Target Rich Environment
Tom saw Conundrum running across an open field. He would avenge his intern and his favorite bow tie. “That is an excellent idea, Jimmy.”
Only the painkillers had kicked in, and Jimmy was too busy staring at his hands to hear him. He wiggled his fingers. “Whoa. Hey there, little space manatees. How ya’ doing?”
So Tom left Jimmy to his hallucinations and went in pursuit of Jeff Conundrum.
CHAPTER 6:
Tom’s 3:00 PM Epic Dimension-Hopping Boss Fight
CONUNDRUM was far faster than his rotund form suggested. Like most Interdimensional Insurance Agents, he was also genetically and cybernetically augmented, but Tom was still gaining on him, because while Jeff had grown soft and cynical, Tom had trained constantly in pursuit of superior customer service. Conundrum looked back, saw Tom catching up, and pulled a complicated device from beneath his suspenders. It was a portable riftmaker. Such black market devices were incredibly dangerous, but Conundrum was desperate. He mashed the button. “So long, Tom!”
A glowing hole appeared in the air in front of Conundrum and he stepped through. Tom didn’t know to where in space or time the gate would lead, but he had to hurry and leap through before it closed on him.
Jeff had paused on the other side to catch his breath. He stared in disbelief as Tom popped out after him. “Don’t you ever give up?”
“Give up? That’s a two-or-three-on-a-satisfaction-survey talk.”
Though he didn’t know which reality they were in, Tom recognized the building. They were in the White House. Jeff Conundrum ran toward the Oval Office, shouting for Secret Service agents to tackle Tom. He easily avoided the unaugmented humans, and chased Jeff into the President’s inner sanctum.
Only what appeared to be an alcoholic circus clown was sitting behind the desk. Tom did not recognize the man.
“Vice President Joe Biden, I need your help,” Jeff shouted. “Where’s the President?”
“Huh?” He looked up from his stupor. “I’m only filling in for the big guy while he’s golfing. What’s my insurance agent doing here? Where are the strippers I ordered?”
“So he left you in charge? Then I command you to use your superpowers to destroy Tom Stranger!”
Confused, Joe Biden lifted one arm, revealing that he had a suitcase handcuffed to his wrist. “What? Oh, you mean this?” Tom recognized it as the dreaded nuclear football that held the country’s top secret launch codes. Only when Joe Biden opened it, confetti and festive balloons popped out. “Oh, so that’s what the guys left in there for me! Ain’t that something?”
“Dang it, I should have known!” Conundrum went to activate his portable rift generator, but Tom Stranger swept the Karl Marx bobblehead from the President’s desk and hurled it at him. The bobblehead struck the device, but rather than knock it from Jeff’s hands, it stuck the selector to random.
There was a flash of light.
Then Jeff, Tom, and Vice President Joe Biden were free-falling through the air. The rainbow-colored ground rushed up to meet them. Luckily, it was a giant, world-spanning ball pit that broke their fall. He’d been here before. Tom hated this dimension. It was very silly.
As he swam and struggled through the balls toward the floundering Conundrum, Joe Biden could be heard shouting, “A ball pit! This is the best birthday ever!”
Curse these infernal balls. Tom reached Conundrum, and punched him in his ample gut. “Surrender, Jeff.”
“Never!” Jeff shouted as he struck the button again. There was a flash as Jeff and Tom were torn from that universe, leaving Vice President Joe Biden to have a wonderful time throwing rainbow-colored balls in the air . . . until the ball sharks arrived.
The two of them appeared in a very dark reality. Tom and Jeff looked around, saw all the strange leather accoutrements and odd devices surrounding them, and simultaneously realized they’d entered the universe dominated—literally—by Fifty Shades of Grey novels.
“Awkward,” Conundrum said, as he realized they were being watched by pervy weirdoes and bored housewives.
“Push the button again, Jeff.” Tom suggested. “We can fight to the death somewhere tasteful.”
“Yeah. Good call, Tom. Pushing the button.”
There was a flash, and the two of them were standing at the top of a giant volcano that was actively spewing smoke and lava, under a blood-red sky filled with lightning and swirling-fire tornados. It was a proper showdown location.
“Now this is more like it!” Conundrum said as he sucker-punched Tom in the face.
