Heart of Twilight: An ARN&R Adventure (Part 1)
By Samantha Duggersly
FMB shifted slightly behind the cover of the bushes. The prickles of the northern Connecticut brambles, combined with weather as moist as your hand after you sneeze into it and you forgot a handkerchief, would have made an ordinary man whiny and uncomfortable. But FMB was a member of the elite AbsolutelyReliable Event Infiltration Unit, and members of the AbsolutelyReliable Event Infiltration Unit are immune to discomfort, even the discomfort provided by mildly lame British hotels. Peering into the fine crystal of his customized military-grade Swarovski 8x32 EL Binoculars, he noted the buffet going on 100 yards away in the picnic grove. The only things that made him nervous were having another member of his team in direct contact with the enemy and hot, skinny Asian chicks with deadly martial arts prowess. And, he reflected to himself with a smirk, there were certainly never any hot, skinny Asian chicks with deadly martial-arts prowess at American Coaster Enthusiast events. Which left only one worry: how was MEC doing down there with those ACE members, damn it?
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A veteran of 34 enthusiast event insertions, the suave MEC was a master of disguise. Though his unmade-up self was the visage of a handsome, middle-aged, distinguished Hispanic man with reading glasses and a thick mustache, MEC currently blended in perfectly with the ACE crowd. Nary an ACEr gave him a second glance as he moved among them in his red satin ACE jacket, shredded cargo pants, a Magnum t-shirt with bright yellow armpit stains and daubs of crusted-over spaghetti and gravy, black penny-loafers, and white socks. The pasty white makeup and bad toupee helped him blend in to the hostile crowd with even more ease. MEC was so good because he never lost his edge. By posing as a complete tool who would actually want photos of hideous ACE members ramming gristle down their esophagi, no one would be the wiser to his secret mission. Merrily he snapped away, his top-of-the-line 11-megapixel Canon 1D digital camera capturing terrifying images of ACE buffet horrors. It was all dangerous, but as routine as such things can be, and MEC was just escaping the event by setting off toward the far end of Boulderdash to pretend to take intricate photographs of the footers when things went wrong.
"My favorite suspended coaster is Ninja at Six Flags Magic Mountain, and I think the very first part of the airtime of Hill 7 just before Turn 8 on Excalibur makes it the best Hill Seven on any wood coaster built by CCI between 1997 and 1999," said a typical-looking idiot, pausing in his spiel to wipe a be-barbecued face on his Kick the Sky Raptor shirt.
"Yep," said MEC, checking for escape angles. This could get dangerous.
"Say, you know how Charles Dinn did the tracking on the Great Escape Comet? Don't you think its his best and most sexy work?"
"Oh yeah. Good stuff. Good times."
"Aha,"said the drooling moron. His eyes narrowed briefly, and then he sauntered off to push to the front of the ice cream line. MEC walked off nonchalantly, confident that all was well. But then....
Nervous, but showing no outward fear, MEC keyed his mic. "FMB, whats up?"
"Just watching the Shamu on Ice show," FMB replied. "Why are you breaking radio silence?"
"I'm sure its nothing...but do you remember who did the tracking on the Comet?"
"Hang on." The specialist sent a coded message to the AbsolutelyReliable Computer Task Force. After a brief delay, the message came back:
"Research team reports tracking done by Vlemincxx and Martin. Good luck-RAS."
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FMB stared at this, a trickle of sweat dribbling down his temple like the way sauerkraut plops down an ACE members pants and then trickles down everywhere else. RAS was the top researcher at the Computer Task Force, and this information was almost certain to be correct. And that meant...
"Fuck!" he whispered into the mic. "Fucking get the fucking goddamn shit out of there, motherfucker!" He saw MEC break into a run, just ahead of the coaster idiot, who was obviously a counter-spy, and eight or nine other enthusiasts. He had to act quickly or MEC was a dead man. Standing, he threw an armload of deep-fried Big Macs on sticks in one direction, then a Sams Club tub of mayonnaise in the other. Then he keyed the silent buzzer in his pants. It was going to be close, but hed just given MEC and himself a fighting chance against the herd of coaster fans.
To be continued
Heart of Twilight Part II
