OK, well, I got the idea in my head, and it wouldn't go away, so here's the rest of "A Christmas Carl" as I imagined it. Anyone who has a better plotline or suggestions for improvement is of course welcome to speak up. :-) BTW, some of my personal feelings about this whole business have certainly found their way in here. For those who might be offended by some of these opinions, I apologize now. OK, that aside, have a ball! - - - A CHRISTMAS CARL by Charles Dikkens (the well known Dutch author) Part II translated by Larry Mann - - - THE STORY SO FAR: Carl Macek, ruler of Streamline Pictures and the man responsible for many a poor English dub of popular anime shows, is visited by the ghost of his partner Jerry Beck, who was hanged by a crowd of anime fans who had watched Streamline's horrible dub of Silent Mobius. Jerry wears a chain, each link of which is embossed with the name of an anime (one of which happens to be Bubblegum Crisis) that Streamline has done or will do. He warns Carl that he should change his ways or be likewise burdened with all the lousy dubs Streamline is destined to do. At the prospect of getting dubbing rights to BGC, however, Carl pays little attention to Jerry's words. Later that night, he is visited by Rick Hunter and Minmei, who are acting as the Ghosts of Christmas Past. Carl is taken back to his childhood days, when he watched Speed Racer, then to the 1980s, when ROBOTECH was released. Then the bad memories trickle in as Carl is shown sacrificing some value points to make "Robotech: The Movie", and is then seen blowing off all the anime fans at Anime Expo '92 in San Jose. Carl wakes up in his room afterwards, and goes to get a glass of water. When he comes back, there are two young ladies waiting for him... --------------------------------------------------------------------- --- PART II ------- "Oh my God, the Dirty P--", and that was as far as Carl got, because he had to duck to avoid a shot from Kei's pistol which burned a hole in the bathroom door frame. Next thing he knew the gun was pointing right in his face, and behind it was a redhead with one of the most evil expressions he'd ever seen. "Give me an excuse!" Kei snarled, even as Yuri was trying to wrestle the gun out of her hands. "Calm down, Kei! We're not here to kill him, for crying out loud!" Yuri said as she finally got hold of Kei's gun. Kei glared first at Yuri, then at Carl. Carl managed as nice a smile as he could. Most of the water he'd drunk a moment ago was already pouring out of his forehead at high speed. "The code name is *Lovely Angels*, Mr. Macek," Yuri said, not without malice, as she returned Kei's gun to its rightful owner. "And we'd appreciate it if you not use that other label." "But that's the name of your whole series--" Carl started to protest, and quickly shut up as he was confronted by two menacing glares. It was pretty obvious who was in control right now. "Don't push your luck," Kei growled warningly. "Y-ye-yes, ma'am," Carl stammered. This was probably the first time he'd been consciously aware that someone within pointblank range wanted to beat the living shit out of him. And they were pretty girls, no less. Talk about a new experience. "Anyway," Yuri continued. "We're here as the Ghosts of Christmas Present." "Yeah," Kei added. "We're gonna show you what's really happening in the world of anime." "I *know* what's happening in the world!" Carl argued. "I just got the rights to the original Gundam series nailed down, Streamline dubs are selling like hotcakes, and as a matter of fact, I plan on bringing *your* story--" Kei angrily cut him off. "Cut the crap, Macek! We're not interested in what you *plan* to do. You shouldn't *plan* on doing anything until you see what we have to show you!" "I told you I *know* what's going--" "NO YOU DON'T!!" both girls hollered as they seized him by the wrists and dragged him toward the _Lovely Angel_, parked outside Carl's bedroom window... "No need to be rough, ladies," Carl said meekly as the _Lovely Angel_ neared its first destination. "I would've come along." "Mm-hmm. Yeah, right," Kei quipped as Yuri set the _Angel_ down on the roof of a parking structure next to Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. Carl was escorted off the ship, Yuri leading the way and Kei making sure Carl didn't make any sudden moves. They passed through a wall or two and found themselves at the Pony Toy-Go- Round in the Los Angeles Yaohan Market, where a good-sized selection of anime merchandise was being offered. A whole shelf was devoted to Streamline videotapes, neatly arranged, offering almost every dub Streamline had done up to this point. "Heh," Carl said, smiling. "The first five Nadia tapes, Vampire Hunter D, the entire Zillion series... gotta remember to send this place a picture or two of me!" "Somehow, I don't think they'd be interested," Yuri said. "Watch." A young man with long black hair and glasses, and a girl about the same age, walked up to the shelf. The guy took one look at the arrangement of videotapes and his face quickly wrinkled up into a grimace of disgust. "God," he