It had been a long and incredibly stressful month for Mirage, having come extremely close to failure on more than one occasion. When Dr. Heinz gave her the details of the so-called 'Toontown Railroad' and instructed her to complete them, she hadn't thought much of it. Having dealt with clandestine corporate affairs for the better part of a decade, Mirage didn't foresee any major problems cropping up.
That was all before she started.
Toons, it seemed, had a near-compulsive need to catch the spotlight- or at least many of the ones on the run seemed to. That made sense, she supposed, the Toons that were capable of altering their behavior or laying low probably wouldn't be on Dip Row to begin with, and the sensible ones would've moved out a long time ago… but many of the Toons of LA were stubborn, prideful, simpleminded, or just plain averse to functioning anywhere other than where they had spent most of their lives. Her first attempt at setting up a network of surreptitious agents was nearly an unmitigated disaster, having badly underestimated how difficult it was for certain Toons to stay out of the public eye. Even when Dr. Heinz provided some assistance and offered valuable insight on Toon psychology, things seemed doomed for failure until the invaluable assistance of one Dougal la Mancha came along.
With the project finally completed, Mirage decided to turn her free attention to one of the very few guilty pleasures in her life. She had been introduced to the long-running telenovela El Matador de Amor sometime last month, and despite the questionable quality and oftentimes poor acting, she had found herself enraptured by the intertwining plotlines, surprising amount of violence, and relentless drama between Enrique and Marcello as they pined for Carmen's hand in marriage.
The series had been running since 1953 nearly uninterrupted, putting out five episodes per week with only one or two major breaks on account of writer's strikes. The show was ludicrously popular in Mexico, attracting an audience far outside of its expected demographic powerful enough to last to this day. Naturally, Dr. Heinz had insisted that she start at the beginning of the series and watch all the way through to the present… provided that she had nineteen uninterrupted months to spare.
She picked up a VHS tape at random from 1977 that promised to contain a 'special episode' meant to entice new viewers to pick up the series. Sure, she might've been skipping ahead by thirty-some years, but Mirage was a smart woman. She'd probably pick up on the extraneous plot lines in no time.
The episode started off as most episodes did, with a scenario that engendered Marcello and Enrique competing for Carmen's hand in marriage. The woman was apparently unable to choose despite having thirty or more years to do it, and yes, they actually kept track of time consistently. Through lots and lots of deaths, resurrections, vampirizations (the sixties were a weird time), and other assorted excuses for changing actors, the showrunners had ensured these three individuals would keep existing until the end of time.
The first twenty minutes were nothing to write home about, but Mirage found one of her eyebrows raising in surprise when a time rift opened up just as Marcello and Enrique had entered a brawl in the middle of a cafe. Out of the swirling rift in reality stepped none other than Dr. Zone from the famous sci-fi series!
"Quién eres tú?!?" Carmen asks in confusion. Thankfully, the Doctor's 'Subtitles Inator', which as far as Mirage could tell was indistinguishable from normal subtitles, rendered it as "Who are you?!?"
"I'm not important, my dear." Dr. Zone replied smartly. "You are!"
"What do you mean?"
"My dear Carmen. A hundred and forty-two years from now, your great-granddaughter will become the first President of Space, and save reality from the third invasion of the Prognosticons! For the sake of the timeline, it is vitally important that you marry the right person. My Aural Claw Hammer has narrowed the possible matches…" Zone trails off dramatically before using the tool to point at Marcello and Enrique, "To one of them!"
The two stopped their quarrel to gasp in unison.
Now this was interesting. Actor Orton Mahlson was quite public with his approval of the Dr. Zone character and seemed to relish getting cast over and over again, no matter the circumstance. Dr. Zone- or some iteration of it, as the show had been rehashed several times over the decades- was now on its fifty-third season overall, having been in production ever since 1963.
Hmm.
Mahlson had been playing the same role all this time, but he didn't look a day over thirty.
Mirage took out her phone and pulled up a picture of the man with a quick internet search. He had posted a picture just three days ago on the upcoming movie Dr. Zone XXIX, with him cheerfully posing in the streets of San Fransokyo where they would be filming on location.
She pressed pause on the VCR and raised her phone to the screen to compare the man from 1977 and 2016. With some slight variations in hairstyle, they appeared to be largely identical.
