The dishevelled man leaned against my car in the Citizen parking lot.
"Dr. Bugalow Boogie," I sighed. "Did you know my career has nearly ended every time we've talked in the past six months?"
"This is your career," said Boogie. "Right here."
I dry-heaved with fear. "Oh please, no. I don't want it."
"Oh yes. It`s Chapter Two."
This is Not a Drill by Dr. Bugalow Boogie
Chapter Two
"Spitz, where is the doctor?" said Mayor Three and a half of Nine.
"The doctor continues to be very sad," said Spitz, the angry dog. "The pipeline people need his tears to continue their cleanup efforts in Spillasumtoo."
"Huh, I'll keep that in mind if we ever need him to cry me a river," said Three and a half.
The absence of the doctor was the least of her problems. The Cored Review, the surgical plank of her campaign to cut out stultifying, stupifying, suffocating waste clogging her city like bad foundation in the pores of a real housewife, was stalled. The Leaner, her project's pet, a creature of saws, scalpels, eyes and ears that was supposed to trim the feckless and cauterize the incompetent, was too complicated, tangled in its own tentacles.
If the Cored Review was to succeed, she needed something more radical, something more direct from the like minds of the confusing firm of RPMG. They had promised to finish her answer this night.
"Fools," she said as she walked through the corridors of her underground bunker beneath Patricia's Boulevard. "They thought he was getting a new look. Instead, I gave him vision."
The bean counter of RPMG blinked at Mayor Three and a half of Nine through thick opaque glasses that saw nothing but the bottom line.
"You asked for a brighter face for the Cored Review. So we took him and gave him a canned do attitude."
On cue, the lights of the giant hangar came on, revealing the seven-storey figure towering before them. The people of Prince George would recognize him except it looked like he'd been given a major league of growth hormones and steroids. His familiar smile had been replaced with hundreds of spinning Tory teeth and his hat was the head of a city worker.
He wasn't wearing a dress or waving a flag and he definitely wasn't going to give anyone a Kiss. In his hand was a giant bloodstained axe.
"I give you the true Seven Storey Wonder of northern B.C., the greatest cost cutter municipal government has ever seen," said the bean counter.
"K is for the knock-out he will deliver to inefficiency. P is the power he is given by the will of the people of Prince George!"
By pre-arranged signal, a door in the giant figure's chest swung open. Inside, dozens of taxpayers pedalled furiously on stationary bikes. Their work provided the impetus for the creature and the action for mechanical hands that periodically reached out and grabbed them by the neck, releasing them only when they gasped out "Cut!"
"I love it when the people have their say," sighed Three and a half.
The mayor's angry dog Spitz barked excitedly and chased the loonie stuck to his tail as the bean counter made one final gesture.
"Behold, KP Mr. pG! We can unleash him on the city in minutes."
"Excellent," said Three and a half. "On my signal, unleash savings."
Three and a half, Spitz and the bean counter watched on a nearby monitor as KP Mr. pG advanced downtown. Some onlookers reacted in horror, others went back to their heroin.
He came on his first target: the Specific Centre.
First the axe came down, over and over again. The scoops of the broken building went into Tory-toothed mouth.
"And now, for what we like to call contracting out," giggled the bean counter.
KP Mr.pG took a few steps and then stood over the Double Stream Art Gallery. He regurgitated a still steaming pile of Specific Centre on top of the gallery.
A grimace, then, for a brief minute, the old, satisfied smile returned to KP Mr.pG.
"Two facilities, consolidated into one, with the savings halved and the satisfaction doubled," the bean counter beamed. "A gallery, a conference centre, and a fiscal work of art, if I do say so myself. It's the Super Civic Gallery Centre."
"The library... the library," barked and panted Spitz.
"Too much fibre... it would take days to digest," said the bean counter. "Don`t worry, we`ll be giving it a good Rob Fording soon enough. Let`s try something a little softer: Fine Gully Golf Course."
As KP Mr.pG advanced on the tiny track, the strangest thing happened. It sounded like hail, pings, bounces, clanks, until it became clear it was coming off the axe-wielding, stiff-legged wood-tin man.
"Golfers!" said the bean counter as a steady pelt of balls sent the Cored Review champion reeling.
"Impossible," said Three and a half. ``Who golfs at Fine Gully?"
"He's being tangled in the net behind the seventh hole," said the bean counter. "Who hasn't overshot that green?"
Staggered, it looked like KP Mr.pG would regain his balance - until one, then two, then three high-powered streams of water hosed him to his knees.
"Curses, the firefighters!" cried Three and a half.
The firefighters, in teams of four, and Gullyiers chained up the prone KP Mr.pG. He was hitched to two city snowploughs and dragged through the streets to cheers, though not before a grader worked his face like a windrow.
"They're taking him to Poor Reasons Pool," Three and a half realized.
Inside the pool, the unions gathered. Their leader, Abigno, addressed the baying throng as KP Mr.pG dangled above the water.
"Here's our recommendation for your Cored Review, Missed Mayor!" Abigno screamed, raising her fist as the robotic beast was sent crashing into the water.
KP Mr.pG thrashed in the water as the sizzle of short circuits filled Poor Reasons Pool. Unfortunately, the taxpayers drowned, too.
The grin, however, was strangely back on KP Mr.pG's face as the unions cut his head off and prepared to put it on a pike.
"You know, I don't think I've ever seen the city work so well," said a voice from beside Abigno.
"I think you're right," she answered. "I hope you enjoy your next job, Mr. Bates."