The two of them fought across the narrow ledge at the top of the volcano. Lava gurgled, bubbled, and spat below them. It was more than four hundred degrees on the ledge, so Tom broke into a sweat. Both of them had dozens of fighting styles downloaded directly into their brains, their bones were hardened with armored molecular weave, and they were capable of moving at speeds that made Jackie Chan look like a tree sloth. When two Interdimensional Insurance Agents throw down, it gets pretty crazy.
Only Tom was still recovering from being poisoned and tortured—not to mention he’d skipped lunch—so Conundrum got the upper hand. With a spinning back kick, he knocked Tom down and sent him rolling to the edge. He clung there, precariously balanced. One slip and it meant falling to certain lava-filled doom.
“You know why I always win, Tom? It’s because I cheat. You know why your reality got totaled? Because it was a loser reality for losers who lose! I know that’s why you have it in for me. Sure, you were only a boy and had to watch your whole planet explode. That’s a bummer. I get that! But it’s no excuse to make me look bad in front of Chuck Norris! Your stupid dimension brought it on themselves for being underinsured.”
“That was pretty irresponsible of my Earth,” Tom agreed. “Maybe if their insurance agent had done his job, they would have bought the correct coverage. But this isn’t personal, Jeff. This is professional. You’ve committed crimes against insurance. Surrender yourself to the Licensing Board for peer review.”
“And pay a fine? I don’t think so!” Conundrum laughed as he kicked Tom over the side. The intrepid Interdimensional Insurance Agent barely hung on by his fingertips. Conundrum stepped on Tom’s fingers and ground them into the rock beneath his Kenneth Cole oxfords.
Tom winced. “Last chance, Jeff. Give up.”
Conundrum snorted. “You’re about to fall to your death, People are Strange. You’re hardly in any position to threaten me. What’s to keep me from just murdering you once and for all?”
“You’re forgetting one thing, Jeff.”
“What’s that, Tom?”
“We’re from different dimensions.”
“So?”
“I’m insured with Stranger & Stranger.”
Someone tapped Jeff Conundrum on the shoulder. He reflexively turned around only to discover that he was facing another Tom Stranger, who promptly shoved him. Off balance, Jeff’s arms windmilled wildly—it would have been comical if not for the whole burning lava death thing—before he tumbled over the ledge.
“Straaaaaaaaanger—” Conundrum disappeared into the sulfur clouds below.
“Hello, Tom.”
“Tom,” the other Tom Stranger said in greeting as he extended a hand to help Tom up. “It appears that you’ve had a difficult day.”
“Indeed. Thank you.”
Once safely back on the ledge, Tom dusted off the tattered remains of his suit. The other Tom’s attire was in pristine condition. Tom Prime was a little jealous that the other Tom still had his green bow tie. That Tom had a goatee, which meant he was Evil Tom, but regardless of his alignment, right or wrong, good or evil, just or unjust, that all paled before the importance of providing quality customer service.
Evil Tom made a tsk-tsk noise as he looked over the sorry state of Tom Prime’s suit. “It looks like we’ve got that business sorted out. I’ll have my Muffy send your Muffy the paperwork.”
“Excellent. Are we still on for golf this Saturday at Dick Cheney’s secret m
oon base?”
“Of course. I will bring the chips.”
The two Tom Strangers shook hands before they parted ways.
Tom limped back to the edge and looked over the side. As he peered down into the sulfur clouds, he spotted Jeff Conundrum far below. His nemesis hadn’t perished. Instead, one of his neon suspenders had caught on a cliff, leaving him dangling helplessly a few feet over the lava flow.
“It seems you are in a predicament, Jeff.”
“It’s a bit of a conundrum . . . Damn . . . You’re right. That is annoying. Now can I get a hand here, Tom?”
“Sorry. You’re not covered by Stranger & Stranger.”
Just then something stirred in the lava beneath Jeff. A gigantic, terrifying figure rose from the molten rock. Tom recognized it as the Balrog he’d fought in Nebraska earlier. So that was whose horrible hellish dimension they’d wound up in.
“Hello.” Tom waved.