said. "Please tell me AnimEigo is here, too." He darted around to the other side of the shelf, emitting a deep sigh of relief at whatever he saw over there. "What's the matter?" the girl said as she picked up the first Nadia video. "This looks like a neat story to me." Carl smiled, happy that his products were appealing to the mass audience. "Oh yeah, it's a *damn* good story," the guy answered. "But not this version of it." Carl's smile disappeared; this four-eyed jerk was clearly an anime fan. "Don't listen to him," Carl whispered in the girl's ear. "He's a purist." "She can't hear you," Yuri said. Kei just shook her head as if to say "That tape you're holding there," the guy continued. "There's a big opening narration in the front. It's *supposed* to be narrated by a female voice. So what happens? Ol' Anti-Christ Macek *himself* gets on there and does the translation." Carl bristled as the guy kept talking. "Hell, he didn't even bother to wipe out the old vocal, which made it that much cheesier." "That vocal was on a different track on the LD!" Carl shouted. "I didn't have a choice!!" The Angels just looked at him as if to say And of course the two young people heard none of his rantings. "'Anti-Christ'?" the girl said, a little taken aback. "That's pretty strong, don't you think?" "Hardly," the guy answered. "Anybody who gets into anime just to make a bunch of bucks screwing other people over is an Anti-Christ in my book. All the guy knows how to do is fuck around with scripts." Provoked to violence, Carl tried to throw a punch at the guy, but his hand passed right through him, and Carl was sent spinning off balance through the shelf. On the other side of the shelf he was confronted by a collection of Robert Woodhead's subtitled offerings. The lines of tapes had several gaps in them, as though many copies of the tapes had been sold. In fact the young man was holding a copy of "BGC 8: Scoop Chase". It was obvious what was actually being bought in this store. "He's really that bad?" the girl asked. "Yeah," the young man spoke gravely. "And I know about two thousand people at Anime Expo '92 who'd agree with me. He blew us all off like we weren't important, and he doesn't give a damn about translating this stuff faithfully, like Bob Woodhead does. He's going to blow the Nadia series to hell just like he screwed up Zillion and Sazan Eyes." The man's shoulders began to tremble: "God, I thought Carl had done his worst, but when that stupid bitch Reba West did Pai's voice--" The insults had gone too far for Carl. All his carefully thought out projects intended for the mass market were being ripped apart by some four-eyed nobody anime purist nerd. "SHUT UP, YOU FOUR-EYED LOSER!" he roared as he tried to sail into the guy once more. But again his hand passed through its target and he went sailing out of control until finally he did hit something solid. Unfortunately it was the center of Kei's chest. Kei seized the collar of Carl's pajama tops and hauled him up to eye level. "He's right, you know," she snarled at him, and it seemed her eyes were on fire. "There's a lot more fans out there than you might think, and they're gonna tell the mass culture what you're doing to the shows." "Didn't some guy named Orwell write about something like this?" Yuri wondered aloud. "No! No way!" Carl shouted as he shook himself loose. "I'm not letting a bunch of purists who don't know a damn thing about business tell *me* how I should run my operation. I want my stuff to sell, and I'll do what I have to to make it sell!!" Faux pas. Carl wondered if maybe he'd just said something wrong, but he never had time to contemplate further, as one Angel seized each of his arms and dragged him back toward their ship. "You want to sell, do you?" said Kei. "Fine! Lemme show you what happens when you 'sell'!" The _Angel_ arrived at a movie theater, where a large marquee proclaimed: SILENT MOBIUS. The Angels roughly escorted Carl into the theater and planted him down in an empty seat near the center of the theater, then turned to leave. "Where are you going?!" Carl demanded. "Shut up and sit tight!" Yuri snapped. "Just watch!" The movie was already in progress. Carl recalled that the original movie had had some bad points to it. All of a sudden, though, the entire thing seemed so hackneyed. This was a film meant for adults, he knew. But no adult in their right mind would have the patience to listen to *this* kind of dialogue. He wondered if maybe he'd kept too much emphasis on the idea of cartoons being for kids when he'd done his work. There was an almost visible air of hostility about. Several young male anime fans were watching the screen and grumbling something along the lines of: "And I thought even *he* couldn't make this worse." Carl knew who "he" was, and he suddenly felt very small and very afraid. Glancing around, he suddenly noticed a familiar face: Jerry! He was sitting next to Jerry Beck! Jerry was staring nervously up at the screen, sweating, mumbling to himself: "This is bad, Carl... this is really bad..." Just then some music completely