Attack of the Dancing Nickels...OR...How Dr. Carleton Saved The Internet
by Krystyn Poe
Marion Jester looked up from her outdated Time magazine for the fifth time that minute, the clock mocking her impatience by moving it's second hand with agonizing slowness. She sighed and shifted in her uncomfortable seat once again, wishing she didn't have to be in the waiting room. She glanced down at the magazine again with disgust and threw it back on the coffee table, looking over at the children's toys instead. She wondered why the hell she of all people had to wait in a dentist's office and play nice normal person once again. She didn't like pretending to be a normal part of society, which is why she was much more comfortable wearing an official FBI jacket and speaking into a walkie-talkie. At least that way they wouldn't treat her like just another person on the street to be knocked over, instead they'd look at her with some form of respect, or suspicion, or worry, and she would thrive under it. However, waiting while undercover didn't give her any of those perks. She readjusted herself uncomfortably and looked up at the clock again. 5:54, it read. Six more minutes. Just six more minutes and she would be free to go. She shifted again in her chair, picked up another outdated magazine, and settled in for the long haul.
The figure stood tall in his dark cloak as the wind parted ways for him. Nothing dared touch his cloak as he walked the alleyways of the city. Rats scurried by, cats knocked over trashcans, dogs howled, men drove up to corners and left with scantly dressed women in the backseat. It wasn't the best part of town, but at least it was home…a place where people knew to leave him alone.
He walked over to his cardboard and chicken wire haven and set down his heavy leather bag, which chimed as it hit the concrete. He took out a wooden goblet, a perfume bottle of a clear liquid (presumably water), a vial of a deep blue liquid that seemed almost oily, a matchbox, a chicken bone, and a small red velvet bag full of happy shiny nickels.
He set the goblet upon a table and kneeled before it, chanting in a dead language long gone the ways of his ancestors. He struck a match and watched it burn with detached fascination as the fire spirit danced under his control. Just before it reached his callused fingertips, he held the chicken bone over it. The flame suddenly grew to consume the bone whole, like a sacrifice to the fire goddess, and then disappeared completely, leaving ashes. He put the ashes to the side of the goblet, took out the perfume bottle and filled the goblet with consecrated water, blessed it again, and then added the blue liquid. Steam arose from the cup as he added it drop by drop, still chanting the old incantation. When the vial was empty, he sprinkled the ashes down on it and blue flames burst from the cup. They died down, leaving a cool undying fire in the goblet. He took the nickels and bathed them in the fire, then placed them back in the red velvet bag. He blew out the fire in the goblet, put it in his coat, and walked away.
Marion handcuffed the man in the dentist's office and let the local police take him away. Now all she had to do was go home and write a long report telling about her hours of research, the lack of backup, and the long minutes of waiting. She really hated that part of her job; it was just so dull and annoying. She couldn't honestly see how anyone would want to be cooped up in a house typing away on a computer for hours on end. Creative writing was one thing, but FBI reports were another entirely. She smirked to herself; if X-Files were real they'd be well worth the paperwork. Heck, even the paperwork would be interesting, because reality and fiction would seem to meld…but there were no X-Files. At least it made an interesting show, and besides, no female could deny that David Duchovny was pretty cute.
She walked outside, glad to get out of the waiting room, and was about to drive home when her cell phone vibrated. Rolling her eyes, she opened it and spoke into the receiver.
"Jester," she said monotonically.
"Hey, Marion, we've got a call from a lab downtown saying something's wrecking havoc there, could you check it out?"
Marion groaned. "Can't someone else do it? I already have one report due tomorrow, I don't need to be up all night with two."
She could see her partner scolding her from the other end and sighed. He started to say something, but she cut him off. "Fine, I'll go see what it is, when are you going to get there?"
"I'm in Minnesota, remember? But I'm on the first flight out, this is big…and pretty damn weird, from the reports."
Marion got into her car and started to back out of her space. "Mind telling me where I'm going?"
