here tomorrow, or is that going to fuck with your schedules?"

Jenko glanced at Elvis, who nodded. "You're lucky, mate - we've got a bit of a window in our scheduling tomorrow, as it happens....


Captain Stupidity woke up with a sore head. Unfortunately it was his own. He'd scored a splitting headache from somewhere, which he seemed to recall was something to do with splitting his head on the rapidly-compressing cabin of a Toyota forklift. What he didn't recall was how he ended up Here.

For Here was a much nicer place than the rapidly-compressing cabin of a Toyota forklift. Here was a place with pretty pastel drapes and attractive soft furnishings. With a comfy bed - a waterbed! A double water bed even. Plush cream carpets. Tasteful Japanese watercolours under glass hanging on the walls. All in all, three and a half stars from the Captain for the bedroom. He gathered himself together, got to his feet and stumbled out into the main area of what he imagined to be some sort of hotel suite.

Decor - similar theme out here. Very noice. Slate tiles in the kitchen and bathroom, carpet everywhere else. Very Western decor, actually, now that the Captain came to think of it. Was he still in Japan? Or maybe just in a suite at one of the large international hotel chains somewhere. In fact, the only thing that pointed to his location being Japan was the artwork on the walls, which had a certain oriental flavour to it. Probably MSG. Ha, I made a funny.

Then the Captain looked a little closer.

The watercolours all seemed to be by the same artist, or at least in very similar styles. Religious themes appeared to be prevalent in each picture, but from a variety of origins - a crucified Christ here, an all-seeing Hindi god there, while above the lounge reposed a beaming Buddha figure. Truly a melange of different religions, and the Captain, as a religious man himself, was not displeased to see this apparent happy coexistence of the world's major faiths, even though solely through the medium of some pretty ordinary Japanese watercolours.

But then the Captain looked a little closer again.

For Christ, it appeared, was Japanese.

Japanese, overweight, and myopic.

So was Buddha. Perhaps the weight issues were to be expected, but not the glasses, surely. And the Hindi representative, likewise. In fact, all bore the likeness of a fat, aging, bearded, myopic Japanese man. Wherever possible, in a floaty purple robe. Floatier than even that red dress Kate Bush had on in the film clip to that fucking ordinary Wuthering Heights song. "Heeethcliff, it's meeee, it's Caaathieeeee, I've come home..." Fucking Christ.

A few other things lacking, the Captain now saw, if this was a Western-style hotel room: no television. No telephone. And no windows. This weren't no holiday resort, apparently. This was Camp Supreme Truth.

Hai, Arsehara-san, the Captain nodded silently towards the security cameras. Wherever they were.


A few thousand kilometres south, Elvis and Jenko were being ushered through the corridors of the University of Queensland's biomedical research facility on Heron Island. Their ushers on this occasion, as with the last, were the Doc's glamourous (research) assistants Caitlin and Josephine - though the girls weren't exactly at their loveliest this morning with the stresses of no sleep and much coffee telling on each of their faces.

"It began just after he contacted you yesterday evening," one of them - the Captain was buggered if he could remember which was which, but between us it was Josephine - reported as they marched towards the Virology department. "He was just transporting some vials of the virus between fridges - we were about to leave for dinner, he wasn't even in his lab coat, let alone an isolation suit... stupid bastard. The vial of viral culture just slipped through his fingers and shattered on the floor. I was far enough away that I could grab for a mask and protection gear, but the boss..." She sighed. "Poor baby. He started coughing almost immediately, and within thirty minutes he was unconscious..."

"Oh fuck," said Elvis. "Is he dead?"

"No," said Caitlin, fighting the tears welling in her sea-green eyes. "He came back to us six hours later. But, he had changed. It had changed him."

"How so?"

"You'll see," Jo said, as they approached the great glass doors of the department. "Remember, full protective equipment. We don't want you two suffering the same fate..."

The girls, as well as the lads, donned full protective gear including the white synthetic isolation suits that resembled a full-body condom. The only member of the lab not in protective gear was seated on a backward-facing chair in the centre of the lab, headphones strapped over his rear-facing Fubu cap. The music he was listening to had a certain repetitve motif, something of an oonce-oonce-oonce-oonce theme. Oonce music, Elvis deduced. Dr Yobbo's cargo pants looked big enough to house the Qantas domestic fleet; likewise his Tommy Hilfiger top. Josephine mimed for him to remove the headphones. He did so, glancing over at the boys with an I'm on here, she wants me baaaad sort of grin.

"How're you doing, mate?" Jenko asked.

"Maaaate, I'm fine, ay." He sounded like an extra from Pizza. "Siiiiick mate."

"What happened?"

"Fucked if I know eh bro," he grinned. "I dunno. By the way, name's Habib mate, ay."

Jenko turned to Selena and asked, "How aware of his situation is he?"

"Still working that out," she replied. "We're asking him things about his life, to see what he remembers - about his house, his family, his work. It's a bit piecemeal at present. You're welcome to help..."

