[i]Previously on BEEEF[/i] wrote:At last, with only his own weight upon his chest, Mr. Vladimir was ready to partake of his hosts graciousness. It was time to get down to business.
The Bragulan Economic Exposition Extravaganza of Friendship (BEEEF)
Vlyadibragstok, Southeastern Severnaya Sector / just beyond Northwestern Lena Sector
Unreal Time / October-December 3400
Baron Vladimir floated past the Umerian delegation. Bereft of his disguise, his false face of Fats Smaller, he was now free to wander around by himself
as himself, done with the devil deals of his mysterious benefactors and no longer weighed down by the ID-spoofing pen. He was free, as free as a morbidly obese bird that flew on a suspensor-girdle, and in his freedom he watched from high above, much like a certain soaring eagle whose overpriced likeness Baron had bought from a plush store, and from his vantage point he saw the SCIENCE! the Umerians were performing. They sold their adorable PUPPERS, which the Bragulans bought. And ate.
Merchant Tianguomen in space junks also came to join the feast, while offering native Tianguonese delicacies like kimchi, sushi and dog. The Tianguomen presented a kabuki play with anti-gravity dragon dances, whilst singing in their strange atonal language and exploding phased plasma fireworks. At this, Baron couldn't help but laugh. He patted his paunch and floated over to one of the junks and bought some noodles.
Baron continued slurping his noodles while floating around in the BEEEF. He was a sloppy eater, his fat fingers too fat to handle the chopsticks properly, and so the noodles and soups would spill from their cup and fall on bystanders below.
"Tee-hee!" Baron giggled as he discarded his noodle cup, which landed on some Chamarran's head. The catgirl went "Nyah!" as the noodles and soups slid down her bosom and Baron giggled some more.
He floated away now, using his earnings from his latest job to sample the most exquisite tastes in the BEEEF. There were Ascendancy Franco-Formic cheeses and aphid-wines,
fromage vintage and refined into a cultured state unlike any other in the galaxy. There were vials of distilled Shinran lifestreams, discreetly sold by Klavostani caravan traders. Baron even managed to take a whiff of an Anglian snuffbox, filled with the opiods they once drugged Tianguomen with before the Boxxy Revolution. Dominion bourbon, Miratian shitbat guano, and Solarian Kasanarium - in a haze of decadent pleasure, Baron Vladimir navigated all human and inhuman hedonisms with the mastery of one so intimately familiar with the rewards of the high life. They were like an irresistible spice, vital to life, vital to the very circumnavigation of the cosmos, expanding his consciousness with each and every inhalation.
In a blue-eyed stupor, Baron Vladimir touched down groggily on terra firma, in such a state that he couldn't even navigate properly, unable to tell up from down, left from right, and such. He staggered, the suspensor-girdle of his making the ripples of his fats take on a strange weightless fashion. He wandered blindly to a rather disreputable-looking corridor within the BEEEF bunker building. For a moment, he feared, for hushed rumors had gone around that Fenrisian bears lurked in the hidden accessways to eat any unwary wanderer. But in his stupor, Baron forgot this. In the seclusion of the corridor, he planned to purge all that which he had consumed.
Too much... too much... the thoughts ran in his head. He bent down and prepared to heave, but he noticed something. Shoes. Rather shoddy shoes. He stopped, not wanting to puke all over someone's shoes, no matter how shoddy, for that would be impolite. He looked up, preparing to apologize himself, when he saw...
"Hunter S. Thompson!" Baron exclaimed as recognition flashed in his addled-brain.
"You got it the other way around," Thompson S. Hunter corrected. "But yes, it is I."
It was he, the famed gonzo journalist of the PuffHo. The Puffington Host. His feared and loathed exploits of chemically-enhanced journalism were known widely ever since the time he had gotten high from the venom of the puffer fish that was the mascot of the PuffHo publication that swam in the aquarium of the company's founder and, in a literal cerebrovascular stroke of neurotoxic inspiration, wrote a series of articles that won him the Putzlitzer Price.
Baron bowed again, perhaps in reverence, but more likely because nausea had again overcame him. He vomited on Thompson S. Hunter's cheap shoes.