"Ranoparia University, the…" he paused, as if looking something up, "Sheani Labs. Fourth floor to the left in the eastern building. They've closed off the area, but no one's really sure what's going on."
Marion took a left and started towards the University. "Well, what do the reports say?"
"You're not going to believe this. It's like something straight out of the Twilight Zone, or the X-Files, or Twin Peaks, or one of those weird sci-fi shows."
"Would you just tell me already? It's not like delaying getting the information to me is helping build suspense or anything."
"Sorry. From all the reports it looks like dancing silver versions of Thomas Jefferson's head are attacking the lab."
Marion almost missed the stoplight and jammed on her breaks. "What did you just say?!" She exclaimed
"Dancing silver versions of Thomas Jefferson's head are attacking the lab."
"You mean dancing nickels are attacking a Ranoparia University lab?" She asked, extreme skepticism seeping into her voice.
"Well…yeah."
"Okay, what crackpot called this in and who's the idiot that actually went to investigate a claim like that?"
"Some doctor guy named Carleton called it in, since he runs the lab, and Agent Carter followed up on it."
Marion sighed. "Go figure. Well, I'll stop by and see what's really going on. Have a nice flight." She clicked the off button on her phone and drove up the crime scene taped area around the lab.
Dr. Carleton was locked in a part of his lab. He had been the only person working in the lab considering it was after six o'clock on a Saturday and most people just came in Monday through Friday, like normal people should. Dr. Carleton, however, had too much work to do to skip going on Saturday, which had become routine. Normally he'd go home for the afternoon, but since he had a trip early the next morning, he figured he should stay and see if he could get through his myriad of emails…which he of course failed to do because they always kept flooding in.
He figured that his pain medication (for a swollen finger that had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere and couldn't be diagnosed by any doctor in town...losers) combined with staring at a computer screen for too long had made him delirious when he first saw the shiny object baring its fangs at him…but after it bit his ankle he sang a different tune. Before he knew it he was surrounded by a group of dancing silver Jefferson heads trying to get a bite of him. He ran down to the part of his lab with the really cool scanner and computers that had been rebuilt too-many-times-over and locked the door, keeping them out…for now. They were still swarming the outside of the door and he didn't know what to do. That's why he had called the police, and when they figured he was a crackpot he called the FBI, remembering his eldest daughter's fascination with the X-Files…and hoping there would be at least one crazy agent willing to listen to him. Fortunately, there was, and when they came to investigate…well…they were swarmed and chased out of the lab screaming like babies with ripped clothing and the like.
And so he was trapped. If he could get a sample nickel, he might be able to find some sort chemical that would deactivate whatever genes were making them active. After all, he was the best darn geneticist in the state, if not the country, heck, maybe even the world…but probably not. He stuck to the state, figuring he could give himself at least that little ego boost.
Suddenly, he heard the nickels frenzy again. He looked out through the window on the door and saw someone in a large protective suit enter the area and shoot some sort of gas into the room that made the nickels fall to the ground. The person grabbed one and then exited the area. After a moment, the doctor heard something pop behind him and clatter to the ground. He turned around to find a lady in a FBI jacket jumping down from the ventilation shaft. He wondered vaguely why he hadn't thought of that himself, but found himself crawling through ventilation pipes before he could think about it too much. As he was about to exit, his lab coat caught on the metal and ripped. He groaned.
"Great, there goes my last one," he sighed, holding the ripped part in his hands.
The FBI woman brushed herself off and just looked at him for a moment, expecting to be thanked. When he didn't seem to notice her, she just rolled her eyes and asked impatiently, "Well, can you explain what's going on here?"
Dr. Carleton thought for a moment. "I don't think so…but maybe…could you tell me what day today is?" He asked, a thought striking him.
She looked at him as if he was crazy. "Today is April 1st, where have you been?"