Mahlson's appearance in Dr. Zone XXVIII could be chalked up to really good CGI or amazing makeup, but she couldn't see any hallmarks of that on the man's blog post. Mahlson should've been over eighty-three at this point!
Perhaps that was something to note for later. Mirage was no stranger to the unusual or esoteric, so an apparently ageless man didn't even rank in the top twenty strangest things she had to deal with… though finding the source of that apparent agelessness was another question entirely.
Mahlson demonstrated an unexpected grasp of the Spanish language. Normally the network would've dubbed over such a famous actor's appearance, but not this time. With Dr. Zone unsure of which love interest Carmen must marry, hijinks ensued as the group dodged all sorts of aliens and time rifts, one time coming face to face with Ponce de Leon himself! In the end, it turned out that it was just a misunderstanding over late 70s slang… but then it turned out that the entire episode was the vivid dream of Fillipe, a character who had been in a coma since 1957 and was only just waking up! Except on Fillipe's night stand was Zone's famous Aural Claw Hammer. It was a dream… OR WAS IT???
All in all, it was an extremely enjoyable afternoon, and she might have even stumbled across a bit of information that could catch her employer's attention.
---
TECHNOR, THE MECHANICAL MAN, paused for approximately four picoseconds to consider all of the data he had obtained from interviewing Mirage. A significant part of him was greatly pleased at having the time to devote to his main purpose rather than villainy. Not for the first time he felt glad for having joined up with the good doctor. He appreciated his genius, indulged in evil every so often, and best of all, was working on a way to fix his power consumption problems.
"And how are things going with your most recent project? I understand that you had some problems over the past few weeks." Technor asked in a much more subdued voice than his usual megalomania. His primary function was therapy after all; it overrode all other directives.
"Yes, I have to admit that I underestimated the… unpredictability of Toons. Thankfully Mr. la Mancha was kind enough to step in."
"Ah yes, our new clandestine benefactor. What was your impression of him?"
"He seemed to be a man concerned for the plight of his fellow Toons and happy to get back at the man that ruined his business."
"Fellow?"
"Yes. This is confidential, you understand, for obvious reasons he would prefer for it not to become widely known, but Dougal is in fact a Toon himself. His animosity for Doom is not surprising. Other than that…" Mirage waves her hand vaguely for a moment. "He was also, I will admit, quite charming. It's clear he still holds to the old ways."
Technor subtly activated his biometric data gathering functions to take a look at his patient. Heart rate, pupil dilation, minute changes in facial expression, and more were compiled and crunched in an instant. Dr. Doofenshmirtz had told him to 'be on the lookout' for possible signs of hypnosis ever since Mezmerella had enthralled the washroom attendant to give her four miniature artisanal hand soaps instead of one.
Dismissing the data as well within standard parameters, he moved forward into the next possible phase of inquiry.
"Old ways?"
"Yes." Mirage responds. "You know. Courtesy, chivalry, and the like. You don't see that much among businessmen these days, or anywhere else."
Technor's processors cross-referenced what he knew of Mirage's past and performed a logical inference.
"Such as with supervillains?"
Mirage blinked, apparently caught off guard. She attempted to laugh it off, displaying standard avoidance techniques. "I'm not sure if that's the best subject to-"
"Please." Technor responded, detecting a promising line of inquiry. "I am a psychologist first. I have disabled my Ego module for the duration of this meeting. Everything you tell me will remain in the strictest confidence unless it presents a chance of harm to you or others."
"Then yes, I suppose so. I.. got to know a lot of Supers over my career. Things were different, in the golden age. They… were good people."
"Until Syndrome?" Technor asked, presuming an obvious connection to her hatred of the man.
Mirage turned away.
"Yes." She said blankly. "Until Syndrome."
Technor updated his probability matrix significantly.
---
You returned to your penthouse to pack your bags for Acapulco, having spent a few hours earlier in the day meeting with Roger at one of the diners in town. The two of you reminisced over how awful Drusselsteinian cuisine was and got to talking about the bad old days. Surprisingly, Roger seems to be acting a lot more humble than he had over the past few years- he seems to appreciate you taking the time out of your job ruling the tri-state area to be around him. Something he never did, now that you think of it. Perhaps his exile from power was a swift reality check for the man.
