KB Disease

“Why does it bother you?”

“Why does what bother me?”

“The promos some of your co-workers put out. You seem to get really bent out of shape about them. If you don’t care about your job, why does it bother you so much when other people fail to live up to your standards?”

A long pause. If you listen very closely, you can hear AWOL scratching the stubble growing out from his chin.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
***

A man in a military uniform is sitting in front of a television, his face lit up by the images being projected from it. He is taking notes on a piece of paper, scrawling with a yellow number two pencil, when suddenly the program on the screen changes. The uniformed man looks up, his expression freezing in place along with the point of the pencil.

The television begins to belch forth the words of IWC competitor Katelyn Buehler. She looks out at the man in uniform, informing him in her monosyllabic way how incredibly hot she is. This, Katelyn rationalizes, is the reason why she will be victorious at Riot! in a handicap match against AWOL. That, and the fact that she is not a man. Obviously this is a formula for victory, she explains. Clearly, there is no way the Brat Pack can fail.

The man in the uniform whimpers softly.

Katelyn goes on to expound that this is, in truth, the reason for the Brat Pack’s success (the lack of Y chromosomes, that is.) She conveniently ignores the fact that Jackson Adams is a member of their group, and that apparently Miho Miyazaki is gifted with male genitalia as well. She also fails to mention the continuous rumors (unsubstantiated rumors, that is. Don’t sue us) that Robin Brooks is in fact a hermaphrodite, similar to what was recently discovered about the South African track star Caster Semenya. Consequently, Katelyn continues (look folks, alliteration), this is the reason for their ultimate success, and why they will no doubt be taking the IWC over and running it (into the ground) soon.

The man in uniform begins to tremble, a sniffle issuing forth from his nose.

The scene changes, and now Katelyn and her pack of females that aren’t worth learning the names of are headed downtown to a club. Katelyn is informing them of how horny she is since she’s been on a dry spell of two days without sex. Her nameless friends (and Robin Brooks) inform her of how whorey she is, which Katelyn’s small brain seems to interpret as a compliment. The audience begins to wonder just what in the blue hell this has to do with anything related to anything people would want to know about, when the group arrives at the club and are let inside without having to wait in line since, obviously, the one thing a club that is already at capacity needs is a bunch of drunk femi-nazis who are looking to break laws and generally cause trouble.

A tear slowly rolls down the cheek of the man in uniform.

Many more minutes of mindless blather pass, wherein Katelyn Buehler lets us in on the inner workings of her mind (they resemble a dead hamster lying on a motionless exercising wheel, if you’re curious). At one point we’re treated with the likely scenario of a bunch of frat aged men walking out of a bathroom Katelyn has just entered (because most clubs have unisex bathrooms) discussing how some girl is apparently in there performing oral sex on anyone walking through the door. Given that she’s only been in there for ten minutes or so and apparently some of these gentlemen have been through the door twice, either they have only just reached puberty or have the stamina and staying power of a card house in a hurricane, since this implies that she’s serviced over a dozen men in the time since she went back there. However, we are surprised to find out that the woman in the bathroom is not, in fact, Katelyn Buehler. Ms. Buehler’s chastity is rewarded by her finding a suave English gentleman (suave, in this case, meaning he is capable of speaking in complete sentences) who takes her home and (another shocker) elects not to sleep with her. Katelyn is very confused. The audience is simply confused as to why they have been watching for this long.

The man in the uniform, however, can take no more. He lifts his yellow number two pencil from the paper, places the point against his closed left eye-lid, and drives his face forward against the desktop. A sickening spray of red gore from the punctured frontal lobe of the man’s brain washes out onto the notes he wrote down only moments prior.

As he spasms, lying face down on the desk, a man in an adjacent room shakes his head, regretfully. The metal of numerous ribbons and medals pinned to the front of his jacket, to say nothing of the three stars adorning his shoulders, rattle as he lets out a deep sigh. He reaches over, picking a telephone up off of the wall.

“Mr. President?” he says, holding the black receiver to his ear. “This is General Millborne. It’s as bad as we thought. Alert the CDC.”

***

Two news anchors look out into TV land, staring into the lens of the camera and trying to look concerned so all the people at home can understand how truly dire the situation really is.

“This just in from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. All citizens are warned to refrain from viewing a promo by IWC ‘Superstar’ Katelyn Buehler,” the blonde anchor says, reading the telepormpter with impeccable pronunciation.

“Authorities warn that observing this film could lead to massive brain hemorrhaging, hallucination, and schizophrenic behavior,” the male anchor sitting next to her adds, his region free dialect ensuring confidence in his words. “This after a number of reports have flooded the news desk of disturbances throughout the country, presumably linked to what authorities are already beginning to refer to as ‘The KB virus.’”

The female anchor leans forward, mock concern written all over her expression. “Downtown Chicago is said to be in flames, with packs of roving citizens storming through the streets. In London, British authorities have been forced to institute martial law after a number of looters attacked the houses of Parlaiment and Big Ben. The president has reportedly been moved to a secure bunker, as a group of tourists were shot earlier today while trying to storm into the Oval office.”

“For more on this story,” the man says, “We go now live to Victor Rodrigues out in the field. What does it look like out there, Victor?”

The screen behind the anchors turns on, showing a latino reporter holding his hand up to his left ear. He stands in the center of a city street. Smoke is pouring out of nearby buildings and flames have begun to lick at the windowsills facing the street. In the distance, shadowy figures can be seen running in the background helter-skelter, reigning havoc on anyone they encounter along the way.