"You look like shit, man," said Thompson S. Hunter. Not minding the mess Baron had made, the gonzo journalist merely patted Baron's shoulders and helped him up. "But I know what'll clear that up, man."
"Yeah?" Baron asked feebly. He felt horrible. Didn't the doctorb say not to mix his heart meds with alcohol? Or was it grape juice? Wasn't wine made from grapes? Did the Franco-Formics even
have grapes up their anthills? And who was Barry, and why was he on that hill?
"It's a diminutive name made by those goddamn cryptofascist fucks to mock their goddamn political rival while they pat themselves on the back like a bunch of self-congratulatory shits and fantasize about hanging him or some other crap," Thompson S. Hunter laughed, and Baron realized that he had said that last bit about the anthill out loud. "Fuck 'em, fuck this bullshit, you know. Here, have some of this! This'll make you feel real good!"
Thompson S. Hunter gave him a huge needle, which was connected to an IV tube, which was...
...connected to a goddamn
gauntlinglisk. The Karlack bioform yawned lazily and wagged its tail, disturbing a bunch of empty Spurm cans on the floor and a whole pile of used stogies.
Was that grass? Was the gauntlinglisk stoned?!
"Come on, try it!" Thompson S. Hunter urged. Before Baron could say anything, the gonzo journalist stabbed the huge needle into his arm.
Baron screamed a silent scream, face contorted into a mask of pain as dark-green Karlack blood started flowing down the IV tube, into his veins. He felt the burning sensation course up his arm and spread throughout his body, as though someone had infused battery acid into his circulatory system. His vision blurred, his eyes crossed, he peed himself and keeled over, collapsing into the floor.
"Ah yeah, that's the stuff." Thompson S. Hunter grinned.
***
Baron Vladimir woke up with a throbbing headache. His heart pounded against the walls of his chest cavity, he clutched his chest and wheezed, as though stricken by a heart attack. His vision blurred, his blood pressure so high that the capillaries in his eyes threatened to burst and detach his retinas. He jerked upright, spasming, before collapsing back on to the floor - littered with emptied Spurm cans and burnt up stogies. He laid there for a moment, motionless, and gradually his heart slowed down - nearly to a standstill - and slowly he got back up to his feet. Even with his suspensor-girdle, getting back upright was a difficult feat for someone as fat and as unhealthy as him.
As he regained his senses, his balance and orientation, he prepared to place his girdle in full power, which would allow him to float back to his room. But before he could, he felt a burning sensation on his left shoulder. It was an itch, a horrible and uncontrollable itch. He scratched it, his nails long and crusted with dirt inside. He clawed at his own flesh, ripping the fabric of his garments to scratch the pustulating sore beneath it. He tore his sleeve off and saw what was the source of that horrible itch.
It was an eye. A terrible, unblinking eye. The very flesh of his arm seemed to convulse as another pustule formed. It popped like a zit, and from that bloody mess came
another eye. Then came another lesion, which ripped open, splitting apart to form a... a mouth. It was a face. It was a
fucking face.
It spoke. It
fucking spoke.
"EVOLUTION COMPLETE!"
Baron screamed. He
fucking screamed.
"EEEEEEYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHH!!!!!"
***
Baron Vladimir floated to the nearest med station, which was staffed by none other than a doctor who was also a lawyer
and a bear. The Bragulan had studied detailed both files on human anatomy and interstellar law, so he could master the legality of dissecting humans.
"Da," the doctor said as he examined the mutating envisaged tumor growing out of Baron's side. It was mutating at a geometric rate and now the face had swollen up into a full sized head. Within hours, the tumor would develop its own torso and limb systems and, most probably, use mitosis to split itself off from Baron Vladimir's body. If they didn't act soon, there would be one more (mutated and Karlack-infested) human in the universe, something both Bragulan medicine and Bragulan law could never allow. The Bragulan knew this for he was both a doctor and a bear. "This tumor not normal."
"What was your first clue?!" Baron shrieked. It was eerie, as the tumor-head growing out of him mimicked his speech in a grotesque echoing effect.
"First clue was nanomachines in your bloodstream, causing reaction, did. Normal transfusion of Karlack blood not causing such severe mutations, nanites must have catalyzed Karlack endospores, da," the doctor said, more to himself than anything.