"Cooped up here working all day, but that's beside the point. I have a feeling that these nickels are just a cruel joke being played on me by my insane older brother. You see, he used to be a neurosurgeon in South Carolina, but the fact they had to live there drove his wife so insane that she moved away to Washington for the summer, leaving him all alone. Being alone in the heat with that kind of stress, well, it kind of made him go crazy. He left his profession and started a new life as a wandering street mystic. Seems like the kind of thing he could've done," the doctor rambled.
The agent viewed the doctor warily. "If that's what happened to your brother, what does that say about you?"
The doctor smiled. "Oh, don't worry. At least I set reasonable goals and all. Why, I even only missed my goal of getting tenure by forty by three months!"
The agent rolled her eyes. "Whatever." She handed him the sleeping nickel. "Here's your sample, find a way to stop those nickels!" She shook her head. "I can't believe I just said that…"
Suddenly, her cell phone vibrated. She answered it quickly. "Jester." Her eyes widened as she listened to whoever was on the other line. "I'll see what I can do," she said and pushed the off button, dropping the phone back into her jacket. The grabbed the doctor by the arm and started to pull him out the door.
"What's going on? Who was that?" The Dr. Carleton asked curiously.
"The nickels have escaped the lab. They called the FBI and told us if we don't turn control of South Carolina over to them, they're going to eat all of the vice president's mashed potatoes."
"And that matters because…?"
"Because the follow up threat was that they'd become the Bill Gates of the Internet."
"How the heck would they do that?"
"Do you have any idea how many hits the dancing hamster page gets per day? Add subliminal messaging…"
"Okay, okay, I get the point."
"So, any thoughts on how to stop them?" She asked.
"Actually, yes. Would you happen to have any dental floss on you?"
She gave him another strange look. "Umm…actually, yes, I do." She handed the little spool of dental floss over to him. And he sat down on the floor, prying Jefferson's mouth open on the nickel. She shook her head. "This is too weird…"
Dr. Carleton then proceeded to floss Jefferson's teeth. The dancing nickel jumped to alertness, did the macarena, and then promptly keeled over and died, returning to its normal state.
"My brother always hated flossing as a kid," Dr. Carleton stated.
Agent Jester held her head in her hand. "So all we need to do is floss the teeth on all these things and they're go back to normal?"
Dr. Carleton nodded. "That's essentially exactly what we have to do."
"Oy vey. Let's get going then."
After stopping at the Glide factory to pick up more dental floss, the dynamic duo sped all the way to Silicon Valley, where Dr. Carleton had determined the dancing nickel hoard would flee to. Sure enough, Silicon Valley was under siege by the dancing nickels…and what a site to see it was. People were running here, there, and everywhere carrying miscellaneous computer parts, jumping into cars, and driving off into the desert to escape the hoards of mutant nickels that nipped at their heals. Marion quickly went into action, spraying more tranquilizer gas over the area, and then she and Dr. Carleton got to work flossing Jefferson's teeth over and over again until there was a pile of shiny nickels melting under the hot Nevada sun. They divided the nickels amongst themselves and then drove back to civilization to be commended by the Vice President for saving his mashed potatoes.
Marion Jester went on to become an assistant director at the FBI. She got the "privilege" of dealing with a tall, lanky man with brown hair and a willingness to believe and his short, red headed, skeptical partner. Under her supervision they become the most unorthodox, but successful, team the FBI had to offer. Even after she retired, the dancing nickel case was still her favorite to talk about, though.
Dr. Carleton's brother remained psychotic for the rest of his years, but did manage to foresee the end of the world as we know it in 2068…although we have yet to see exactly how accurate that prediction is. Needless to say, after the nickel incident, none of us can be so sure.
As for Dr. Carleton himself, he remained a workaholic even after receiving enough award money for saving the Internet from the dancing nickels to keep him living comfortably and send his children to college. However, even though he totally overworked himself, he always seemed to find the time to come home and spend time with his family, earning the title of "best dad" from his three adoring children.
As for the moral of this tale…well, one, only Father's Day could prompt a creation such as this and two…flossing really is important, despite what I may think.
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