One-Man Infiltration Mission

Agent York regained consciousness in the middle of a snowbank.

He surveyed the wreckage around him. So much for arriving unnoticed. The plane had been shot down, and a quick investigation revealed that the pilot was dead.

York checked his pockets and what was left of the cargo, looking for equipment that hadn't been ruined by the snow. He managed to find a baseball, a fish, a slightly bigger fish, a bonesaw, a fork, a witch's hat, a doorstop, a staple gun, and a calculator.

Digging a little deeper, he found two anchors connected by a single chain. Ah, excellent. His trusty anchor-chucks were still intact. It would have been inconvenient to replace them.

York looked off in the distance. He could see the enemy stronghold from here. They'd probably be on guard; he fully expected a search team to come along just to make sure he was dead. And if he wasn't, they'd see to it that he was.

York had to make his move now. Gathering up his gear, he headed towards the Antarctic base, unsure of what awaited him inside.

Hello, this is a wacky idea I had. Here's how it works.

Some interested person is going to come up with the villainous mastermind who operates this Antartican base (it can follow any theme, it just happens to be in Antarctica). Then, the two of us will collaborate on a story in which Agent York infiltrates this mastermind's base and defeats him, her, or it. (Or them, there can be more than one.)

After Agent York is triumphant, somebody else gets to pick a new villain and then I'll write with them about Agent York infiltrating that base. And so on for as long as we feel like it.

There's no particular objective here, it's just for fun.

Hothead laughed.

"Ha ha ha ha," is how it went. He swiveled in his desk chair, the chair was separate from the desk, but he had a desk to swivel into. His chair was high-topped and would have easily hid him behind it for a dramatic reveal, had his skull not been 13 feet tall. Sadly, IKEA does not make specialty chairs. Hothead threw his Allen Wrench at the floor, where it melted into molten malt. Hothead stood up.

"Soon everybody in Antartica shall be feeling a little... hot under the collar," Hothead said, popping his collar and then falling over because his head is 13 feet tall. "And it's all thanks to you, darling."

Hothead stroked his giant on-off switch that he had installed into the wall. It turned his machine on or off, depending on which way it was flipped.

"Anita!" he shouted. He didn't know any Anitas, but he figured if there were any spies named Anita in the vicinity it might confuse them out of hiding.

"Carol!" he caroled. He did know a Carol.

"Yes boss?" said Carol, the secretary, entering in her modest librarian outfit she always wore. Her hair was tied into her glasses, but she never wore them. She just thought it made her look smarter, even when she messed up and tied them in upside-down.

"Carol! Why aren't you dressed more skankaliciousily?!" said Hothead. Carol immediately tore off her modest librarian-style outfit off, revealing a skin-tight catsuit underneath. She was wearing a bikini over the bodysuit. "That's better," said Hothead. "Now go outside and give that pilot some warm hot cocoa. He looks distraught." Hothead knew how the pilot looked because he had decided to take a more accessible and open method in designing his impenetrable fortress, to boost employee morale. The front door led directly into his office, where he would glower at his employees, like they had personally failed him and by extension their father. (He made sure to only hire employees who had fathers with 13-foot heads. Some called it discrimination, but Hothead called it I'm in Antarctica, where no laws apply.) There was as many windows as there were rooms with walls, Some rooms didn't even have walls! The impenetrable fortress was a triumph of design.

Agent York had finished devising a plan to open the fortress' massive front doors with his staple gun and baseball, when they suddenly opened on their own.

The young lady who stepped out was shivering, probably because she wasn't wearing very much.

"The boss says to let you in for some hot cocoa. C'mon, it's freezing out here."

Agent York was more than a little surprised, and strongly suspected a trap, but there weren't a lot of other options.

"Thank you, I'd appreciate that."

He followed her in and the doors slammed shut behind her. He found himself face-to-face with Hothead, or it would have been if Hothead wasn't staring at the lever on the machine and not paying any attention to him.

"Mr. Hothead, sir, I brought him in. Do you want to explain your plan to him in excruciating detail while I fetch the cocoa?"

Hothead swiveled around.

"Ah, thank you, Carol. Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Now, where shall I begin?"

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Spoiler

Agent York regained consciousness in the middle of a snowbank.

JUST CALL HIM YORK. THAT'S WHAT EVERYONE CALLS HIM.

Hothead fell over and knocked himself out because he swiveled in his heels. Carol knew exactly where to begin as she cradled his head with an ice pack.

"It began in Africa, where Mister Hothead here first saw a volcano. Immediately, he was in love. He decided the whole world should be littered with volcanoes. Enviro-Man couldn't stop him. Captain Planet couldn't stop him. The Green Lantern couldn't stop him, even though he's Green in the literal Green sense. Some call him an eco-terrorist, but he prefers the term 'magma artisan.' He's already turned China into a volcano of economic prosperity, and he put a few in Greenland but everybody forgot about them. When's the last time you thought about Greenland?! He went backpacking through Europe for a while, really opened his mind, he went to some killer concerts. But enough about that, you're here for a job application right?" Carol had heard it all too many times. "Anita!" She had no idea why Hothead did that. Perhaps it was his secret, dead latin lover?

"Uh, yeah," Agent York said. He wasn't expecting everything to go so easily. The front door was unlocked. Hothead was right there. His cover story had been handed to him on a plate, and then replaced with another one that would allow him to rub shoulders with Hothead himself. It was so easy he actually got more tense waiting for the other shoe to drop, be it a trap door or a gun.

"Alice will show you the way to the interview office," said Carol. Alice fell out of the closet. She was wearing a pink bikini with a white sheer dress that really wasn't a dress but more of a shirt. "Oh, Alice. Always 8 dress codes behind," Carol said. York didn't know why she thought he'd care.

Alice ripped off her current outfit, revealing the catsuit-with-bikini-over-it underneath. "Follow me," she said. This was the most insane evil base York had ever seen.

Agent York followed Alice. The path was extremely convoluted, and went through a complex labyrinth, across a bridge over a lava pit with lava sharks in it, and behind a laser array.

"Where exactly is this interview room?" he asked. He was getting further from his goal, but he didn't show his annoyance; he'd been better trained than that.

"Um, I'm pretty sure it's this way..."

York continued following her until they reached a small closet. She opened the door and motioned to him to come inside.

"This is the one section of Hothead's base that doesn't have working surveillance cameras," she explained. "Greetings, Agent York. I'm your contact. I've been working here for months, learning as much as I can in preparation for the eventual assault."

"Can't I just break the machine in his office?"

"That's the end goal, but it won't be that simple. Hothead's not the smartest of villains, it's true, but he's dangerous in a fight and I've never seen him leave the office. You'll have trouble conducting any sabotage while he's around."

"So I need to either get rid of him, or get some weaponry that can stand up to him."

"You'll need to deal with Carol as well. In all honesty, she might as well be in charge; she knows how to manage an evil organization far better than Hothead does. I've been trying to stage accidents to get him to fire her, but every time he actually gets mad at her, she starts crying and he can't go through with it."

"Damn. So that's why I was told to bring the laughing gas. I'm afraid it didn't survive the flight."

"Well, I suppose you'll just have to improvise. You're Agent York, after all."

She handed him a form.

"Now, fill this out so that it looks like I actually interviewed you. And if Carol asks, be sure to say I was incredibly incompetent. That's been my cover story, we need to keep it up."

"Thank you, Alice. I'll be sure to say some particularly unpleasant things about you."

She smiled.

"Actually, my name is Anita."