Nano 2017 Lego Thing Part Seven
“I might have to change the title of my story,” typed Alex into his compewp I mean computer. “I don’t know if Lego Thing is the best name.”
“Haha, you’re just figuring that out now?,” typed his fake internet friend. “Well okay, what would you call it?”
“I have no idea,” said Alex. “That’s why I called it Lego Thing. I knew I wanted to write Lego Fanfiction, and I knew that it wouldn’t really make any sense because I wasn’t planning the plot out ahead of time. So, thing it was.”
“Hmm…maybe you could call it Lego Journey? Lego Odyssey? Lego Adventure?”
“Those are all good,” typed Alex. “And all probably already the names of various video games and/or theme park rides.”
“Well I mean, that’s okay right? It’s not like you’re going to sell or publish this thing in a way that people can actually pay for it.”
“That’s true. But I haven’t done anything this infringing of many different copyrights since I was in film school. Also,” typed Alex, taking another sip of his coffee, “I think I might have to stop coming to Beanland.”
Alex’s nameless internet friend wasn’t sure what to say about this. “Wh…what? How could you do that? Don’t you go there pretty much every day? Isn’t that like, your favorite place to write stuff? How will you write headphone reviews or do anything on the internet ever again?”
“I think I made Selena mad at me,” typed Alex. He looked over at the counter and she glared back at him, and mouthed the words “I’m watching you.”
Alex looked back to his screen. “Yup, she’s definitely mad. She didn’t like that I killed Catwoman in the last part of my story.”
“She’s reading your story?”
Alex nodded even though it didn’t make any difference. “That’s what I get for posting it publicly online. Lots of people are reading it. And stupid social network algorithms mean that people nearby are more likely to see it.”
“Well you’d better un-kill Catwoman then! I didn’t really like that part either!”
“Obviously Catwoman is going to be okay, this is the Lego world. That’s the whole reason I wanted to do the scene with the rebuilding crew putting the deputies back together.
—
Emmet sat in Dunby’s office in his construction uniform. “Wow, I’ve never been in a real police office before! This is so cool! So what walls do you want me to knock down? I could move some of these chairs too, and there’s a really cool couch I know how to build.”
Dunby shook his head. “While I admire your enthusiasm, the job isn’t here. It’s down at the airport.”
“Oh!,” shouted Emmet. “Well okay then! It’s a little bit weird that you asked me to come here if the job was at the airport. I’ve never been there either. When I went to work on that movie, I insisted on riding to the studio in a car because I didn’t know if planes were real or just in action movies, but then it turned out I lived right around the corner so that was pretty awesome. I could walk to work every day, and there was this food truck I really liked that sold these *awesome* hot dogs and—
“That’s great,” said Dunby. “I need you to get to the airport and rebuild a couple of deputies.”
“Wait, like, people deputies? Oh man, I’ve never built a person before. But do you want them to be tall or cool or like, made out of aliens or—“
“They already exist, I just need you to reassemble them the way they were,” said Dunby.
“Do you have their instructions lying around?”
Dunby blinked. And took a bite of his donut. “No. They’re people. Figure it out, master builder.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, I am *not* a master builder, despite what you may have heard. I mean, I was in that movie? But I didn’t really even get to build that much cool stuff there, and it was all pre-scripted. I’m really good at following orders though.”
Dunby shook his head. “Get down to the airport right now and rebuild those two deputies!”
“Aye aye captain!,” shouted Emmet. He bounded out of the room.
—
“I finally finished the game,” typed Alex. He took the last sip of his mocha.
“The one you’re writing fanfic for?”
“Yes. Lego City Undercover. Well. It’s sort of fanfic for that game. It has some of the characters and also random other Warner Brothers characters, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I had.”
“Fortunately, the ending of the game didn’t screw up my plot. Such as it is. I still kind of resent this story. I thought it would be fun to write Frank Honey, and it is…but I’m discovering I have the same problem the story in the game did. By the end of the game, I just kind of wanted things to be over because there’s only so much ‘there’ there. You know? It’s a little hard to tell a meaningful story about little plastic cops chasing a bad guy around a city.”