“Greetings, Tom Stranger. You are early. I set up a consultation with your secretary, but I didn’t think our meeting was until tomorrow . . . Who is this other flabby blue-haired mortal dangling over my pain cave? Wait. It’s you!” The horrific demon got right in Conundrum’s face. “You jerk! You cancelled my liability policy and tricked my legions into invading Nebraska!”
“Oh, hey, yeah, about that, I can totally explain—”
“Screw that. You’re on my turf now, Conundrum. You will pay for your sins. Your stupid call center put me on hold for what seemed like eternity, but now I get to show you what eternity really means! Get it? Because eternal torment is sort of our thing around here. I’m going to stick you down in the seventh level with the murderers and the Fox executives who cancelled Firefly. We call it the Pineapple Room.”
“That sounds awful!”
“Oh, whatever it is you’re imagining we make you do with the pineapples, it’s way worse.”
Panicked, Jeff looked at Tom. “Hey, Tom, can I buy a Stranger & Stranger policy real fast?”
He thought about it for a moment. Maybe if Jeff hadn’t shot his intern and burned his favorite bow tie . . . But every once in a while, it turned out that goodness and justice did still matter.
“Denied.” Tom Stranger turned his back and began to walk away.
“Wait! Why?”
“Preexisting conditions.”
EPILOGUE:
Tom Pencils in a 3:45 Team Meeting
BACK ABOARD the Stranger & Stranger giant battle mech, Tom changed into his spare suit and red bow tie. It was a clearly inferior bow tie, but sometimes there were casualties in this business. Sacrifices had to be made.
Jimmy Duquesne was sitting in one of the seats in the cockpit, repeatedly poking his finger into the gunshot wound on his chest. “Ouch!” Then a few seconds would pass, and he would inevitably do it again. “Ouch!”
Tom interrupted him. “Well, Jimmy, we are running late, but if we hurry and take a shortcut through a few other realities, we could still make our four o’clock. It seems that on Earth 123-S-4567, our client Cookie Monster has inadvertently fallen in with Somali pirates and has overthrown the democratically elected governments of several African nations. It appears he has gotten into the shortbread again. The damages are staggering.”
“Wait . . . Our client?”
“Yes. Do not let the adorable children’s programming of your universe fool you. He is the most feared and deadly mercenary in the Multiverse. Big Blue, as he is called in the mercenary community, is paid in cookies, and wherever he treads, there is blood and bodies. When he is spun up, he leaves a path of devastation and crumbs across worlds. To look into his googly eyes is to know madness.”
Or, as Muffy Wappler’s message had warned him, this latest revolution had been brought to them by the letters C, M, and the numbers seven point six two.
“No, no, man. I’m cool with all that. Murderous puppets, whatever, it’s all good. I mean the part where you called him our client.”
“Why yes, Jimmy. As long as his premiums are paid, then he is our client, and it is our solemn duty to provide him with the best customer service possible. When universes collide, Stranger & Stranger will be there.”
“But does that mean that you’re making me your real intern, Mr. Stranger?”
“You still have much to learn, young intern, but you have demonstrated your commitment to quality customer service. Sure, according to every simulation I have run, your odds of success are minimal, and your odds of survival are even worse, but I sent the paperwork over to Chico State earlier. You are now officially my real intern.”
“Kickass!” Jimmy pumped one fist in the air. “Wait . . . My survival is what now?”
“Unlikely. But don’t worry. There are other perks.”
“You mean I’m going to be rolling in the dough, G.”
Tom wasn’t sure why Jimmy would want to cavort in raw bread. Tom checked his infolink. “Oh, you mean money. Were you not aware this is an unpaid internship?”
“But you said there were perks!”
“Yes. For example, you get to see our new commercial before it airs. Muffy just finished editing it and sent it over.” Tom turned on the hologram projector while he prepared to launch them toward the nearest rift. The new commercial began to play and Jimmy’s protests about unfair pay and unsafe working conditions were drowned out by the audio.
VOICEOVER GUY: “Everyone knows that Stranger & Stranger has been rated number one in customer service for three years running, but why? Let’s hear testimonials from some satisfied customers.”
A SATISFIED CUSTOMER APPEARS: “I’m Secretary of Defense on Earth 345 whatever Tom called it. We got invaded, but my dimension had Stranger & Stranger extended space marauder coverage. After being screwed over by a horde of purple egg sucking puke rags, Tom kicked their asses back to space! It was a Mach 4 pterodactyl rodeo! OooohRah! Tom Stranger’s customer service is outstanding!”