inappropriate to the movie's dialogue (such as it was) could be heard. Several people groaned loudly, and then someone stood up and yelled: "I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!! MACEK, WHY THE *HELL* CAN'T YOU DO ANYTHING RIGHT?!?!" Several loud yells of agreement could be heard. Jerry was visibly nervous now, and Carl whispered to him: "I think we better get out of here, Jerry, old pal." He tried to move but found his hands had been locked to the chair by shackles. Jerry seemed to heed his warning, though, because he edged out of his seat and began moving slowly toward the exit. "HEY! THAT'S JERRY BECK!!" Hundreds of pairs of eyes immediately locked on Jerry, now sweating bullets, paralyzed with fear. "Run, Jerry!! RUN!!" Carl yelled, but it was too late. The entire group of anime fans had risen as one and engulfed Jerry. Chants such as "HANG THE BASTARD!" and "DEATH TO STREAMLINE!!" could be heard. Above the mass of flailing hands and yelling voices, Carl could see the beginnings of a chain of Twizzlers being formed. "No! NO!!!" he screamed, but he was helpless, chained to his chair. The rope of red licorice was thrown over an unseen ceiling rafter, lengthened further by theater employees more than happy to donate additional Twizzlers to the cause. Now the noose was clearly visible. "You bastards!!" Carl screamed. "STOP IT!! JERRRRRRYYYYYYYYY!!!" Suddenly the Angels appeared on either side of him. "Sad, isn't it?" said Kei. "How your friends have to take all this shit because you're more interested in a quick sale than an honest translation?" "You scum," Yuri hissed, her voice ripping through his head like acid through metal. Carl screamed... ...and snapped awake, panting heavily. "God," he said to himself. "This is turning out to be one lousy night." These were some really vivid dreams he was going through here, but they were only dreams. "Only a dream, only a dream," he said to himself over and over. He popped a Robotech: Perfect Collection CD into the player on his dresser, hoping Reba West's voice would relax him. "Life is only what we choose to make it... Let's just take it, let us be fr--" The CD stopped abruptly. Carl figured it had skipped and moved to restart it, when he realized the player was no longer on. In fact the power in the entire room had gone dead. And he became increasingly aware that somebody was in the room with him. Fighting back panic, he slowly turned towards the window, and saw a shadowy figure in a large hat and cloak there, on top of a cyborg horse. "You're Vampire Hunter D, aren't you?" The other did not reply. Just like D, that was for sure, so Carl figured it had to be him. "You're the Ghost of Christmas Future, aren't you?" D nodded ever so slightly, then motioned to the back of his horse. "Get on," he said in a low, soothing voice. Carl did. The horse swiftly turned and leaped out the window. The first thing Carl heard was somebody screaming: "WHAAAAT?!?!? NO! No, you have GOT to be kidding me!!" Carl turned to see someone talking into a portable phone outside a video store. "How could he have gotten the rights to the *whole* series??" In the back of his head Carl could sense the conversation was about him, so he asked D: "What series is he talking about?" "Dirty Pair," D answered. "With a little help from Studio Toren and Toren-Con '95 you managed to secure exclusive rights to the anime." The scene suddenly changed to a movie theater where hundreds of groaning people were exiting, many of them actually breaking down and crying. "How could he do this to Kei and Yuri?! It's not fair! It's NOT RIGHT!!" they bawled over and over. An NBC newscopter flew over the scene, and Carl could hear a newscaster recounting how similar scenes of mass hysteria had sprung up all across the country when Streamline Pictures had released Affair of Nolandia in English. It seemed the mass culture had become quite attached to the Angels. Suddenly Carl felt a strange feeling in his gut which it took him a long time to decipher. And once he had, he always thought he would never feel it. It was guilt. The scene shifted once again: they were standing in the middle of a fairly classy house. On a wide-screen HDTV, a familiar anime was playing. Carl recognized it as Ranma 1/2, but something was different: the characters were speaking English. "So Streamline *did* get the rights to Ranma 1/2?" Carl asked. D did not reply, only motioned for Carl to take a closer look at the middle-aged man sitting in front of the HDTV. Carl did, and gasped. It was the guy from the video store in Los Angeles, the one he'd called a four-eyed loser. He was older now, obviously, in his late twenties or so, Carl guessed. He also looked a lot more well- to-do than he had in the video store, having an air of power about him that Carl also enjoyed as ruler of a company. "Who is this?" Carl asked D. "An anime fan," D answered. "And also a writer. Anime was his inspiration to write the novel that put him on the bestseller list." "So why are you showing me this?" Carl asked. "Take a look at that," D said, motioning to the laptop the man was