"Sure," he nodded. "Dr... um, Habib..."

"Yeh mate?"

"What sort of car do you have?"

"Awww, mate, don't get me started on that mate. This is fucken bullshit mate, I tell you. That fucken Johnny Howard, I don't care what that little pooftah says, ay. I've had me car for ten years mate, I'm not fucken payin' any new tax on my GTS..."

Everyone except 'Habib' agreed the situation was totally untenable and therefore resolved to slug the bastard full of the new antiviral agent he had developed to counteract the GE virus. Which was proven to work Pretty Bloody Well a few hours thereafter when Dr Yobbo rose from his slumber, took one look at his homie outfit in a nearby mirror and ran screaming into the bathroom, whereupon an emergency dosage of offensive T-shirt and lairy boardshorts were administered topically.

Shortly afterwards, once the trauma had receded, he demonstrated his full recovery by running the lads through an exhaustive and Fairly Bloody Piss-Boring account of how he came to develop the anti-viral agent. Edited highlights: he identified, sequenced and characterised the expression patterns of the STUP1 gene in human neural cells, compared the sequence of the variant STUP1 gene (that carried by the GE virus, and integrated into the human brain by it) with the natural, or 'wildtype' gene variant found in normal (or allegedly so) humans, and spliced the wildtype gene into the DNA construct within the virus, in place of the mutant variant. Result: their version of the virus would, on infection of individuals with the mutant STUP1 gene, introduce the wildtype gene variant in its place and return them to their normal, non-moronic selves. As demonstrated above.

"And you did all this in four days?" Elvis asked.

"Hey, if that Scully chick on the X-Files can do a full DNA sequence analysis on an alien's arsehole in an hour, I can singlehandedly bring forward the science of gene therapy by ten years in half a week."

"Fair enough," nodded Jenko.


How to escape?

The suite was a prison - a very well appointed one, but a prison nonetheless. The Captain had managed to pick out at least three hidden microphones and a couple of possible locations for hidden cameras after just twenty minutes in the bedroom. It seemed a wiser means of spending twenty minutes in the bedroom than his usual, considering how much surveillance was about. And there remained only that one entry/exit point for the whole suite - the main doorway, which showed its intentions of not being opened from the inside by featuring zero inside-facing handles.

The great steel door could, however, be opened from the outside. Which set the Captain's mind at work. Maybe he could put all the candid cameras to work for him. Faking illness, or some other ostentatious act that might get the attention of those tuning in...

His musings were interrupted by a knock at the door. He got up to move towards the door, realised the impotent stupidity of that act, and sat back down.

"Come on in," he called ironically. "Be my guest."

"Okay, I will!" said an excited little voice. It came from the excited little dark-haired girl who bounded into the room and flung her arms around him like a long-lost friend. Midori probably didn't qualify quite as such, not particularly long-lost (though clearly quite friendly.) "Captain, I've missed you so badly..."

"The sights on your rifle are probably crooked," he suggested.

"Huh?" Her big brown eyes read total confusion.

"Joke," he nodded wryly.

"Oh," she laughed, "a joke." Then screwed up her cute little nose. "I don't get it."

"That's okay," he said. "You're alright?"

"I'm wonderful," she grinned. "I shine almost as brightly as the light from the holy master's southern star..."

"Um... I believe the techical term is, Whafuck?" Then the Captain caught himself. (The Captain, c&b the Captain, for 0.) Hmmm. Seemed someone had just been convinced that the sun shined out of the holy master's Arse-hara. A cursory glance at the purple robe and sandals she'd donned for the occasion tended to echo that suggestion. But if Midori was infected with viral stupidity, and they'd both been heavily exposed to the infectious agent, why wasn't he giggling like a schoolgirl and prancing about in a purple sheet like a demented fuckstick?

The Captain didn't know exactly why, but he was suddenly struck with the thought that maybe, just maybe, he might be immune to Arsehara's stupidity virus. Making sure nobody figured this out before he confirmed it was going to be crucial. For once in his life, the Captain's very survival, and the fate of millions, maybe billions of people, depended on his ability to act very, very stupid. He modestly considered the role to be a bit of a stretch, but pledged to do his best.

He played dumb through the tour of the compound he was led on by Midori, asking really stupid questions while noting everything of interest. But when Midori asked if he wanted to meet the holy master, he had a bit of trouble concealing his excitement. Which was okay, it went with the character.

So he met the master. The meeting was pretty uneventful. The Captain and Midori were shown into Arsehara's palatial quarters, Arsehara fully explained his scheme for world domination, after which the Captain survived an implausible assasination attempt involving a slow-moving diamond saw, four steroid-enhahced part-cyborg crocodiles, and some wanker flicking his arse with a wet towel... Oh sorry, that's the plot for the next Bond movie.