CUT TO ANOTHER SATISFIED CUSTOMER: “I’m Adam Baldwin, President of the United States of America on Earth 345-Bravo-98081. Tom Stranger saved our entire planet with his—”
GOES TO SPLIT SCREEN—ANOTHER CUSTOMER APPEARS: “And I’m Barack Obama, the American president on Earth 169-J-00561. After our old insurance agent blew up Nebraska and left my vice president stranded on another planet being menaced by ball sharks, Tom Stranger was kind enough to return Joe to our universe—”
“Hey, I was talking, jerk.”
“Well, I got bored. And that hat makes you look stupid.”
“I think it makes me look cunning. You take that back.”
BARACK OBAMA STICKS HIS NOSE IN THE AIR AND LOOKS SMUG: “Let me be clear, I’m very important on my planet.”
“And I swear on Charlton Heston’s magic laser sword that I truly do not give a flying crap. Apologize to my hat.”
“I only apologize to dictators and terrorists. And occasionally I bow to a small town mayor, but only if I’m caught up in the moment. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I apologize to a libertarian space cowboy!”
THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE SHOVES HIS WAY BACK ONTO CAMERA: “Let me through, Prez. Nobody talks trash to my dimension! Hey, I know you! You’re that guy who can’t even pronounce corpsman correctly! Nobody disrespects my beloved Corps or my President’s hat! I’ll plant my Space Marine size 12 combat boot in your cornhole! Hey! Yeah, I’m talking to you! Eyes over here, maggot. Your teleprompter can’t save you now!”
BARACK OBAMA APPEARS CONFUSED: “You kiss your mama with that mouth?”
“No, but I kiss yours with it!”
“What? This means war!”
CUT TO—TOM STRANGER AT HIS DESK, PERPLEXED: “Well, that just goes to demonstrate that when multiple alternate realities collide, things can get a little . . .”
VOICEOVER GUY: Strange?
TOM: “I suppose so.” TOM SIGHS AS THERE IS A HUGE EXPLOSION IN THE BACKGROUND. “It looks like I’ve got more work to do. Until next time, you are in strange hands with Stranger & Stranger.”
r /> The commercial faded away.
“Okay, Mr. Stranger, about this unpaid intern thing—”
But Tom activated the rocket boosters, crushing Jimmy into his seat, and launching them toward their next claim.
“Welcome to Stranger & Stranger, Jimmy. Buckle up.”
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM STRANGER started out as a silly blog post way back in 2010. The idea came from my Dead Six coauthor, Mike Kupari. One day we were driving down the street and saw a sign for Tom Stanger Insurance. As we went past, I misread the sign as Stranger instead of Stanger, and said so out loud. Mike immediately said, “Stranger Insurance, huh? I bet he sells multidimensional insurance.” I kid you not. That’s pretty much how it happened. (On that note, I would like to apologize to the real-life Tom for any confusion or really odd customer requests which he may have received as a result.)
So I wrote a really silly little story about an interdimensional insurance agent and stuck it on my blog. The fans thought it was funny, so I ended up writing a few of them.
Since one of my favorite actors had recently written some very articulate political think pieces of a libertarian persuasion, and this alternate universe required a president, it seemed reasonable to give Adam Baldwin the job. Years later I met Adam and had to explain that I did actually once use him as a fictional character. Which I suppose is kind of weird when you think about it, but Adam was cool.
Then in 2015 I was at Book Expo America in New York, and ate lunch with Steve Feldberg of Audible. They are always looking for voice talent, so I introduced Steve to Adam. Then Steve approached me about an Audible exclusive novella for Adam to narrate, so I gave him the big list of everything I’d ever written . . . Only instead he asked for the weirdest, goofiest, silliest piece of fiction I’d ever stuck on my blog—Tom Stranger.
So I cleaned it up, made it more of a coherent story (well, as coherent as a story guest starring an eloquent manatee can be), Adam turned in one heck of a performance, and that’s how Tom Stranger came to be. It’s been really successful and most people found it hilarious (excluding the easily offended and dolphins, obviously).