The Life of Brian Buzzard
It started as a perfectly average day for the old buzzard. His routine ticked on as usual, wake up, get ready for the day, get coffee, drive to work. He could hear the car that stopped next to him at the light blaring Crane Carpenter’s ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ through their opened window, even though the song isn’t as nearly as bad as the other modern trash kids are playing these days it still annoyed him no less have it drown out his quiet drive. Once the light turned green he wasted no time to get away from that car.
His work at S.H.U.S.H. Was just as uneventful if not a little taxing trying to balance the books with all the chaotic escapades they get into… especially with that philanthropist McDuck interfering with missions. That hurricane of a duck had been giving him a migraine ever since his first mission with S.H.U.S.H. Throwing his finances into a tizzy, giving him more messes to clean up, MORE WORK, and that’s just with his day job…
By evening, the buzzard had showed up at F.O.W.L. H.Q. with a briefcase of S.H.U.S.H. financial notes, not to share with his partner in crime, it was the leftover work of the day that he needed to finish on top of running F.O.W.L. from the shadows it seemed like there was no rest for him anymore.
Things only became more restless once Black Heron burst into his office as manic as ever, “I’VE DONE IT! IT’S BRILLIANT I TELL YOU! THE SCHEME THAT WILL HAVE US RULING THE WORLD MWAHAHAHAH!”
The sudden ruckus caused the old buzzard’s pen to streak across the paper as he was shaken in his seat.
“Heron! Do you EVER knock!?” He asked, exasperated.
“Who has time to knock when evil is afoot?” she retorted while rubbing her hands together with minising glee.
The old man was already beginning to tune her out as he looked at the runed paper with frustration. Maybe he could just white-out the imperfection and that that would be good enough… As he carefully fixed the paper and continued with the paperwork he could still hear her gabbing away about something involving the stone of what-was but he was too busy to pay attention while he was hunched over mantaling his work. He only gave her an off-handed “Mm… Mm-hmm” as acknowledgement, just hoping she’d leave him in peace soon.
Suddenly Heron’s bionic fist slammed down on the table, jolting him back to reality.
“Will you PLEASE pay attention to my evil schemes of world domination!?”
With a sigh he took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his beak, “How many times do I have to repeat myself, we do not do ‘evil schemes’ because we are NOT VILLAINS!”
Heron rolled her eyes, “Oh whatever, just listen to my-”
“Heron, please! I am far too busy to listen to your ideas right now.” He interrupted with his eyes still on the papers, “I'm already far behind schedule with these invoices. Could you pitch whatever you had in mind later?”
“But you always say that!” she complained and flopped her torso on the desk dramatically, “You’ve been too busy for any of my plans, it’s almost like you don’t want to take over the world.”
Her covering his work with her body only annoyed him more. “Of course I do but between S.H.U.S.H. and my work here I just don’t have time for anything else right now.”
“Hmmm… If only you could be in two places at once, riiiight?” She said as she craned her resting chin between her thumb and finger with a smug crooked grin.*
The buzzard sat in silence staring at her for a moment, now interested in where she was going with this but also dreading it too. “Yes… I suppose so…”
“Well now you can! We’ll just use the stone of what-was to clone you and let him worry about your boring day job while we take over the world!” She announced as she stood up straight and flung her arms in the air with pazazz.
“That sounds… like such a bad idea.” he replied exhaustedly, “It’s too unpredictable. How do we know it won’t turn evil or god forbid reveal my involvements with F.O.W.L.?”
“That’s the beauty of it, I will have your memories, your personality, It will know not to step out of line. And if it is flawed we’ll just replace it and make an example out of it to its replacement.”
He was still skeptical about the whole thing but she was very persuasive, this was all just giving him another headache on top of the pressure he was already under. “I… I need some time to think about it…”
“That’s not a ‘no’~!”
“It’s not a ‘Yes’ either!” He snapped, and pointed his pen at her accusingly “I meant it when I said I don’t want any unauthorized experiments, especially ones that involve me, do you understand?”
“Of course, Of course, I’ll give you your time to think.” She assuredly backed away with her hands up. She backed into the open doorway with a confident smile, “Let me know when you make a decision on my offer,” she slowly began to shut the door but she kept her head in his view and added, “When you’re not ‘too busy’...” and with that her head disappeared and the door completely closed.
He was finally left alone in the room. Despite that the ever present stress weighed heavy on his chest as he stared at the unfinished work. The old buzzard leaned forward burying his face in his hands,letting out another sigh, then leaned back in his chair with his eyes still closed. The room was getting stuffy, he could feel the moisture in the air become unbearable, it was getting hard to breathe…
He couldn't breathe.
His eyes could barely open but he couldn't see.
He couldn’t breathe!
HE CAN’T BREATH!
The buzzard clone inside the tank was finally ready to emerge and by the way it was pressing its hands against the glass it seemed eager to be out. The viscous fluid that drained from the tank finally lowered below his head, leaving it free to take his first breath.
It gasped, coughing and sputtering. It tried rubbing the fluid from his eyes but it was a fruitless endeavor, he was covered in the stuff. Finally the tank was fully drained and the hatch opened. The clone took his first steps into the cold air. He looked around the room for Black Heron furiously but couldn't see anything clearly through the fluid in his eyes.
“COUGH...Heron!" He weakly called out through a fit of coughs, “This is your doing isn't it!? I told you no unauthor—! COUGH–COUGH” Another fit of coughs made it impossible to chastise anyone properly.
With his outstretched arm he tried feeling his way around the room, trying not to show how frightened and confused he truly felt. His emotions were already raw but he was not about to give whoever might be watching the satisfaction of seeing him panic.