holding. Carl looked closely at the text on the screen. It was an article downloaded from Newsweek, an extremely biting critique of the Streamline dub of Ranma 1/2, which was now being played on the HDTV. The guy was visibly upset, and a moment later Carl heard why: Akane came onscreen and started speaking. It was Reba West's voice, too old -- and certainly much too feminine -- for the character. Even Carl could tell Reba was the wrong choice, but somehow the decision had been made anyway. "God, I couldn't have been *that* stupid, could I?" Carl said aloud. D made no comment, but motioned to an entry door which slid open with a rush of air. Through it rushed an extremely gorgeous young woman which Carl recognized as the girl from the video store. Carl thought. "Hey sweetheart," she called to the guy in front of the HDTV. "News from Japan! Rumiko read your article about what Streamline did to the series--" "*He* wrote that??" Carl said to himself in disbelief. "He's quite influential," D commented. "After your studio released the Affair of Nolandia, there were threats of mass suicides all across the country. This man wrote an article that prevented that from happening." The girl continued: "--and she's thinking about suing Streamline for damages." The guy smiled, cracking his knuckles. "Been a long time coming, honey. I'm only sorry it took this long to get through." "Hey, you worked hard all these years," she said, hugging him from behind. "You earned this. Rumiko wants to meet with you to discuss a tactical plan tomorrow." "Tomorrow? Boy, we'd better get moving!" He closed his laptop and the two hurried out of the room. Carl watched them go, nervously. Rumiko was extremely influential in the present. Carl couldn't begin to wonder how much power she must be holding now. He turned anxiously to D. "Okay, okay, so I obviously did a stupid thing," he said. "But I can change that, can't I? I mean, this *is* the future and everything, isn't it? It *can* be changed, right??" "Maybe," D sighed. "And maybe not. It's hard to tell in matters of this nature." "I... I've seen enough!" Carl chattered, his breathing starting to become shorter, more rapid. He jumped up onto D's horse. "I want out of here! Now!" D looked at him for a moment and shrugged, but instead of getting on the horse, he drew his sword and slapped the cyborg's rump firmly with the flat of the blade. The horse bucked wildly and threw Carl. There was a moment of intense vertigo, and Carl landed screaming on the ground. But it wasn't the ground of the house. It was a large outdoor meeting place. Carl got to his feet and saw that he was surrounded by huge throngs of people, mostly in their twenties and thirties. At a large podium stood a middle-aged, slightly overweight man brandishing a flamethrower and an M-16. Carl noticed that several others in the crowd had weapons as well. "My friends, my loyal comrades," the man shouted. "We've endured many a hardship over the years, many a bad dub. I myself thought that Nolandia was the bitter end for all of us, but we were shown by our good friends in high places that there was reason to continue our fight." "Who in the world is this?" Carl asked. "His name is Brian Bikowicz," answered D, who was right behind Carl now. Carl jumped in surprise. "Called 'Zoner' by his friends. He was one of the leading founders of the American Anime Movement in 1995." "We of the A.A.M. have fought long and hard for the sanctity of our sister nation's great works of art and literature," the man called Zoner continued. "Though up until now we were able to do precious little to keep the corruption of Streamline at arm's length. You know, my friends, how many cerebral and otherwise powerful stories were 'stupidified' at the hands of our deadly nemesis. But through it all we survived, and continued our protests." Carl shuddered. What had he done to make Streamline so hated? "But the most unkindest cut of all was made today, my dear friends," Zoner shouted, growing visibly enraged. "At nearly the same time Streamline released Ranma 1/2, with the accursed Reba West as Akane..." He paused as the audience groaned and cursed loudly, waiting for them to calm down again. "...I was informed that Streamline intends to carry through a hostile takeover of the AnimEigo Conglomerate, and convert all of its subtitling work into dubs!! Already I've heard rumors of BGC tapes being seized for dubbing!!" The crowd pulsed with gasps and shouts of disbelief. "NO!" someone finally shouted. "That's going too far!!!" "You are right, my friend!! The time for words and rhetoric is long past! Action is the only recourse now!" The audience cheered loudly. "My friends, I have been in touch with a close comrade on the international scene. He has spoken with Rumiko Takahashi herself, and she has agreed to advance $2 billion from her personal treasury towards a government effort to end the scourge of Streamline. We have been given governmental license to take whatever action is necessary, my comrades!!!" Again the crowd let out a loud roar of approval. "We're with you, Zoner!!" someone