The Captain hadn't ever done much ancient history at school. If he had, he might have drawn parallels between the incredible excesses of, say, your average corrupt Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian period (let's say, for argument's sake, Tiberius) and the ludicrous luxury Arsehara afforded himself. Particularly with the rest of his followers living in much more austere, even Spartan conditions. 'Spartan' in that they were living in very sparse, basic accommodation and eating what would amount to prison rations in a very shitty prison indeed, rather than inferring they were duffing each other up the bunghole at any given opportunity.

No, the Captain drew not these particular parallels, largely because he was uncultured and thick. But, thankfully, he did note the very stark contrast between the quarters inhabited by your average Bum cultist (as examined in the previous few hours On Tour) and Arsehara's own setup. The rank hypocrisy of preaching moderation in all things and austerity of the soul being the key to the everlasting, while decorating your digs with hyperexpensive artworks, fuggin enormous statues of yourself in the nuddy with preposterously oversized naughty bits, aircraft-carrier-deck-sized tables of gourmet food and imported French plonk, and reams of luscious underdressed Oriental poontang flitting about the place, keen as buggery to do whatever their Master bid them, no matter how depraved, immoral, anatomically unfeasible, or endangering to the state of the carpet... what were we talking about again? Oh yeah. The Captain was fully aware of the sick irony intrinsic to this hypocrisy and inwardly derided it for the gross and corrupt malfeasance it was.

"Hur hur," the Captain giggled to Midori. "That girl's got a big bottom."

The emperor's Praetorian Guard had grudgingly allowed them past their station point on the door; apparently, their names were on the list, so they were coming in. Made a bit of a change for the Captain, that. But to be awarded with an audience to meet the Master (my capitals), that was clearly an honour not bestowed upon the regular rank-and-file of the Bum Supreme Truth roll-call. So what exactly did Arsehara have in mind. And why didn't that question have a question mark on the end. Or that one.

Another thought struck the Captain. (Call the Guinness people.) He was effectively trapped within an enormous synthetic loony collective. Arsehara's teeming minions were doubtless all infected with the stupidity virus. Midori undoubtedly was, and the goons on the door were probably doped up to the eyeballs on juiced-up stupidovirus, or bad 'roids at the very least. In fact, almost everyone in the compound was infected. Except Arsehara himself, of course. And, thought the Captain, one other person: the Captain himself. For reasons totally unbeknownst to the Captain, he just wasn't stupid. Not stupider, anyway. Not stupid enough to rank among the mentally-bereft vacuoids that surrounded him. Somehow, he'd escaped infection. He just didn't know how. Or why.


"I know why," said Dr Yobbo. "Or how. Means the same thing really."

"You know how or why what?" inquired Jenko, having been out taking a big dump while the last bit was going on.

"Why we might still have hope for a positive resolution," the Doc expanded. It was probably all the beer he'd knocked off at 007's wedding reception. "So long as the Captain and young Midori are alive..."

"I wouldn't fuckin' count on it," Elvis muttered. "Even if they survived being captured, they'd not have lasted long. I know Midori - she's a fighter. She'd have never been taken alive."

"Hold on," Jenko pondered. "Let's say they were captured alive. From what we know of these Bum sect bastards, usual modus operandi is not to execute opposition agents they capture, but to try to turn them. Rub our faces in it, as well as putting talented personnel to good use."

"Exactly," said Dr Yobbo. "And in this case, the means by which they would try to turn them would be by infection with the STUP-1 GE virus."

"How the fuck is that a good thing?"

"Granted, it's not. For Midori, it wouldn't be, in any case. Her immune system could not foreseeably repel the virus, and she would be infected, just as would any other normal person. However, our Phil..." Dr Yobbo nodded with a little grin. "Don't think I need to tell you that the Captain is very much different from 'any other normal person'."

"Yeah, we kind of figured that," Jenko said. "But in what way, in particular?"

"Well, it was something that came up in conversation the first time you and the Captain were here..."

"Oh, the various really stupid things Phil said?"

"No, not that. Not directly anyway. It was your suggestion about him already being infected with the virus from his earlier exposure, which I doubted, but instead postulated that he may be a carrier of some form of the mutant STUP-1 gene in his genome. We were thinking about this afterwards - myself and some of the research girls - and we decided to investigate this little mystery as something of a side project. So I got the girls to obtaine a sample of DNA from him - without his knowledge if possible..."

"I can't imagine how a couple of cute young lasses like your research affiliates would manage to extract genetic seed from the Captain without him minding," suggested Jenko in a rather ribald fashion.

"Fuck that. Wouldn't have needed to toss him off, they could have just scraped his bedsheets..."

"Um, thank you Yoshikawa-san for your incisive contribution... Actually," explained Dr Yobbo, "they simply obtained hair samples from the Captain's scalp, and it was upon these samples that we performed our studies."

"You might find, in that case, that the Captain's genome rather strangely matches exactly to that of a small long-haired hamster called Jethro... deceased as of about ten years ago," Jenko smirked.

