FELGER’S FIGURE FOUL UP
“It’s not my fault!” Jay
Felger whined.
“Yeah, well, whose fault is
it?” Jackdoll demanded, giving the scientist his world famous glare.
“All I did was let Fifthdoll
organise things. I didn’t know it was
gonna happen.”
“Hey! Stop pokin’ my zat!” Jackdoll narrowed his eyes and continued
glaring at the incredibly annoying Felger.
“Sorry,” Felger grinned, “I
was hoping if I fondled your weapon, I could make you forget about
complaining.”
“Well it doesn’t! And you’d better tell ol’ Filthdoll to get
this problem fixed. My team has a
responsibility to all those people in Fandomland to deliver what they
ordered. It’s no good promising them
our replicated figures and then telling them we’re sold out!”
“It’s not my fault!” Felger bleated
again. “I didn’t know there would be
such a big demand.”
“Can’t you increase
production?” Sammiedoll asked logically.
“No. Fifthdoll said something about keeping the
market hungry.”
“Huh?”
“I think he means making
sure the supply doesn’t ever satisfy the demand, Jackdoll,” Dannydoll
explained. “This is a way of pushing up
the price of the most sought after dolls isn’t it, Jay?”
Nodding dumbly, Felger was
forced to agree. “If you add to that
the tag of limited or exclusive, people fall over themselves to collect the real
collectables, and with the less scrupulous Fandomland fans out there
hoarding them then selling them later to the highest bidder, the price is
pushed up to an artificially high level.”
“And then people are forced
to buy on EeewwwBay, O’Neilldoll,” Teal’cdoll concluded with disdain.
“The whole thing sounds like
a rip off to me,” Jackdoll muttered.
“We should do something
about it!” Dannydoll declared passionately.
“We should rid Fandomland of its oppressive capitalist system and return
to the status quo where everyone is nice to each other.”
“Quo?” Jackdoll
queried. “I like ‘Whatever You Want’,”
he smiled.
“Really?” Dannydoll
breathed.
“Yeah, but not now.”
Dannydoll’s plastic
shoulders slumped in disappointment.
“So whaddya gonna do about
it, Felger?” the coloneldoll enquired, giving him the ‘look’ again.
“I’ll take you to
Fifthdoll’s base of operations, and you can find a way of dealing with him
yourselves.”
“Indeed.”
-o-
Carefully, Felger carried
the SG-1dolls in a box to the other side of his living room and set it down.
Knowing not to handle the
dolls, Felger waited until they had climbed out. “Fifthdoll is around here somewhere, so I’ll leave it up to you.”
“You do that,” Jackdoll
grimaced as he did a quick threat assessment among the discarded sneakers,
piles of magazines and empty coffee mugs.
Within moments, Fifthdoll
had joined them from behind a construction of cardboard, knives and forks and
the spaghetti of wires snaking between a plug socket and hub of his production
premises.
“Welcome to the Cubic
Zirconia Collect As Much As You Can Action Figures Company,” Fifthdoll
declared.
“I understand from Felger
there are some production problems,” Jackdoll announced, “So we’re here to find
out why.”
“Come with me, and you can
see for yourselves,” Fifthdoll said.
“The five cent tour, huh?”
Soon the dolls were inside
the cardboard construction and inspecting the manufacturing process.
“As you can see here, a
number and variety of replicated figures have already been made,” explained
Fifthdoll proudly.
“These don’t look so good,”
Dannydoll remarked as he squinted at a few with see-through plastic
packaging. He saw himself, frozen in
movement, and dark grey all over. The
colourless shape made him shudder. It
seemed to him the figure inside the box looked sad, lost even, and he didn’t
like the idea of his replicated version being sold like that. The fact the word Prototype was printed on
the package didn’t make him feel any better about it.
“Hey!” Jackdoll
exclaimed. “Look! It’s me, and I’m wearing every uniform ever
thought of!”
Sure enough, there was a row
of Jacks in different dress, some in olive green outfits, others in desert
camos, and more in his Black Ops get up.
“I can see only one
General Jack O’Neill, O’Neilldoll,” Teal’c observed.
“I’m a general? Sweet!”
Fifthdoll grinned and nodded
his round plastic head with moulded hair.
“Just a minute,” Jackdoll
said, his smile fading. “Why is there
only one General Jack?”
“It is an exclusive line, so
keen Fandomland fans have the opportunity to bid on EeewwwBay for the privilege
of owning it.”
“Why don’t you just make
lots of General Jacks, enough for everyone who wants one?” Dannydoll enquired
as he inspected himself in his Anubis-fighting robes.
“Just having the one action
figure with show-accurate weapons and accessories and the added bonus of an
essential part of the Stargate means its value is extremely high.”
“There are bits of the gate
with each figure?” Dannydoll asked excitedly.
“You know what this means, Jackdoll?”
“Yeah, I get it,” the
coloneldoll nodded. “You said as part
of the contract we could have a complimentary set of figures, so get ‘em lined
up, we’ll make sure they’re looked after.
“As you wish,” Fifthdoll
said resentfully.
