SmackDown: MadMike's Revenge!

Round 8: Tales from the Aqua City - @Reffster

Tales from the Aqua City

by Reffster

There are a million stories in the Aqua City. Obviously, not exactly. Although I suppose, if you think about it, it's possible that there might be a million. But not very likely. I mean, what are the odds? Pretty low, I'm guessing. Like, one in a million. So, when I say a million, I mean a lot. A shedload. A bunch. A heap. Like, you might think there's a whole lot of M&Ms in one of those big party-size bags, even after you throw away the blue ones, but that's nothing compared to how many stories there are in the Aqua City. Even if you took a hammer and whacked the crap out of that bag, until all the M&Ms were smunched up into little tiny pieces, there would still be more stories in the Aqua City, than there are pieces of smunched-up M&Ms. Even if you left in the blue ones. Actually, if you're going to smunch up M&Ms with a hammer, I recommend just smunching up the blue ones, because you were probably going to throw them away anyway, and they may as well serve some purpose. Then you can eat the rest, which if you'd left in the bag to get smunched, still wouldn't have made enough pieces to come even close to how many stories there are in the Aqua City, and therefore would have been sadly wasted. Although, now that I think about it some more, if you really, really, really smunched up those M&Ms, like right down to their component molecules, or if you could somehow get a large-hadron-collider hammer, and smunch them down to quarks, then you probably would have more pieces than there are stories in the Aqua City, even though, as I hope you're beginning to grasp by now, there are a lot of stories in the Aqua City. These are a few of them.

****

High above the Aqua City, a helicopter slowly circles.

"Behold, my friend. Behold the Aqua City. Behold what I have wrought, with nothing but my vision, my determination and my spirit."

"Well, that and a bucketload of shareholders' cash, sir."

"You know, Jenkins, you really need to stop thinking like an accountant. Take a look at the bigger picture. This is a bold step into the future, an unprecedented technological marvel, and a quantum leap in the evolution of humanity."

"It's also an excellent tax dodge, sir."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is that side of things. But this is hardly the time to be focusing on the undignified and and unseemly pecuniary aspects of the venture. This is a time to celebrate our achievement."

"And to celebrate clause 2.31 of the tax code, sir? The one that exempts ocean-borne dwellings from most state-based taxes? Along with clause 7.45, sub-section 3? The one that-"

"Jenkins, you're a real mood-killer, did you know that? Yes, I may be a few hundred million bucks better off than I would have been, if not for those clauses of yours. But really, what are a few hundred million dollars? What difference do they make, in the grand scheme of things?"

"Well, sir, they stopped you from going bankrupt."

"Yeah, I suppose. But on top of that one little side-bonus, there's so much more that the Aqua City can offer the human race. More living space, environmentally-sustainable habitation, new fields of research, all that kind of crap. The sky's the limit."

"Actually, sir, the overdraft is the limit. And we need to talk about an extension. But on the topic of research, we're copping some grief from the ethics committee."

"Those clowns? I dunno, Jenkins, how's a man supposed to be a visionary, when narrow-minded idiots are forever getting in his way? What's up their butts?"