"I'd wondered about that," Dr Yobbo reflected. "Pity if it was, because then the Captain wouldn't be immune to infection by the recombinant Bum sect virus after all."

"He what?" Jenko stammered, cheap shots shelved at once (for once).

"We found, by studying the Captain's genome sequence, that he appears to possess a slightly abnormal form of the wildtype STUP-1 gene. Not such that he displays the full clinical phenotype of endemic stupidity exhibited by mutant gene carriers, or those infected with the engineered virus who would show a much greater degree of stupidity than even the carriers of the characterised mutation... The Captain, instead, exhibits a different phenotype."

"Does he fucken what," remarked Elvis, never one to be shelving the cheap shots in a hurry.

The Doc continued patiently. "One markedly less severe than the clinical phenotype, and indeed lots different in its manifestation. But the key factor as far as we are concerned is the molecular mechanism of this difference. For the gene variant carried by the Captain diverges from the wildtype sequence at exactly the critical point in the gene where the virus is programmed to recognise the unique sequence of the wildtype gene, bind to it, and cut it out so as to insert the heavily mutagenised version developed in the Bum sect laboratories."

"So when the virus tries to infect the Captain, it can't find the bit of DNA where it's programmed to insert itself?" queried Jenko. "And because it's a totally unique sequence the virus looks for, it can't insert itself anywhere else?"

"Exactly," Dr Yobbo said with a smile. "So, to the best of our knowledge, the Captain's immune to infection with Arsehara's genetically engineered virus."

"Because he's naturally fucken stupid," Elvis quipped.

"Exactly," he grinned again.


Getting Arsehara to talk wasn't easy. 'Talk' meaning not just mumbling in pseudo-biblical riddles, gibberish and bullshit about 'it is easier for an unwashed lamb to pass through the eye of a potato than it is for Brett Kimmorley to go through a game without throwing a stupid pass to Gary Ghost on the sidelines.' Or bollocks to that effect. (Not that Kimmorley being Utterly Crap is bollocks; conversely, this fact is indeed word and testament. So it is written in the Holy Book of Joey.) It took a hell of a lot of sweet-talking, kow-towing, supplication, crawling, brown-nosing and finally outright sucking-up. Not literally, of course - that appeared the domain of the aforementioned Girl With Big Bottom and her scantily clad compadres. But the Captain had read his opponent like the back of a Weetbix box. Phil may have been thicker than the big print version of War and Peace, but he knew how to get on the right side of a delusional egocentric megalomaniac. Crawl right up his enormous arse at the first opportunity, then marvel loudly about the quality of the decor and soft furnishings. And only then ask humbly what the great master would wish of his devoted children, by means of bestowing this great honour of a personal audience etc etc etc. Tactfully, the Captain put this to air without the etc etc etc bit.

"My child," breathed Arsehara. He seemed to breathe every word as if his larynx was the diameter of a Maccas straw. Either he was a chronic asthmatic or he was auditioning for a job at a phone sex call centre. "My child, let us be alone." He clapped his pudgy hands twice and the chicks in the nuddy did a runner. Midori, too, bowed extravagantly and followed the guard out the door. The enormous room was empty, but for the two men in matching purple robes - one seated atop his preposterous throne, the other, um, not.

Could he take the fat bastard? Security were only just outside the door and outnumbered him many to one. The Captain weighed up his options. Probably not. Yet.

"My child," began Arsehara, "you would not recall this clearly of your existence before your rebirth, but I know that you were once a great warrior and hero."

The Captain feigned surprise. "My master, you believe this to be true of my previous life?"

"Indeed I do," Arsehara beamed, pressing his hands softly together in prayer. "My third eye sees all."

As it does with most blokes, the Captain declined to add. The 'third eye' Arsehara talked about was positioned smack bang in the centre of his forehead, in the traditional Eastern religious manner. The fact that it was SO obviously cut out of a Womens Day cover and stuck on his head with Clag glue somehow escaped the notice of his followers. The Captain did his best to avoid pointing at it and pissing his purple robe laughing. Instead, he let the great fat steaming nit continue, for it seemed he much enjoyed the sound of his own voice.

"As I see the past, I also see the future. Yet I foresee troubles for our faith. There are dark clouds on our horizon, I fear a terrible foreboding. And the tax office is auditing us too... knew I should have listened to that bastard L. Ron Hubbard."

"This is of great sadness to all of us, O Master," the Captain bid, wondering how much longer he could carry on with this bollocks.

"My child, do not be afeared. Cast not your hopes and dreams aside like last week's dodgy takeaway leftovers, but take solace in them."

"The dodgy takeaway leftovers? Gee, I don't know, master. The chicken vindaloo is sketchy at best and the fried rice at the back of the fridge is growing something green on it..."

True, it was stupidity, but the timing was inspired. Arsehara merely nodded benignly. He understood. Stupidity was his forte. Indeed, it was the great weakness of mankind that he intended to prey upon in order to rule absolutely.

