The scene: The operating center of the National Emergency Response Division. The date is March 29^th, 1984. Men…top men, mind you…are looking concerned while they smoke cigarettes. There’s a feeling of tension running throughout the entire center. An elevator door slides open and a grim-faced General approaches the smoking men. If this were a movie, he’d be played by Warren Oates.

General: All right, damn it, I’m here! Now give me status report.

Smoking Man #1: Things are bad, General.

Smoking Man #2: Very bad.

Smoking Man #3 (giggling): The worst, man!

General (sternly): You’ll address me as General!

Smoking Man #3 (saluting sloppily): Yessir, General, man!

Smoking Man #2: You’ll have to excuse him, sir. We’re all feeling the pressure.

General: That’s all very well and good, but what I want to know is: What the hell are you going to do about it?

Smoking Man #1: Well, sir, we’ve never had something like this happen before. I mean, a whole city…enraged… Every single citizen, at the same time…!

General: Tell me something I don’t know.

Smoking Man #3: Farrah Fawcett is a natural brunette.

Smoking Man #2: Ignore him, General. We do have a system in place to contain this problem. We’re just waiting for your approval.

General: System? What kind of system?

There’s the sound of a very small throat being cleared. The General looks around, looks left and right, then finally looks down. A pre-school-aged Zymm is standing there, looking expectant. She has a fancy-looking techno-thingy in one small hand, and a teddy bear in the other.

General (glaring at the smoking men): This is not a great day to be bringing your children to work.

Smoking Man #1: She’s not a child, General. Well, she is, but…

Smoking Man #2: She’s also the designer of the system.

General: This child?!!

Li’l Zymm (rolling her eyes): Ja, ja. I am ze kinder. I alzo have an IQ bigger zan zis room. Und if you vant to ztop Baltimore from going “Kerboom,” you vill listen to me.

General: All right, I’ll play along. What’s this system of yours, little girl?

Li’l Zymm: It ist eine Rage Accumulation Device. It vill gather all ze rage from Baltimore und break it down into a zimple liquid form.

General: You are kidding, right?

Li’l Zymm: I never kid. Prank, ja. Und zometimes pun. But only if I have had too much apple juize.

General (to the smoking men): You are asking me to trust in a child…?

Smoking Man #1: We know how it looks, sir, but her theory is solid. Besides, this may be our only option.

General: All right, how long will it take to set up this system of yours?

Li’l Zymm: Ach, no time at all. I zet up ze zatellite zystems days ago. I like to be prepared.

General: You have satellites?!!

Li’l Zymm (shrugging): Only two. Und zey are zmall vones. Now, are ve going to do zis…?

Nervous Tech (looking up from his monitor): Sir! Baltimore is at 102.7% of its rage capacity! We need to do something!

General (reluctantly): All right, little girl…take your best shot.

Li’l Zymm nods and pushes a button on her technological doodad. Suddenly a blender on the counter whirs to life and starts to fill with a purple liquid.

General: Someone shut that damn thing off!

Li’l Zymm: Nein! Zat ist ze rage. It ist even now being extracted from Baltimore und ztored in zat receptacle.

Nervous Tech: General…it’s working! Rage levels down to 59%…53%…

General: All right, don’t let it drop too low. It is Baltimore, after all.

Li’l Zymm (clicking another button on the doodad): Ja, zis should be gut.

Zymm wanders over to the blender and takes it off of the counter. Lugging it and her teddy bear, she heads for the door.

L’il Zymm: It vas gut vorking mit you gentlemen. Und if any of you are ztill alive on May 22, 2045, be sure to stay indoors.

General (as Zymm leaves): What a strange little girl…

Li’l Zymm (sticking her head back in the room): Ach! Und if you zpot my binky vandering ze halls, let me know. It zeems to have vandered off.

Cut to: The DFO clubhouse, February 3^rd, 2013. Ballsofsteelandfury and JJ Fozz are sneaking into Doktor Zymm’s laboratory. Outside of the lab there’s the sound of crashing furniture and lots and lots of swearing.

Ballsofsteelandfury: Holy cow! CB is pissed!

JJ Fozz: She’ll get over it. In a decade or two.

Ballsofsteelandfury (finger guns): It’s gonna be that long before the Niners get into another Super Bowl.

JJ Fozz (looking around the lab): Damn it, does Zymm have anything to drink around here?

Ballsofsteelandfury: Whatever you do, don’t drink anything with a name on it.

JJ Fozz pulls out the blender of purple liquid from under a counter.

JJ Fozz: Hey, what’s this stuff?

JJ Fozz takes off the lid and takes a whiff.

Ballsofsteelandfury: What’s it smell like?

JJ Fozz: Hmm. I dunno, but it’s a real familiar smell…

JJ Fozz tries a bit of the purple liquid.

Ballsofsteelandfury: So…?

JJ Fozz: Not bad! Wanna sip?

Ballsofsteelandfury: No, thanks. I still remember what happened to Brocky that time he drank one of Zymm’s brews.

JJ Fozz: Eh, the boobs only lasted for a few days. Besides, I don’t think he really minded.

Ballsofsteelandfury: With my luck, they’d be permanent. And there’s no way I’m changing my name to Boobsofsteelandfury.

JJ Fozz (upending the blender): More for me, then!

Cut to: Marc Trestmans Windowless Van’s new (kinda) van, currently zipping (kinda) down a highway in the South. Ballsofsteelandfury is at the wheel. Covalent blonde is riding shotgun, and Marc, Doktor Zymm and Moosemas Gorilla are in the back.

Covalent Blonde: Wait… So JJ Fozz actually, literally, drank the rage of Baltimore?

Ballsofsteelandfury: Yup. Of course, we didn’t know it at the time. But a week later a cop stopped me and Fozz and, Fozz being Fozz, it turned into an incident. That’s when he turned into the big purple rage beast for the first time.

Moosemas Gorilla: Ook? Ook-ook?

Marc Trestmans Windowless Van: Whoa, yeah! Like, what happened to the cop, man?

Ballsofsteelandfury: Fozz threw him into orbit. On the bright side, we got out of a ticket.

Doktor Zymm: Ja. Vell, it should have taught you not to znoop around meine laboratory, but zomehow I doubt it did.

Ballsofsteelandfury: Yeah, I’d give up on that one, Dok. By the way, where’s our turn-off?

Covalent Blonde (looking at the map): I think it’s this one coming up…

Marc Trestmans Windowless Van (looking out the window): Down that road? It looks pretty spooky, man…

To be continued…