Chapter Five

Project Overview: Untitled Document is a serial comedy novel dealing with the sort of topics that we so frequently make fun of here at Something Awful. This Chapter: Lesbian femme fatale Tara Kirkpatrick is under orders to destroy an alien assassin robot. To deal with the unwanted droid she has prepared a cross between an ambush and a fashion show. The robot has a few tricks of its own though, and Tara may be biting off more than she can handle. Special guest star this installment: Bob Barker!

Tucked in amongst the low desert mountains of Southern California, Soda Lake looked from the air like an anemic silver fish thrown up onto land and gasping for air. Under normal circumstances the lake had few visitors, but as dusk slipped into a cloudy night an unusual flurry of activity accompanied the setting sun. A convoy of SUVs, vans, and pickup trucks pulling camper trailers arrived at the Eastern edge of the lake. When the dust of their arrival had passed dozens of women in black uniforms could be seen setting up a camp of sorts. They stacked cases of equipment, towed the trailers into a line and began hooking up diesel generators, and erected huge halogen light stands into a semi-circle facing the scrubby desert plain to the East.

Tara Kirkpatrick sat in a canvas folding chair in one of the trailers wearing only her bra and panties, fanning herself with a sheaf of documents, and waiting impatiently for the generator to be hooked up. Her personal assistant and bodyguard - a fat-faced eunuch named Gustaf - stood behind her in a plastic smock trying to finish coloring her hair in the dim illumination of the overhead battery light. Raylene had judged the night's events worthy of recording by a Legacy Team and Tara was not about to appear in the permanent New World Order archive looking anything but fabulous.

Gustaf was well-trained in preening and primping; he had served as a personal assistant to the notoriously vain proto-Nazi Karl Haushofer for almost fifty years before the Thule Society had been exiled to the impotent outer reaches of the New World Order. For whatever reason Gustaf had left his former master's side and defected to the Sisterhood of Enoch, even though he had to sacrifice his genitalia in the process. Raylene had consigned him to the media relations pool until Tara had come along, recognized his genius, and promoted him to her personal assistant. Gustaf spoke nothing but the word "ja" in Tara's presence, but he had an incredible gift for getting her whatever she needed and completing the most unsavory tasks without a hint of reluctance. In fact, she owed the longevity of her career as the unofficial second in command of the New World Order to Gustaf's proficiency at murdering potential rivals.

Tara leaned forward in her chair and picked up a tall glass of iced tea sitting on the counter overshadowed by the large dressing room mirror. She took a deep sip through the orange bendy straw and smacked her lips with fleeting satisfaction.

"Gustaf," Tara said as she returned the cold iced tea to the counter, "if whatever dumb bitch is hooking up the generator is not done in three minutes I want you to go out there and shoot her in the back of the head."

Gustaf paused in combing out a lock of Tara's hair and met her gaze in the mirror.

"Ja."

Gustaf looked back down at the straight and freshly bleached white hair and pulled it taut. He placed the comb backwards between his thick lips and scooped up the bottle of sapphire blue highlight coloring to begin applying it to his hair. Tara had instructed him to make her hair look like a "classy American flag", certainly not an easy task considering how garish and overly busy the US flag was to begin with. Gustaf had first sketched out a nearly photo-realistic rendering of Tara's hair and with a scientific eye analyzed the exact combination of bleaches and dyes the process would require. Tara was strangely attached to her home nation and Gustaf often had to indulge her obsession with patriotic attire.

For that evening's festivities she had selected a skin-tight cat suit patterned after - a surprise to no one - an American flag. By using a series of charts and illustrations Gustaf had managed to convince her to go with another outfit he had designed. Laid out on the bed behind the dressing room was a toughened leather top coat colored white with a broad silver fur-trimmed collar. It buttoned below Tara's bust and was accompanied by a stylishly retro form-fitting armored shirt in a turtle-neck style with a faded paisley pattern. Gustaf had selected a matching white pair of boot cut leather pants and vintage snakeskin cowboy boots. He suspected that the cowboy boots had been the selling point of the outfit for Tara.

Gustaf set down the hair dye and moved towards the door. As he did so he reached beneath his plastic smock and removed a small 9mm pistol. Just as his hand reached the door the vanity lights surrounding the mirror suddenly lit and a blast of cool air washed over the dressing room.

"Oh thank God," cried Tara with exaggerated relief.

She glanced over at Gustaf and smiled.

"Looks like someone just won today's 'luckiest woman' award." She gestured towards her hair. "Now finish up, our guest is expected in less than two hours and this shit has to set."

When Gustaf was finished an hour and a half later Tara looked better than she had in months. The outfit showed off her shapely figure in a manner that was at once sensual and modest. Her hair was colored in muted waves or red, white, and blue and sprinkled with soft-edged stars worthy of an impressionist painting. Gustaf had selected a "soft frost" eye shadow to highlight Tara's gray eyes and match her ensemble, and her full lips glistened with a deep-red high-gloss lipstick. Of course Tara had to go and ruin all of his hard work by selecting the ugliest and most outlandish weapon in the NWO arsenal; a huge shoulder-fired magnetic accelerator that looked like part of a pipe organ. She slung it on a thick utilitarian strap across her back totally throwing off the symmetry of her outfit.

"Thank you Gustaf," she chirped like a teenage girl while admiring herself in the mirror.

Gustaf just nodded.

Tara glanced at the ETA countdown on the wall. Nine minutes to impact. She bounced excitedly on her heels and spun towards the door. Gustaf side-stepped out of her path but she caught his stocky arm and planted a coquettish kiss on his cheek. He concealed his consternation over the carefully applied layer of lipstick that had just been deposited on his face. Tara would not have noticed blatant outrage; she was already leaping out of the open door.