"I mean not that, O child. Instead, lose not heart. Take ye solace this from." Now the Captain knew how Luke Skywalker must have felt talking to Yoda, the senile old bastard. "But I need of you, my child, one great sacrifice."

Which was never a good sentence to hear from a delusionary megalomaniac.

"Um… What is your bidding, O master?"

Arsehara sighed enigmatically. "I know that in your heart you will resist this. I know that your true desire, as a devout disciple of our faith, is to live as one of the Afterborn."

The Afterborn, the Captain had surmised during his afternoon of fun here at Purple Robes 'R' Us, were the rank and file, the peon class whose lives revolved around constant back-breaking toil, hourly genuflection towards whatever room Arsehara was supposed to be inhabiting at that given moment (he'd actually seen a roomful of Afterborn folk observe the turn of the hour, as directed by the all-pervasive PA system, by bowing towards the upstairs shitters), regular beatings, rubbish food and hard beds, and maybe, just maybe, live long enough to be granted the ultimate Bum Supreme Truth happily-die-now dream of being able to watch the Master pound your missus in front of you. Polite applause at the conclusion was deemed minimally appropriate.

Yeah, he'd be real disappointed to have to give that up. He'd have chewed his own scrotum off to be given half a chance at being one of the Afterborn. Who, one presumed, were in the midst of existing through something called the Afterbirth. An appetising thought if there ever was one.

All of a sudden the Captain realised what his 'true desire' really was. All those years of searching, all those different possible career choices... professional computer programmer... professional computer technician... professional computer parts theft scapegoat... unprofessional drummer... trawler deckhand (that's DECKHAND, not what you were thinking)... He had it now. He knew what he wanted to be.

A cult leader.

Seriously, it would ROCK. Big time. Get a bunch of deluded followers behind you who are stupid enough to buy your whole "I'm the son of God, so get that up ya" spiel, set up camp somewhere cool like Byron or the Cayman Islands, declare yourself a religion - freedom from persecution, tax breaks galore... people to hang on your every word... all the girls you could eat... and just the inherent kicks of fucking with people's heads to see how much they were prepared to do to keep their master happy. On the plane over, Elvis had told him a story about Arsehara having previously made followers drink his bathwater, claiming it was a 'miracle pond' full of lifeforce-bequeathing energies. Judging by Arsehara's diet (stonefruits, beans and raw tuna), the aforesaid miracle pond was probably more of a jet spa.

The Captain opted to shelve that suggestion right at that moment, and merely reeled out some obsequious line about being prepared to follow his Master (my capitals again) down whatever path the Master wished him to take. "I am but your humble tool," he nodded, though considering ruefully who the real tool here was.

"Very well, my child. I wish of you one great sacrifice. I wish that you should abandon your life as an Afterborn, in order to sit beside me at my throne as my Holy Protector."

Holy Protector? Holy fu...

"My Master, my humbleness forbids me..."

"My child, there are a very many evil influences out in the mortal world. There are those who would persecute and vilify we of the sacred floaty purple toga robe thing. There are those who would attack the very seat of our faith here on mother soil..."

"Get out," the Captain said. "Surely not..."

"It is indeed so, my child. And it is for this purpose that I require your service, my child. I said that once, in an earlier existence, you were a great warrior and protector of the weak. Our faith needs this duty of you once more."

Holy Protector. Personal bodyguard, yes-man and chief eunuch, more like. Following this fat clown around the place, inflating his ego to a size approaching that of his bulbous arse, standing between him and the many millions who wanted to see him very much less alive than at present. The Captain could think of better ways to spend the rest of his natural life. Even Afterbirth would have its advantages. Sure, he'd be very close to the seat of power (about as close as anyone would wish to be to that particular seat) - but the Master's tribe of dumbfuck roided-up granite neoliths were always close by and close to losing it, and the Captain could very easily see himself getting caught between a rock and a fat place. And even if and when the cavalry did arrive, he was very much in Position A (thanks very much Jack Newton) to get himself taken out in the crossfire. After all, he would be standing next to the largest target in a twenty mile radius. Perhaps better to lie low, keep a very low profile until the poo began to seriously approach the Mistral with intent of broad distribution - he could much more confidently guarantee himself a chance to investigate and hopefully exacerbate whatever Arsehara had intentions of, while keeping out of Arsehara's field of vision. In truth, the Captain's mind was made up; the only issue was with forming a tactful way of phrasing it.

"Of course," continued Arsehara, "as you have learned, my child, Bum Supreme Truth preaches there is a task for all and for all a task in this life. For the Afterborn, it is through toil and prayer than the beauteous bounties of life everlasting are attained. For you, my child, this will not be so. As Holy Protector, you will take your place as a member of the Centre Court, to which the humble servants of our faith such as church officials and priests belong. By fulfilling your duty as Holy Protector, and as a member of the Court, shall your life eternal be guaranteed."

"And how does a member of the Court best please his Lord, my Master?"

