AGENT BUMBLER – A DEADLY GATHERING
Copyright 2023 Brent Alles / Just B Cuz ProductionsAGENT BUMBLER: A DEADLY GATHERING
The ballroom doors swung open, and tuxedo-clad CIA operative Robert Bumbler entered the room. He took in the scene, knowing this would be his toughest assignment yet. Here were the worst examples of humanity he had ever known. Threats could come at him from any direction. He had to be ready… for anything.
A brightly colored banner drooped from the ceiling: “WELCOME TO ROGERS HIGH SCHOOL – 20 YEAR REUNION!”
He saw a smiling face on top of a thickset body. “Bob? It’s me! Connie Kopinski? I can’t believe it!” she chirped. “You haven’t aged! Man, so many memories. Remember that time in gym when we played dodgeball? And you threw the ball extra hard at my face? I know back then you said I needed to toughen up even if I was a GIRL but after the plastic surgery I was able to forgive you and…”
“Bob” gently but firmly put his hand to Connie’s cheek and shoved her out of the way. He continued scanning the room. Even the CIA training in torture resistance couldn’t prepare him for having to listen to stories ranging from the former quarterback reveling about the “big game” to the former nerd reveling about the time she spelled “logorrhea” correctly in the Countywide Spelling Bee.
Then he saw… HER.
A dazzling red dress adhered to a near-perfect body that showed no sign of disrepair from the two decades passed. Her red hair shined in the light. She was still the woman of his dreams: Prunella Crankcase.
(OK. She couldn’t help what her parents named her, could she?)
He glided over to her, avoiding the mutants who wanted to know what he did these days (cover story: insurance salesperson) and other inane details (lifetime bachelor, his pet goldfish “Timmy,” etc.).
“Prunella,” Bob said. “It’s… been a while.”
“Bob,” she replied. “You’ve never left my mind.”
“Oh yeah?” He grinned. “Well… what say we blow this popsicle stand and head up to my room to… reconnect?”
She smiled. “I’d like nothing more.”
They’d barely made it to his hotel room before she attacked with a frenzy he couldn’t have expected. No more fumbling in the front seat of his 1998 Ford Focus. They had two decades of sexual longing to consummate.
The intense passion made it so Bumbler didn’t hear the slight crackle in Prunella’s in-ear transmitter that commanded: “Get him to stand… by the window.”
Prunella posed seductively on the bed. “Oh baby,” she purred. “Why don’t you go stand by the window… so I can see you in the moonlight?”
A compliant Bob struck his sexiest pose in front of the window. At that same moment, the sniper across the street was lining up his shot…
Bob exclaimed, “Hey, how about some music?” He punched up the “Best of the Early 2000’s Playlist” on his phone and selected the first (and best) song that came up: “Hey Baby (Uhh, Ahh)” by DJ Otzi. He began to dance.
The sheer volume of the song and the machinations of his mating dance totally distracted him as the sniper fired… and the bullet ricocheted off the bulletproof window.
(The hotel had played host to many rock bands over the years, many of whom liked to shoot out the windows in their drunken orgies of excess, and that had led to an expensive yet necessary remodeling of all the windows to bulletproof glass.)
“DAMMIT! BULLETPROOF GLASS!” hissed the transmitter. “No matter… Plan B!”
Prunella, unshaken from her years of training with the terrorist organization WRONG, beckoned. “Come on over here…”
Bob staggered over into a judo flip by Prunella, putting her on top… right where she wanted to be.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
Bob acquiesced.
Prunella caressed Bob and then pulled an ornate box from between the mattresses. She had bribed the bellhop earlier to gain access to the room and plant the box. She opened it to reveal Atrax robustus… a funnel-web spider. The large, brown, Australian arachnid crawled up Bob’s leg.
Bob giggled. “That tickles!”
“Shhh…” Prunella whispered. “I specialize in all forms… of pleasure…”
One spider bite would cause paralysis and death… just one bite…
Bob sprang from the bed and into the bathroom. “Hold on… just one minute!”
Bob’s bolting had sent the spider flying into the air. Panicked, Prunella searched in vain. Then, spider was found, falling off the lighting fixture over the bed and straight down into the back of her dress.
“AIEEEE!” Prunella shrieked. She writhed, trying to get the spider out.
Bob stared at her from the bathroom with a mouthful of toothpaste. (Proper dental hygiene… always important.) “Oh man… this woman is READY for ANYTHING!” he thought.
The spider bit Prunella, who screamed and collapsed on the bed.
Bob spit into the sink and emerged from the restroom. “OK, now I’m ready! Hey? You’re asleep? I guess I’ll wait until you wake up.”
He playfully swatted her on the backside, luckily hard enough to squash the spider that had moved down there after delivering its fatality.
“PRUNELLA? PRUNELLA?” hissed her earpiece. “DAMMIT! PLAN C!”
An iron-clad hand that belonged to the voice in the earpiece pressed a button and, downstairs in the ballroom, a signal activated… something.
After a few moments, Bob heard a knock. He opened the door and was shocked to see the squat form of Connie Kopinski, a blank look on her face. She was… Plan C.
“Connie, what the hell?” Bob shouted, stumbling back into the room. He noticed, for the first time, the crack in the bulletproof window.
Connie, now with a strength triggered by chemicals activated remotely by the WRONG implant in her body, ran and hurled herself at Bob. He stepped to the side as she plunged through the window. It may have been bulletproof, but it wasn’t Connie proof, as she fell to the ground with a sickening thud.
Bob, looking out where the window had been, shook his head.
“Sorry, Connie. You never were particularly good at dodgeball.”