"What can we do?" Baron weeped. His other head giggled evilly and went, "Hee-hee-hee!"
"We must operate immediately. I will prescribe broad spectrum antibiotics, prophylactics to prevent further infesterization. Broad spectrum antibiotics will include gamma and x-ray spectrums too."
"What the fuck kind of antibiotics are those?!" Baron sputtered.
"The Bragulan kind," the doctor replied plainly. "They combine pharmacological means with radiotherapeutic means. Speaking of which, you must also undergo vegemite therapy."
"Vegemite therapy?!" Baron
fucking sputtered. He knew what vegemite was. He knew the Brags used it for all sorts of things, for their nukes, for their K-bolts, for their armor, for ruining entire ecosystems. He knew what it could do. But he had no idea that it had
medicinal purposes. He repeated himself, not needing his second tumor-head to echo him. "Vegemite therapy?!"
"Da!" doctor nodded. "Now we begin operation. Administering anesthetic."
The Bragulan doctor pulled out a beating stick and clubbed Baron with it, knocking him out cold. Upon stick-impact, a hollow hypodermic spike on the tip of the beating stick injected a concentrated dose of anesthesia into Baron's system. The doctor worked feverishly with his surgical team. The operation was transmitted live via telescreen to the entirety of the BEEEF, with multi-lingual subliminal-laced commentary, in a great advertisement of Bragulan medical prowess.
A nurse wiped the Bragulan doctor's sweating snout with a sponge while he administered the medical vegemite. It was injected via drill into the core of the tumor-head, and the growing metastatic monstrosity howled as the spike punched through his face and delivered the dose. The vegemite quickly reacted with the infested tissue, growing and spreading and consuming the organic matter - transmuting it into more vegemite and, thus, killing the tumor from inside out. Much like how cancer killed by replacing useful cells with malignant neoplastic ones, the vegemite replaced malignant neoplastic cells by crystallizing them into hazardous radioactive materials.
The tumor was nonetheless growing. As the vegemite consumed the tumor's head and face, it continued to grow, spawning a torso and then a limbic system. Somehow, someway, it was absorbing Baron's copious amounts of fatty tissues to generate a new being in a grotesque over-sized version of cellular mitosis. To save Baron Vladimir, the Bragulan doctor had to work fast, injecting more and more vegemite into each and every into each new tumor growth.
The surgerization ended and gradually Baron recovered from the anesthesia with a huge bruise on his head. He woke up and turned to the side of his bed, where he thought he saw himself...
No! The vegemite therapy had gone horribly wrong!
"Da! The vegemite therapy has gone perfectly right!" declared the doctor bear. He pointed at the partially-crystallized carcass on the bed beside Baron's bed. "That was the tumor, it absorbed your fats - which were so many - and grew very large, almost turning into its own person and almost separating from your body. But we killed it with vegemite!"
"But what about me? How do I know I don't have any vegemite in my body, or Karlack shit for that matter?" Baron asked.
"Da, we used hypersonics and radiothermal fields to contain vegemite into the infesterized tumor areas. As for Karlack shit, we prescribe broad spectrum antibiotics. You keep taking gamma and x-ray pills for two weeks to be safe, da?" the doctor handed him a heavy lead bottle full of glowing pills. "And do not be skipping prescription like stupid human, or else infesterized you will be and then only vegemite therapy you getting is K-bolt to face, both of them!"
"Da!" Baron said, shaking the doctor lawyer bear's paw profusely. "Thank you for saving my life, doctor!"
"Nyet, it is no problem!" the doctor said dismissively. "And it was not to save your life, but to end his," he pointed at the partially-crystallized corpse. "Call it retroactive abortion, da. In Bragule, you always have right to choice!"
Orderlies hauled the crystal carcass into a lead-lined coffin.
"Now, I discharge you from hospital and you can keep dead vegemite-man as souvenir of your time, da?" the doctor smiled. "And we not charging you for the vegemite used to kill your mutant tumor for there is universal deathcare in Bragule."
Baron Vladimir considered this, and the profits he would rake in from selling that large a hunk of vegemite.
"Da!" Baron replied. He felt healthy again, but more importantly he felt that he was going to be rich! Healthy, wealthy and none the wiser! He took his suspensor girdle and floated triumphantly into the air.