That same ludicrous beaming smile. "My child, the duty of the Centre Court is to ensure the future and bloodlines of our faith. As a member of the Court, your duty thus is to take a life partner, and impregnate her with your seed."

The sort of duties he'd narrowly missed out on when he was taken prisoner by the Giraffe and her misguided minions. [See Stupidofile 12. I think. It was a long time ago and I forget what all these fuckers were about nowadays.] While the Captain reeled at the ramifications of this, Arsehara called for the door to be opened and "daughter 91736" to enter. The Captain regained his senses to find Daughter 91736 standing shyly beside him. In a previous life, she'd been Special Operative Midori Sashimi.

"Midori?" the Captain mused.

"Ah ah, my child. That was her name as a mortal. She is now Daughter 91736 of the everlasting family of the Bum Supreme Truth. And she is to be your life partner."

"What a wonderful coincidence," said the Captain. "91736 happens to be my lucky number."


Well this was a turn-up for the books. Not only was his stupidity his saving grace this time around, it also looked like getting him a root, which was quite the pleasant change from normal operating procedure. Midori (sorry, Daughter 91736) followed him dutifully back to his salubrious new quarters (now with 50% less surveillance equipment! The perks of being on Centre Court…) He didn't exactly have issues with justifying this to his conscience. It's a matter of life and death. Literally. People will meet horrible deaths if I don't take Midori back to my room and give her the rogering of her life.

Midori, for her part, bowed humbly, then allowed her robe to slip off her delicate shoulders and collect in a pool of purple silk at her equally delicate feet. The Captain was currently more fascinated with the delicate bits positioned in-between her shoulders and her feet, which were now available for inspection. He wrestled with his own robe and attempted to fling it across the room, but one half got caught on his painfully upright boner and he was left standing there looking like a towel rack. Which was the first indidation this might not go as well as originally envisaged.

More doubts crept in as she splayed herself across the bed in a position of complete submission, trembling slightly. This isn't exactly classy, Phil old mate. It's not quite on the level of slipping a schoolies chick a Rohypnol and taking advantage thereof, but it's not too far from it. He shook his head. Can’t think like that. Life and death. Kiddies depending on me and my dodger. Must forge on. He clambered onto the bed on all fours like a demented baboon. Midori didn't quite curl up and resist, but she didn't seem terribly into it. Lie back, shut your eyes and think of England.

Or maybe some other large land mass…

That was something he really didn't want to think about. Get on with it son, he chided himself.

"Master?" she piped up.

"Yes?" he replied.

"…Could you do something special for me?"

This sounded promising. He'd figured she'd be completely submissive, a total dead fish, but if she was thinking about suggesting a few killer moves, things were looking up!

"What did you have in mind, my girl?"

She beamed, and crawled to the edge of the bed. If she rolls all the over, she can't say she wasn't warned… Rifling through a bedside drawer, she dug out a pair of lens-less black spectacles, with thick square black rims. "Could you wear these, my master? It will help me see the true beauty in you."

The Austin Powers look. Fair enough, he figured. Anything for a quality shag, baby. He donned the old-school frames and said. "Do I make you horny, baby?" in a pretty rank attempt at a character voice.

She looked rather blankly back at him. "Say something mystical," she cooed.

Mystical? Like Arsehara's gibberish? Hang on a tick…

"And put this on," she begged, producing a wispy stick-on moustache and beard combo. "Then we can start."

The Captain couldn't believe his rancid luck. Seriously cute naked Asian babe lying at his mercy before him, and she wanted him to dress up like a fat bespectacled Japanese cult leader. He felt his interest in proceedings waning… No Phil, concentrate. We can work through this, it'll be worth it, hang in there. He backed away from the bed, in the process tripping over a free-standing floor lamp and almost ending up with a fluorescent globe enema. At least, he'd thought it was a fluoro globe, until it cracked against the floor and the translucent casing split, revealing the stick-camera and microphone hidden within. The fat hairy bastard was watching the whole damn thing, and probably groping himself shitless all the time…

All of a sudden, Captain Stupidity was no longer capable of impersonating a towel rack. He grabbed his robe off the floor, tossed Midori's across to her, and fastened his own brusquely, almost garrotting his fading half-mongrel in the process. This situation was completely untenable. It needed resolving. He was either going to get out of here, or get seriously fucked up trying.

Or maybe, he thought, surveying his surroundings, there was another, more appealing, option.


"Time to roll," said Jenko. "Got everything?"

"Yup," reckoned Elvis. Internal Security's second attempt to invade the Bum Supreme Truth facility was ready to go. It was a slightly smaller task force this time. If it was any smaller, there'd have only been one of them. The two-man assault team clambered out the back of the Mazda van and took a look at the terrain ahead of them. After their original failed assault they were stuck with the option of attacking the compound from the other side to the Happy Thinkings Software Company property, which meant scrambling through a farm on the hillside and scaling some serious fuck-off fences. For good reason were alternative approaches taken on previous occasions; those alternatives were now out of commission courtesy security by the metric shitload.

