A Fistful of Tannenbaum, Chapter 11: Plan Z

Editor's Note: Captured by the ruthless leader of Ostrich Professor von Hufnagel, our hero Jed Foster and his love interest, becoming increasingly less important by each chapter, ingeniously tricked the villain into discussing his plan by saying absolutely nothing at all and letting him fill in the silence. By the way, Daisy's last name is now Miller, don't ask how or why.

"It is a plan so devious," started the cruel Professor von Hufnagel, "so vile, and so downright nasty, that Fox is thinking of making it into a sitcom." The professor rolled up his sleeves and picked up a nearby microphone. "But I kid the Fox Network—good pals. My plan is devilishly evil, Jed Foster, make no doubt about that—and this time, I went through so many variations that I ran out of letters of the alphabet. It's actually Plan ZZWZ, but that's not as catchy."

"Just get on with it, you pompous gasbag," snapped Foster, remembering something he had been called at a book club meeting once.

"I would think you'd enjoy a chance to put off your imminent death," laughed von Hufnagel, who always laughed at inappropriate times, ever since his sister's funeral. "Very well… my plan.

"The corporate oligarchy has controlled the United States from the shadows for far, far too long! And I have developed the ultimate plan for bringing them to their knees!"

"Did you say that or me?" asked Foster, who shook off the déjà vu before continuing. "Listen, von Hufnagel… we've all had it up to our nuts with the invisible corporate conspirators who really run the country. That doesn't mean we can act out with a single devastating, revolutionary blow to regain control. Or maybe it does. What do you have in mind?"

"Nothing so altruistic, Foster," said von Hufnagel, who had just had "altruistic" on yesterday's word-a-day calendar page. "Our main objective at Ostrich is not to free the world from the stranglehold of corporate control, but merely substitute our own. We will be the new world order—and we will not operate from the shadows, but make bold declarations from the… what do you call that? The opposite of the shadows?"

"Porch light?" offered Foster.

"It'll have to do. Yes, Ostrich will usher in a new era of fascism, with me as the Rupert Murdoch at the helm—but again, I kid Fox. And the best part is, we will be using the nation's very own obscenely-large self-guided targeting bomb to ransom the reins of power over to us!" Insert three or four minutes of diabolical laughing in this part. "Well, what do you think?"

"I think there's been entirely too much exposition since you started talking," said Daisy, quite gruffly.

"Yeah? Well, you're stupid." von Hufnagel stepped onto a big-ass airplane stairway, leaving the plane, and gave an obscene hand gesture to signal the plane should take off. The engines roared to loudness. The evil, especially crabby leader of Ostrich turned to deliver his final insult to the his captors aboard the World's Biggest Plane.

"My one regret, besides that try-out audition for American Idol, is that you and your lovely associate won't be there to witness the new age of Utopia when I take over as its unchallenged chairman!"

But Jed and Daisy couldn't hear anything over the of the world's biggest four engines. They tried to tell him, but he couldn't hear them say anything either. So the plot-explaining chapter ended, as the world's biggest plane took off, with Jed and Daisy tied to the world's biggest bomb.


Next Chapter: Deadline

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