“Not everything has to be serious,” typed Alex’s friend. “Sometimes things should be fun.”
“Yes but even fun things should still be good. The game has the strength of its interactivity to fall back on. When the story starts to lag a little bit, they can just make you solve some puzzles or jump around or hit a thing.”
“Sort of like how, when your story starts to lag, you start writing one of these sequences?”
“I’m…I’m going to get another coffee…holy crap!”
The line was huge. Alex hadn’t noticed, because he’d been there for a few hours, but now the line was backed up all the way to the door. He looked around for the reason why…then he noticed a banner above the counter. It had been hastily altered from “Peppermint Day!” to “Puppermint Day: 10 percent off for dog owners!”
Alex nodded. “Ah, now I understand why Selena asked me if I had a dog this morning.”
—
Natalia and Ellie pulled up in a cool custom convertible to the site of the partially demolished old Ace Chemicals building. Robin leapt at the sound of the car and hid behind some rubble.
“Batman? Robin?,” asked Natalia. “What are you guys doing here? Aren’t you fictional characters?”
“My fear is very real!,” said Robin from behind the rubble.
“Ladies, no need for alarm,” said Batman. “I have saved the day and killed the villains. Justice has been served!”
“Stand back Natalia,” said Ellie. “This guy’s not the real Batman. He’s some kind of weird vigilante.” She pulled out a big pirate cannon. “I’m going to blast him! Batman doesn’t kill people!”
“Wow!,” said Natalia. “Where were you carrying that?”
Ellie winked. “Magic.”
“Whoa just hold on there, I—“
Batman wasn’t able to finish his sentence because a cannonball broke him into plastic bits.
“That was a very loud noise!,” said Robin from behind the pile of rubble. “You know, I can’t help but think that someone else is behind everything going on here.”
“That would be me!,” boomed Sauron’s voice.
“Okay Ellie,” said Natalia. “Let’s clean this mess up.”
Ellie nodded. “I wonder where Frank and Chase are?”
—
The Space Laser Wizard, as he had just started calling himself, made quick work of the pirates. He stuffed all of their various plastic bits into a large paper bag, and dropped them off the side of the boat. In the morning, when the employees came to open the store, they were very puzzled as to what had happened, but had no time to think about it. They put the pirate bits into the spare parts bins in the center of the store.
The Wizard set sail every night after that, pillaging the seven seas. Or he would have, if he had known how to sail or had been outside of a plastic box in a retail store.
30 days and nights went by, and then the Wizard decided it was finally time to go for an adventure on the nearby island.
—
“This story is so exciting!,” shouted Frank, drawing the ire of everyone in the library. “I wonder if we’re going to find out what’s on the island?”
Chase was slowly going insane. “I can’t do this whole backstory thing, Frank! I need to be out there dressing in various outfits, solving puzzles, and breaking stuff down into smaller parts and money! I don’t know how to just sit here and read about things.”
“My parents taught *me* how to read, Chase. Maybe they could teach you too!”
“What if I just punched this library apart and then reassembled it into a boat or something? Do you think that would upset anyone?”
Frank looked deep in thought. “You know, I used to own a horse! Do you remember that?”
“Sure,” said Chase. “You stole him from a friendly farmer and spent a lot of time riding him around backwards, and you also somehow got him into a rooftop pool.”
“Water thing,” said Frank. “They’re called water things. I always forget those words too! I wonder where my horse is?”
—
The Space Laser Wizard finally made it to the island. He shot the ground repeatedly where the big red X was, blasting plastic bits all around.
Underneath the X he found a box. He hauled it up onto the beach, opened it up…and out popped Sauron!
“Oh my goodness, my back feels so miserable even though it has no nerves in it! Thank you kind…beardy sir for letting me out of…oh no, it’s you.”
