FROM: AgentOrange@osi.hr.gov
TO: OfficeofSpecialInvestigationsListServ@osi. gov
SUBJ: I’m in reptile hell, wish you were here! And a cheerful December 25 to you, too!
Our idiotic legislative branch has seen fit to direct federal Human Resources branches to “take measures this December to promote diversity through awareness of the cultural practices of diverse cultures practicing December sentiment.*”
Investigation has revealed that OSI agents culturally practice such diverse days as Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Pancha Ganapati, and the Winter Solstice Festival of The Arrival of The Dark Lord Xanthu*. If you are interested in learning about these festivals, get your ass to a library.
If you are reading this, your ass is not in a library because agency e-mail accounts are not for public use and because the consequences for violating operational security are swift, severe and sharp.
Because you do not have access to a library, allow me to enlighten you about the December beliefs of certain tribes of a certain kingdom** contained within Florida in an area that is caught between four nuclear power plants that make Chernobyl look appealing have deflated local property values. “Seminoles?” you ask.***
I’m speaking about a tribe virtually identical to Seminoles in every respect but a few: 1) scales 2) foot-long-teeth 3) a total absence of anything approaching culture or intelligence. We are, of course, speaking about the dwellers creatures of the Jurassic Arc. They are known by many names: manimals, crackodiles, mutated wastes of oxygen. As far as anyone can tell, their main purpose is to serve as the best argument against nuclear power.
Congress recently suggested that, “the government is undertaking a cultural excursion to the crocodiles of the ‘Jurassic Arc.’ Given the dearth of reptile-American federal employees, it is suggested that you partake of said excursion. It is noted that the Office of Special Investigation’s budgetary request is pending.”
The Jurassic Arc is a fine place to spend a hellish week experiencing the filthy bottom hygienic diversity of the reptile world. National Geographic recently described the radioactive weedarium marsh as “an epic opportunity to explore a self-contained biome that closely resembles the conditions of the late Jurassic.” That all is true, insofar as the late Jurassic had 1) reptiles so vilely repulsive that other species felt the need to flee from or attack them 2) mosquitoes the size of Seminoles (helicopters, not Indians) and 3) a conspicuous lack of deodorant.
Earlier today I met a moonsuited researcher-mammal from the Environmental Protection Agency. He was positively giddy about the “sociological value” of the find here. He asserts that some fraction of the creatures here have quasi-human intelligence. Either his nose is completely dysfunctional or, more likely, the DEA should investigate whatever he’s buying from the crackodiles.
Speaking of “sociological value,” I think that it would be worthwhile to document some conversations to prepare my legal defense.
ORANGE: Hello. I’m Agent Orange.
CRACKODILE 1: Oarings!
CRACKODILE 2: Awwings!
CRACKODILE 3: What’s a agent?
CRACKODILE 2: Aging!
CRACODILE 1: Eh-gint!
ORANGE: Sort of like a primordial lizard, except that I have a higher threshold to wanton slaughter and am much more effective at it.
CRACKODILE 3: What’s a threshold?
ORANGE: Getting lower by the moment.
The following conversation occurs after the three crackodiles have apparently stalked me in the wilderness to discover where I make camp each night.
ORANGE: …you woke me up.
CRACKODILE 1, 2: Hullo!
ORANGE: What are you doing here?
CRACKODILE 3: They wanted to know what your box does.
ORANGE: My computer? It’s a machine that protects my sanity by connecting me to intelligent life.
CRACKODILE 1: Compooder!
ORANGE: GAH! Slowly, put that down… or I will put you down.
CRACKODILE 2: Food!
ORANGE: NO!
ORANGE: …
ORANGE: I WILL END YOU!
Fortunately for the continuation of the crackodile species, the EPA agent happily surrendered offered his computer to me. On day four of our cultural excursion, the EPA man made the egregious mistake of bringing up Christmas. Crackodile 3 then attempted to demonstrate his tribe’s own religious gift-bringing ceremonies. The details are still unclear to me—and I hope they always will be—but the EPA agent woke up the next morning to find what is apparently the severed head of a leopluridon at his feet. The EPA agent attempted to explain to me that night that the ritual rearranging of the leopluridon’s brain tissue is meant to bring good luck.
Other Findings
- The next mammal to call me a “peer” of the crackodiles is going to have an unfortunate accident falling down the stairs. Onto a food processor.
- The next time someone wants religious diversity, they’re getting a decapitated leopluridon.
Tail-notes
*Mammals!
**NON-MAMMALS!
***Assuming you’re an idiot.
****BECAUSE CLAWS ARE SCARIER, DAMMIT.
Appendix
Here is a series of completely unrelated thoughts.
- I am on “an excursion to the [crackodiles] of the Jurassic Arc,” which suggests that my obligation is predicated on the presence of crackodiles.
- I laughed so hard during the scene in Aberration when the broad rigs her house to explode and then lures the crocodiles inside.
- The crackodiles live in something like a communal hut.
- Eglin Air Force Base is an hour’s flight away.
- Captain Crash can restation himself and his F-99 to EAFB at his leisure.
- EAFB has occasionally had issues with ordnance control. They really need to be more careful.
- Captain Crash’s F-99 holds three tons of bunker-busting explosives.
- The crackodiles have expressed an interest in flying mammals.
- Captain Crash is, in a matter of speaking, a flying mammal.
- If any crackodiles are alive by the time Congress allows me to escape, a flying mammal will be restationed to the Jurassic Arc.
