No Matt's Date

Part II

Our Story

Less than a week into his job as office boy third class at Wayne Enterprises, mild mannered NoMattsLand is charged by Lucius Fox with a vital errand: escort Siobahn MacDougal, aka the Silver Banshee, to the Gotham Halloween Ball and show her a good time. The reward for success: the Banshee's aid in clearing the name of accused murderer Bruce Wayne and thus the esteem and gratitude of the two biggest bosses in the company. The penalty for failure: death by the banshee's wail!

We now rejoin our hero as he desperately searches the web for any information to prepare himself for his blind date.

"Catwoman.. Poison Ivy.. Wonder Woman.. Cindy Crawford.. Zev Bellringer.. Michelle Yeoh.. Troia.. Spoiler.. Spoiler?? Arg! Does every woman have a website but this Silver Banshee?"

"The vastness of the web is treacherous jungle to navigate."

"Who- uh, Leonard Nimoy? What are you doing here?"

"Whereever there is mystery, I will be found."

"So do you know where I can find a Silver Banshee website then?"

"Seek the council of the Alaskan Surfer."

"The Alaskan Surfer? The only one from Alaska I know is Lildeath over in the layout department, but the only surfing he does is on the web looking po- of course! The Alaskan Surfer!"

Moments later, NoMatts has raised Lildeath on the internal messenger net...

LD, you've got to help me! I've got a date in less than 9 hours with the Silver Banshee and if she doesn't have a good time she's going to kill me! And then Mr. Fox is going to kill me too! And if somebody else clears Mr. Wayne later, he'll probably have my grave paved over and turned into parking lot!

Dude. I didn't think you were that desperate.

Look, it wasn't my idea, okay? Mr. Fox says this is the Banshee's price for helping clear Mr. Wayne.

Taking one for the team and the boss then. OK, what can I do to help?

Fox says the company'll take care of everything from my suit to the limo. But I've got nothing for sure on the Silver Banshee other than that she's a banshee, and her name is Siobahn MacDougal. You're the picture man, have you got any of her? I've got no idea what she even looks like."

Hang on. Yeah, I got one. Sending it to your terminal now.

"GAH!"

GAH!! Tell me that's not the only outfit she's got!

Uh, I don't think that's an outfit.

You mean that's.. you mean that's what she looks like naked?

Definately. Kind of cool, huh?

"OW!"

"Pig!"

"Lor*! This isn't what you think!"

Still with me?

"You're looking at naked pictures of dead girls!"

"You don't understand! I have to take her out to the Gotham Halloween Ball tonight and show her a good time or-!"

Dude, you okay?

"Eeeew! Sicko!"

"URF!"

"I'm never loaning you a pencil again!"

Dude? OK, I'm buzzing Merc to check on you.

As Lor* storms off to secret all of her monogramed writing impliments, NoMattsLand curls up on the ground in a ball of agony. With less than 9 hours to go - and at least 20 minutes down to recover from that solid kick! - how will our hero prevail? -----------------------------280391313723683 Content-Disposition: form-data; name="userfile"; filename="A:\Pang\NoMattsLand_3.htm" Content-Type: text/html

No Matt's Date

Part III

Our Story

Scrambling to prepare for his date with the Silver Banshee, neophyte Wayne Enterprises office boy NoMattsLand's prayers for aid were answered by the wandering God of Trekkies and Monster Hunters, Leonard Nimoy. Directed by Nimoy to seek the aid of Lildeath, the Alaskan Surfer in the layout department and master porn archiver, NoMatts got his first glimpse of a photo of his mystery date. Unfortunately, the crystal clarity and superior viewing angle of NoMatts' Planar flat panel monitor stabbed him the back when Lor*, the passing Mistress of Writing Impliments, saw the picture of a "naked dead girl," drew conclusions about our hero's preferences and vented her wrath upon him in no uncertain fashion.

Fortunately, Lildeath took the interruption of messaging to bode ill and sent word to Merc, Blame Adjuster to Lucius Fox's office, to check up on the MIA NoMattsLand.

We now rejoin our hero after his 20 minute recovery, the usual hour cut down by Merc's spirited threats to kick him again twice as hard if he didn't shape up.

"It wasn't my fault! I only looked at one picture of a dead naked girl! And I didn't enjoy it!"

"Easy sport, I'm not going to kick you. Your private life is your own business."

"Thanks- Hey! It's not like that!"

"You are going out with the Silver Banshee tonight, aren't you?"

"Well yes, but-"

"She is a girl, she is dead, and you have to show her a good time, right?"

"You're- wait, how do you know all of this anyway?"

"Honey, it's been almost an hour you left Fox's office and more than twenty minutes since you explained things to Lildeath. Everybody in the company knows."

"Yarg!"

"The point is, you've got to stop thinking about this as a job that's been dumped on you. Live the role. You're escorting a woman to a ball. Forget that she's dead."

"Okay, right, I'll try.. it's just a blind date.. my date is not dead.. she's just Irish.."

"Scottish."

"Right. Sil- no, Siobahn is Scottish. She's also a talented and very successful woman in her field, which is why she's the only one who can help clear Mr. Wayne. She's not asking very much of me in return really."

"That's the spirit. You can look past her superficial flaws right?"

"Yes.. yes.. I can look past her superficial creepy nakedness. It's what's inside that matters."

Six minutes later...

"Merc?"

"Matts?"

"I don't think I'm going to be able to keep this up for another eight hours plus however long the date is going to go."

"I can't help you bone up on self-delusion. I'm a Blame Adjuster. You know where you need to go for help with that."

"No! Not him! Anybody but him!"

"I'm afraid he's the expert. I suppose you could try Lildeath first for an aesthetics logic dress down to try to adapt to the truth instead, but you've got less than 8 hours before the ball now. You think you can change your worldview that fast?"

"I can try!"

"OK, it's your ass on the line first. Good luck."

Galvinized now by fear of his potential allies in the company as well as his impending date with the Silver Banshee, NoMattsLand leaps atop his WayneTech indoor skateboard and charges through the maze of corridors towards the design department.

Will Lildeath's aesthetic parallels of socratic logic be sufficient to convince our hero to swallow the idea of potentially participating in technical necrophillia before the next sunrise? If not, who is the expert in self-delusion NoMatts fears even more?