shouted. "Tell us what to do!!" "We must move quickly, my friends!!" Zoner shouted. "We must strike hard and fast at the heart of this plague, the source of Streamline's power: the demonspawn Carl Macek himself! The sheer force of our numbers will be more than enough for his pathetic security forces! The time has come for Streamline TO FALL!!!!" The cheering mob began to move as one, like a bloated mass of protoplasm, into the streets of the city, pushing aside anything that got in their way. Police vehicles and riot tanks joined them in their movement towards the Streamline Tower, a structure not unlike the GENOM Towers in Bubblegum Crisis. And above it all flew a cyborg horse carrying an impassive D, and a panicked Carl. "This is insane!!" Carl cried. "How can they just sit back and let these people do this?!?" "You just don't seem to realize how many enemies you made over the years," D said. Suddenly the horse dropped, straight toward the Streamline Tower. In a throne room which reminded Carl of the Emperor's chambers from Return of the Jedi, a man whose face was deeply wrinkled with age and untold stress sat, his entire body trembling. "Good Christ," Carl said with revulsion. D didn't have to tell him who he was looking at; he knew perfectly well. D was more menacing now; his eyes were glowing a sapphire blue and his fangs had appeared. "The people who wanted the faithful translations banded together as the years passed," D said as Carl watched the mass of people approaching the tower like an unrelenting blob, tearing up any security forces that got in their way. "More and more people began to realize that what you were doing was altering the original texts and scripts of the stories to convey a different meaning. In a sense, you were changing history. Japan became thoroughly dissatisfied and threatened to withdraw all its interests in America, at a time when Clintonomics depended heavily on Japanese participation in American business. But the faithful members of the nation banded together and convinced both countries that the majority was against this rewriting of history." Carl had sunk to the floor, looking almost as broken as the older version of himself who was slumped and shivering in the throne. "How could I have taken it so far?" It was more of a whimper than a question. "You tell me," D said, not without acidity. "It is you who created this existence, you who made all this happen. This is your future, Macek!! And now you must deal with it!!" With that, D leaped into the air and vanished, taking his cyborg horse with him. Carl tried to reach up and call out to him but he found he could not move. He was sitting in the throne, enfeebled from stress. It took a great deal of effort to turn his throne to face the entry door which was being violently pounded. A moment later it gave way and shattered inward. In the entryway, surrounded by the fire of torches, stood Bikowicz himself, with all his loyal followers. He unslung his M-16. "MACEK..." he hissed. Carl's sunken eyes widened, and his mouth quivered open in attempt to scream, but nothing would come out. Zoner levelled his M-16, Carl's wildly pounding heart coming into focus in the gunsight. There was a sound of thunder. "EEEEYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Carl screamed, and fairly launched out of his bed, his wildly flailing hand catching the dresser and sending all his Robotech CDs, as well as the big pile of 8x10 glossies, all over the floor. Then there was silence. Sweat was pouring off his body as he shakily got to his feet. He looked around him. This was his own room... and it was morning. "Wuh-wuh..." Carl stammered. Dear God, what a horrific night. Sheesh, if he kept having dreams like that, he'd never get any work done. The idea of "Robotech III: The Wrath of Khyron" began to creep into his mind again. Just then there came a knocking at the front door of his house. Carl rushed down and yanked the door open, and was startled by who he met. "J-Jerry???" "Hey, Carl! What's up? You all right? You look like you've been exercising or something." "Uh, wild dream," was all Carl managed to say. Jerry must've come back from the dead or something... wait a minute, what reason did he have to think Jerry was dead?? "Mm," Jerry said. "Well listen, Carl. The local Mann's Chinese is running our Silent Mobius dub tonight at 8PM. You wanna go?" Carl just stared at him for a minute. And then there would be no further conversation, because Carl passed out right then and there on the front doorstep. Jerry looked confusedly down at his prone form. "Carl?" he asked timidly. -- THE END -- ======================================================================== = ___ = = "Ooooh, I feel so... WWWA Terran Office, Irvine / | = = ...conceptual!!" "I will solve any / | = = - Yuri, DPII:2 problem for you." / | = =____________________________ / | = = Larry Mann | /| / | /| / | /| / /______| = = |__/ |__/ |__/ |__/ |__/ |__/ /-------| = = WWWA: Creative Consultant |_/ |_/ |_/ |_/ |_/ |_/ /________/ = ========================================================================