The lads clambered over the farmyard fence and started jogging up the hillside that ran over the crest of the ridge and then down into the valley in which Arsehara's facility was situated. At the top of the hill, they again paused to survey their prospects.

"Where is the fucking fence?" queried Elvis.

A valid observation. In the four days since they'd last visited, the three metre high fencing that had guarded this side of the compound had been removed, and replaced with a hastily-dug moat at least six metres across and of unknown murky depths. Probably full of unfriendly sea life like sharks or killer puffer-fish too… Their plans to vault the fences using ten-foot extendable poles [audience participation segment: insert own joke here] were a little screwed up by this turn of events.

"Got a plan B?" inquired Jenko.

Elvis thought for a moment. "Yup," he said again, and turned to sprint back down the hill paddock to the road. Jenko, watching from the ridge, saw also what Elvis must have noted, and cringed. His Japanese compadre simply waited by the letterbox for the postie to ride up, then jumped him and nicked his bike. Wringing the neck of the gutless little Honda postie bike and wheelspinning furiously on the damp grass, he screamed back up the hill to where Jenko was standing, wincing with embarrassment.

"Welcome to Plan B," Elvis grinned, and pointed out the slight rise on their side of the moat, most probably produced from dirt being piled up on that side during the haste of digging out the moat. "Better go find yourself some transportation…"
Jenko cross-countried back to the van, jumped in and powerslid the beast through the gate and up the hill, following the spinning rear wheel track of Elvis' CT110 postie bike.

"You are fucking joking, yes?" Elvis queried.

"Mate, I've got to be a better chance of jumping that creek with this thing than you do on a postie bike."

"Bet you fifty bucks you're wrong, fat arse." With that, he revved the Jesus out of the postie bike, and took off in a hail of burning grass and spitting rocks.

"Done, you stupid Japanese bastard," Jenko called after him.

At speeds never before approached on a postie bike, Elvis hammered down the valley, the marshmallow-soft springs of the device bounding him all over the place. He hit the kicker at something like 80 kays, the marshmallows hitting full compression as he pounded onto the ramp… and flung him soaring into the air, majestic as could be, Evel Knievel on a postie bike. He even had the presence of mind to pull off a few Supercross 'Expression Session' moves before the CT110 ploughed into the grass on the other side. Nine for the air, eight for the manouvers, two for the landing.

Jenko, his fifty bucks in mortal peril, fired up the E-series van and roared off down the hill towards the jump ramp. He hit the kicker, soared maybe four feet in the air, and plunged straight into the moat. He surfaced moments later and scrambled onto the roof of the van, clear of the water level by a foot or so, with an eel wrapped around one leg and a pirahna biting his arse, still several metres from Elvis' side of the creek.

"Double or nothing?" he suggested, detaching the unwanted marine specimens from his person. Elvis shrugged. Jenko ran back up and over the hill, emerging sixty seconds later astride a large chestnut horse, which Elvis recalled seeing tethered to a tree in the hillside paddock. He feared gravely for its safety. Particularly as Jenko blundered down the hill with hit, urging it on like some demented relative of the Man from Snowy River. The horse, surprisingly enough, didn't seem to mind. Maybe living downwind of the virus production facility had caused it to become infected with stupidity. In any case, the beast thundered over the ramp like a show-jumping champion, hammered across the roof of the mostly-submerged Mazda van, and soared over the last couple of watery metres like Pegasus.

"I call RSPCA now, you crazy fuck," Elvis said.

Jenko just patted his trusty steed and grinned the grin of a Grand National winner.

"Reckon you owe me fifty bucks, champ…"


There was a certain authority in being on a horse. Think of the charge of the Light Horse Brigade, the respect earned by the mounted police (except when riding into demonstrators outside World Trade Organisation meetings and hoofing the fuck out of them), even the Marlboro Man. Jenko hadn't ridden since his days on the farm, but he was really enjoying it. Mainly because the sight of a heavily armed Aussie on a Big Snorting Horse was successfully scaring the fuck out of everyone on every floor of the Bum Sect building. Granted, it was a bitch trying to duck under all those bloody low doorways, but such were the perils of success. Meanwhile, Elvis was doing Arsehara's carpet cleaning bill no end of harm by trying to light up the rear of the postie bike on every getaway. Most of the time he was having to lift the rear wheel off the ground and drop it while it was spinning, however, it did give him something to do when not beating the Christ out of Arsehara's idiot security. This was clearly the disadvantage of employing genuinely stupid people. Case in point: the two big security goons guarding the main throneroom who chose to rush Jenko and his horse rather than draw their weapons, whereupon Jenko's faithful steed reared with both front legs and kicked them both ferociously in the cruets.

Sherriff Jenko rode into Dodge with his fearless postie-bike-mounted deputy by his side and Arsehara in his sights. He ambled the big chestnut alongside the monstrous throne of the Almighty One (who was quite adept at letting off a few almighty ones after a good feed of raw fruits and beans.) He smiled condescendingly down at the corpulent cult leader.