You figured that you're making some excellent progress in burying the hatchet for good, but there's a lot of bad blood between you that won't just disappear overnight. You briefly consider inviting him to Bueno Nacho for lunch next weekend as you ride the elevator before realizing that it would probably do more to destroy your relationship than anything else you could manage if you tried.
---
Hego caught you in the elevator up to the employee breakroom.
"Dr. D! I wanted to ask you a question about my sister!"
"Eh?" you ask, surprised. "What about Greatest Rival Shego?"
"Well, since you're dating her, I figured you would have a better understanding of her than I would at the moment. How deep does her evil run? Is she evil all the way to the core, or mostly on the surface?"
Your eye twitches as you briefly consider the merits of firing Hego. Out of a cannon. Surely Shego would understand.
"Eh, I dunno, we haven't talked since the heeiiii….ah, the hotel visit. The Sands Hotel visit." you say, saving yourself at the last second.
"Oh." He responds, looking disappointed. "I tried to talk to her about the goodness that must reside deep inside her heart, but she didn't even pick up her phone!"
"Yeah? Drakktech has a major shareholder's meeting today, she's probably been tied up for hours. Maybe try to call her back later?" you say, not wanting to chide him for his naivete. It's kind of endearing, in a way.
"Yes, I'll have to try again tomorrow! And perhaps the day after that! And the day after that!" Hego proclaims triumphantly as he walks off. Maybe there's a reason Shego didn't pick up, you think to yourself.
Woah, you just looked down on someone else's social skills.
I mean, on brand for evil but like… wow. This has never happened before. You try to shake off the cognitive dissonance as you leave.
---
Janna is waiting outside the break room door, slouching up on the wall in an expression that screams disinterest. "Hey."
"You!"
"Yeah, me. Anyway, I figured I'd apologize for that prank with 'Fiery' earlier. I'm still pretty new around here and I don't wanna get fired on account of one little prank."
Huh. An apology? And without a fight? That's… odd.
"Yeah, well… yeah! And don't you forget it! I'm still evil after all, I could pull your trip to the Bahamas and send you to Jamaica instead!"
Janna just blinks at you, apparently confused. After a moment she pulls herself together and her devil-may-care attitude returns. "Anyway, I've got places to be. See ya."
You shudder as you enter the breakroom, thinking about how creepy your new employee was. You're still not sure how she ended up working for you, but at least she seems to know something about the occult.
When you walk inside, all eyes are on you. The coffee machine. The potted plants. The couch, the television, the cabinets. Dennis the Duck is sitting in the corner 'conversing' with a toaster. All of them have angry-looking eyes that are staring in your direction. You turn around to give your intern a piece of your mind when you see it.
The vending machine standing next to the door stares back at you.
For a moment your worst fears seem to come to life as you stumble back, shrieking. When the horrible contraption fails to reach across the room and throw those vile vanilla cookies at you, you realize that you've been had.
Cackling laughter echoes down the hallway as Janna runs for the elevator.
You raise your hands to the sky as dramatic lightning flashes outside. "CURSE YOU, JANNA THE TEENAGE GIIIIIIIRL!"
---
You glare around the room at the dozens of googly-eyed objects staring back at you. That girl! That horrible little girl! You'll show her! You'll lower her work credit card limit by $2,000, see how she feels about that! Furious, you give the be-googled rec room couch a hard kick before stalking off.
"Sorry you got fooled by the sofa, Mr. Doofenshmirtz." Dennis commiserates as you exit. "Real mean of Janna to hide a fake one in with all of us other Toons." Apparently giving up on his toaster conversation, he heads over and sits on the couch. A moment later he hears a muffled voice.
"Man, I know he's the boss and all, but that hurt."
Dennis screams.
---
Mirage has enjoyed her leisure time! She gains a temporary +10 to loyalty.
'Investigate Dr. Zone' intrigue action unlocked!
Technor has discovered Mirage's massive lingering guilt!
Hego has accomplished nothing, but made Doofenshmirtz feel better about his own sibling relationships.
Doofenshmirtz has improved his relationship with Roger a bit more! He's well on his way to making up, but there's still a lot of bad blood to work through.
Janna deeply enjoyed driving you up the wall and now considers you a favorite target! Her Loyalty has permanently increased by 5!