“So you’re holding the
Fandomland fans to ransom. If they
don’t pay up, they don’t get the figure!” Jackdoll growled. He didn’t like this arrangement one little
bit.
While this exchange was
going on, Dannydoll was still looking at all the figures. Most were already in their blister packaging
but there were some that had yet to be incarcerated in the plastic and
cardboard cartons. He stared at a
Colonel Jack O’Neill type and then at a Black Ops Jack O’Neill. They both looked incredibly attractive and
Dannydoll’s little U-shaped grip hand flexed as his curiosity pushed him to
touch the Black Ops version with its black woollen hat, huge tac vest,
fingerless gloves and very serious expression.
Dannydoll groaned. He loved his Jackdoll in this outfit, all
dark and sexy. When he saw a version of
himself in the same uniform, he smiled broadly. Idly, he wondered if these figures ever got it together in the
same way he and Jackdoll did. Fishing
in his pocket he found some UHU adhesive putty and stuck it in the U-grip hand
of the Black Ops Dr. Daniel Jackson.
“Enjoy,” he smiled.
-o-
“I hope your tour has
satisfied you,” Fifthdoll said edgily.
“I must ask you to leave now.
You have interrupted production and I would like to restart it as soon
as possible.”
“Just wait up,” Jackdoll
ordered. “We want you to step up
production on the General Jacks. You
have to give everyone out there a fair chance to get what they want at a reasonable
price.”
“As I’ve already explained,
coloneldoll, that’s not the way action figure marketing works.”
“Well, I don’t care. Look Evil Filth, just do as we say, and
nobody gets hurts!”
Lifting his small, but
perfectly formed plastic P90 Jackdoll showed he meant business. Somewhere in the background, Dannydoll
moaned his appreciation. Jackdoll
always looked so good when he was about to blow something up or shoot
somebody. If he couldn’t do that he
would just shoot all over Dannydoll instead.
Either way, Dannydoll’s remaining UHU adhesive putty stirred in his
pocket.
Backing up, Fifthdoll knew
he was beaten. Even his Replicator
Carterdoll couldn’t save him.
Teal’cdoll had already de-bladed her.
“Flick the switch,
Filthdoll, or I flick the switch on this baby,” Jackdoll growled
pointing his weapon, and Dannydoll’s googly eyes went all googly.
-o-
With Jay Felger nowhere in
sight, the SG-1dolls had to drag their box back to their own space. It took them most of the afternoon as it
felt quite heavy, and when they were at last back at their encampment, they all
collapsed, tired and aching from their joint haulathon.
While the others rested,
Dannydoll removed a large piece of paper from inside the transport box to
reveal underneath several Black Ops Colonel Jack O’Neills and the Black Ops Dr.
Daniel Jacksons. After a little helpful
butt surgery, and a portion of UHU adhesive putty each, all the figures were
despatched to the far end of the encampment.
Silently, Dannydoll watched
as the figures paired off. Soon there
was a Black Ops orgy going on with at least half a dozen Jack and Daniel
couples…coupling.
With his own blob of putty
changing shape, Dannydoll headed for the box he shared with Jackdoll. The thought of real-time performing dollies
had Dannydoll grinning. This would
certainly beat a blow up doll, and in any case, the only blow up doll that
satisfied Jackdoll was one he could, well…blow up!
Jackdoll was quiet and
Dannydoll wondered if his loverdoll was asleep. As Dannydoll settled down beside him, he snorted and woke. Turning over, he stared at his loverdoll,
who was howling with laughter.
“Wha…what the hell are you
laughing at, Dannydoll?” Jackdoll asked, his little polypropylene voice still
thick with dolly sleep.
“Your UHU adhesive putty
dick is stuck to your forehead!”
“You mean my head is
on my head?”
“Stop it, Jackdoll! I can’t concentrate if you make me laugh!”
“Sorry, Dannydoll,” Jackdoll
pouted.
“I’ve got something to show
you,” Dannydoll laughed. “Come with
me.”
“Oh yeah, would love to,”
Jackdoll breathed, scraping the squashed dick off his eyebrows.
Quietly they stalked through
the encampment to watch the replicated Jacks and Daniels.
“Oh my,” Jackdoll gasped,
his voice trembling as he took in the sight of so many look-a-likes engaged in
a variety of loverdoll positions. “I
didn’t expect to see this,” he observed wide-eyed and hot under the
dollycollar. “Where did they all come
from?”
“Fifthdoll’s factory,
Jackdoll. I liberated them!”
“A blow for anti-capitalist
ideas, then.”
“No, just thought as we
don’t have a TV or a DVD player, we could get our entertainment this way.”
“So we could watch or
participate, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” Dannydoll
whispered, his UHU adhesive putty growing by the second.
Jackdoll and his Dannydoll
fell on each other, kissing and touching, as only they knew how.
Suddenly, surrounding them
was a chorus of voices directed their way.
“Show us yours and we’ll
show you ours!” the jolly dollies called.
Looking at one another,
Jackdoll and Dannydoll licked their tiny plastic lips.
“Gowan,” they chimed
together, “Dare ya!