"You are indeed very tall," began Arsehara.

"There's a reason for that," Jenko offered.

"What's that?"

"I'm on a horse," Jenko reasoned. "What are you on?"

"I'm on Valium," said Arsehara.

"Cut this Spike Milligan shit out," declared Elvis, drawing his machine pistol from its holster. "You want to get sued?" [The Author, for his part, reasoned hey, if old Spikey can plagiarise himself silly for the last fifty years, why can't we help?]

"The game's up, Arsehara," bellowed Jenko. "We know about everything. We know about your plans to package genetically engineered stupidity virus into Party Poppers for sale over the Christmas-New Year period."

"Big parties, turn of the millenium… everyone on the booze, banging off Party Poppers… that your plan, huh?" demanded Elvis. "You evil fucker. You die!"

"Noooo!" screamed Arsehara, and dived out of his throne. Except for the fact that his robe, and several very large pillows, remained in the hot seat (warmer than immediately beforehand, for obvious physiological reasons.) The Captain tore off his crepe beard and flung his glasses across the room. "Jesus, Elvis…"

"…and John Lennon all work in the same 7-11?" finished Jenko.

"Captain, what the fuck you doing in Arsehara's costume?"

"Waiting for you guys," he tried to suggest. Unconvincingly.

"And what if we hadn't shown?" interrogated Jenko.

"Um… guess I'd have continued pretending to be Arsehara," he reasoned.

"Well, we're here now, so time to go home," Elvis said, reholstering his heater.

The Captain thought for a moment.

"No," he said.

"What?"

"No," repeated the Captain. "I'm staying. I like being a cult leader."

"Stop fucking about Phil and let's get out of here."

"I'm serious. This is the most kick-arse job ever. I know I'm new to it, having only pushed Arsehara down the lift shaft yesterday afternoon - think he might be still stuck halfway, but I guess he'll slide the rest of the way as he starves his way to a slimmer him - but I'm loving it. The hours are great, and the perks, let me tell you…"

"Are very perky?"

"Well, Jenko, you've always been a man who appreciates the Asian babes, you tell me…"

"Guess this is a bad time to let you know we piped the anti-virus [thanks very much Mission Impossible 2] through the air conditioning system. Very much against Proper Use of Genetically Modified Organisms regulations, but I doubt the EPA's about to complain. So all your gorgeous little minions will be waking up from their nightmare pretty soon. And if they find out you were the guy in the purple robe who's been fiddling about with them, you're likely to be in deeper poo regarding sex abuse allegations than half the hierarchy of the Catholic church," Jenko noted.

"You bastards.. So what the hell do I do?"

"I suggest you put some pants on and make yourself scarce."


"My one great calling in life. The one job that made perfect sense, that just fitted me. All taken away from me in one fell swoop. Just my luck."

"Phil," reasoned Dr Yobbo, stocking the shelves of his virology freezer with samples of the STUP-1 antidote virus for archiving purposes, "I couldn't really see you as a cult leader. No matter how wacky they are, they've always got some driving philosophy, some great vision. And given your recreational habits I'd be surprised if you had any vision left at all."

"Anyone else want a go at me?" Phil asked of the throng.

"Sorry, Philip," Midori said, "I wouldn't have believed you as a cult leader either. You’re not evil enough. I think you proved that during the course of the mission." Her appreciative smile suggested she remembered certain events more clearly than others, and was thankful for him being, shall we say, driven to distraction. There was not a little promise there.

"Personally," suggested Elvis, "I think you're too fucking clueless."

The Captain rounded angrily on this suggestion. "I've had enough! All this talk about me being stupid, it's a fucking lie! Where exactly is it written that I'm eternally damned to be called stupid?"

"Right here," Jenko suggested. "On the name badge on your visitors pass, where it says 'Hello, my name is Captain Stupidity'."

"Fuck you all then," he growled, and snatched a vial of virus. "I'll show you. Let's see what Mr Antidote Virus says about Phil's stupidity, huh?"

"Phil, I wouldn't do that," Dr Yobbo offered.

"Why, because it's morally wrong? Because we shouldn't play God with our genes? Bugger all of it. I don't give a shit, so don't try and stop me. Hah!" He tipped the vial to his lips and swilled the contents. Coughing slightly, he demanded to know, "What do you have to say to that, huh?"

"I would say what I was trying to say all along," Dr Yobbo muttered. "That's not STUP-1 virus antidote, not that it would have had any effect on you anyway with your alternative gene version. That's a rare strain of African enteric virus that gives you racking gut cramps and volatile projectile gastric for nine days…"

end

_____________________


Anyway, in conclusion - a toast. To the Captain. To anyone who made it this far down the page. And to The Misadventures of Captain Stupidity. Not always the finest jokes, but almost always the cheapest ones. Guaranteed.

The Doctor is OUT.