“Thanks Jim. I’m reporting live from Times Square in Manhattan, where the scene can only be described as anarchy. People have taken to the streets, seemingly driven completely mad simply from observing the promotional video filmed by Katelyn Buehler.” Victor ducks as a loud crash can be heard behind him. A fireball explodes in the middle of the busy street. A loud cheer goes up as the mob hears Buehler’s name, with some of the looters shouting that they want to meet her in the bathroom. Victor stands back up, looking around to make sure the mob isn’t coming towards him, and then resumes his reports. “The NYPD have been overrun and have pulled back to a number of secure zones. As a safety measure, the mayor is considering cutting all television and internet feeds to these zones to ensure no one else is forced to watch this maddening piece of footage.”

“Have you tried speaking with any of the rioters?” The Jim asks.

“Yes, but all I’ve found so far that they are incapable of communication,” Victor responds. “It appears that they have been driven so thoroughly insane that the only phrases they respond to are ‘Isn’t Katelyn Buehler hot?’ ‘Men suck’ and ‘Do you want to meet me in the bathroom later?’ The use of complete sentences and proper grammar seems to be particularly irritating to them. In any case, I was too afraid for my own life to try and continue communicating.”

“I don’t mean to cut you off, Victor, but we’re receiving word that the director of the CDC is beginning a press conference to discuss the crisis.” The woman says. “You get back here as soon as you can, and stay safe.”

“Will do, Karen. And god help us all.”

Jim nods, as he and Karen turn away from the screen. “We go now live to Atlanta Georgia.”

***

The director stands in front of the press corps, nervously tightening his tie and waiting for the crowd to settle down. Behind him, a number of other scientists, many wearing lab coats despite the fact that there’s nothing risky that they would need to worry about being exposed to in the press room, look nearly as nervous as the director.

Finally, the low murmur of the audience dulls down and the director steps towards the microphone. “I’m glad you could all make it on such short notice,” he says, “I’ve called this press conference to inform you about the current crisis being caused by the spread of the KB virus throughout this country. I want to start by reassuring the public that, though we have been caught somewhat by surprise by the speed with which this agent has spread throughout the country, we are doing everything we can to understand this threat and bring it under control.”

The director gestures towards a projection screen set up at the side of the stage. As he does so, an image of the human brain appears. “This is a scan of a normal human brain. We have performed a number of preliminary studies, and identified what we believe to be the cause of the erratic behavior demonstrated by those afflicted with KB.” He clicks a button on the remote in his left hand, and an animation activates. Parts of the frontal lobes of the brain begin to turn grey immediately. “This is not a time-lapse animation. Rather, this is a real time scan of the brain of a test subject observing the promo in question. You will note the collapse of the reasoning and logic centers of the brain, likely due to the exposure to the extremely illogical subject matter of the film. Additionally, you will note the immediate collapse of the language center as well, which likely requires no explanation to those of you unfortunate enough to have heard Katelyn Buehler speak before.” As the animation progresses, the grey areas turn completely black and begin to cave in on themselves, as the tissue necrosis spreads to the outlying portions of the brain. “The damage then spreads rapidly, destroying the memory centers, likely as a self-defense method to try and remove any memory of having seen the images. Eventually, the entire frontal lobe is reduced to a pool of inanimate jelly and the subject is left a drooling, amoral, incommunicative wreck. We believe that the subsequent development of violent and dangerous behavior is simply due to the fact that what is left of the individual’s identity is furious at being forced to watch Katelyn Buehler in the first place.”

The lights in the conference room raise and the director turns back to the press corps. “I’ll be happy to take any questions.”

Immediately a reporter stands, raising his hand. At the director’s nod, he asks, “Have you made any progress towards finding a cure?”

“Unfortunately, once you’ve watched a Katelyn Buehler promo, you can not unwatch it. The damage appears to be irreversible.”

The director nods to another reporter, who asks “Has anyone found Buehler to ask her why she chooses to inflict this damage on the general public by putting out promos like these?”

“We’re not certain that Katelyn Buehler is a real person,” the director answers. “To be blunt, no human being could be that cruel. We’re forced to assume that this is a threat being introduced from some other source, perhaps by some sort of extraterrestrial intelligence or computer aberration. If a real human is responsible, it can only be someone with a soul truly composed of evil, someone like Osama Bin Laden, or perhaps Simon Cowel.”

“What is CDC doing to curb the threat? Can the average citizen help out with dealing with the crisis?”

“To answer the first question, military units have been deployed to urban centers to try and curb the spread of the riots. For the time being, IWC.com has been disabled and all communications from the site have been tracked and officials are proceeding to homes to try and capture the majority of those afflicted with KB disease before they can degenerate into full on madness. As to what the average citizen can do, well, stay away from televisions that are set to IWC programming until the individuals responsible for creating the Katelyn Buehler character are found and brought to justice, and if you do come across one of the infected, kill them immediately. Believe me, after seeing the Katelyn Buehler promo, you’ll be doing them a favor.”

“Is this threat going to be over any time soon?”

“Unfortunately, IWC seems to be alright with allowing Katelyn Buehler to continue publishing promos despite the obvious threat they pose to society. For now, all we can do is pray that in the end good wins out, and those responsible are found and punished. In the meantime, I suppose we can all be thankful that she will only be allowed to publish one promo this week.”

***

“Come on, AWOL. I saw the promo you’re putting up this week. You’re going to tell me that you don’t think that’s a little bit of an overreaction?”

“Did you see the Bueler promo?”

Another silence, this time filled by the sigh of the therapist.

“That’s what I thought.”