In the briefing room : LUCAS "Come on in.. At ease. Want a Mountain Dew ?" WILLARD "No, thank you sir." LUCAS "Lucas, have you ever seen this gentleman before ? Met the Dungeonmaster or myself ?" WILLARD "No, sir. Not personally." LUCAS "You have collected a lot on your own, haven't you ?" WILLARD "Yes, sir. I have." LUCAS "Your blog specifies intelligence, counter-intelligence, with RFSO III Corps." WILLARD "I'm not presently disposed to discuss those forums, sir." LUCAS "Did you not work for the RFSO in III Corps ?" WILLARD "No, sir." LUCAS "Did you not assasinate a Beanie Baby collector in Des Moine Iowa, June 19th, 1998 " WILLARD "Sir, I am unaware of any such activity or operation - nor would I be disposed to discuss such an operation if it did in fact exist, sir." Dungeonmaster CORMAN "I thought we'd have a bite of lunch while we talk. I hope you brought a good appetite with you. You have a bad hand there, RSI ?" WILLARD "A little posting accident on KR, sir." CORMAN "Posting on KR... But you're feeling fit, ready for duty ?" WILLARD "Yes, Sir. Very much so sir." CORMAN "Let's see what we have here... microwave burritos and..., usually is not bad. Try some Jerry, pass it around. Save a little time when we'll pass both ways. Willard, I don't know how you feel about this KFC, but if you'll eat it, you never have to prove your courage in any other way... I'll take a piece here ..." LUCAS "Willard, you heard of Walter E. Kurtz ?" WILLARD "Yes, sir, I've heard the name." LUCAS "Assistant Manager, Vallejo Denny's." CORMAN "Luke, would you play that tape for Willard, please. Listen carefully." ON TAPE "October 9th, 0430 hours, sector PBK." LUCAS "This was monitored out of Salinas. This has been verified as Kurtz's voice." KURTZ (on tape) " I watched a d.unny crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving. " ON TAPE "11th transmission, December 30th, 0500 hours, sector KZK." KURTZ (on tape) " We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Bee after Bee, Brain after Brain, Kaiuju after Kaiju, Kaws after Kaws. And they call me an assasin. What do you call it when the assasins accuse the assasin ? They lie.. they lie and we have to be merciful for those who lie. Those nabobs. I hate them. How I hate them..." CORMAN "Walt Kurtz was one of the most outstanding collectors this hobby has ever produced. He was a brilliant and outstanding in every way and he was a good man too. Humanitarian man, man of wit, of humor. He joined the Kidrobot Forums. After that his ideas, methods have become unsound... Unsound." LUCAS "Now he's crossed to Salinas with his Monger army, who worship the man, like a god, and follow every order however ridiculous." CORMAN "Well, I have some other shocking news to tell you. Kurtz was about to be arrested for murder." WILLARD "I don't follow sir. Murdered who ?" LUCAS "Kurtz had ordered executions of some Ebay intelligence agents. Men he believed were double agents, flippers. So he took matters into his own hands." CORMAN "Well, you see Willard... In this hobby, things get confused out there, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical flipping necessity. Out there with these new collectors it must be a temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. The good does not always triumph. Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane." WILLARD "Yes sir, very much so sir. Obviously insane." LUCAS "Your mission is to proceed up the I5 in a Trailways Bus. Pick up Kurtz' path at King City, follow it, learn what you can along the way. When you find Kurtz infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate his collection." WILLARD "Terminate ? Kurtz ?" CORMAN "He's out there collecting without any decent restraint. Totally beyond the pale of any acceptable purist conduct. And he is still on the boards collecting his toys." CIVILIAN "Terminate with extreme prejudice." LUCAS "You understand Willard... , that this operation does not exist, nor will it ever exist."
Frank's gone native. "I used to think if I died in an evil place, then my soul wouldn't make it to heaven. Well, fuck. I don't care where it goes as long it ain't here."
This is the end, My Skullbrain friend... This is the end, My Skullbrain friend, the end... Of all your eBay plans, the end... Of those translucent brain pans, the end... You'll never make your vinyls fight, again...
In college, I wrote a paper about Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, and Dante's Inferno where the search for Kurtz are levels of hell.
