_The Look-Alike Series_ Daria fan fiction by Canadibrit Season 2, episode 6: "A Hard Day's Write" (Gotta Get Away, Part 1) prose adaptation by Austin Loomis
"I gotta get away from me..." -- Dexter Holland, "Gotta Get Away"
ACT 1: AND, OF COURSE, THERE'LL BE SPORT
"For those of you who don't like sport, there'll be sport." -- Monty Python, "The BBC's New Schedule Sketch"
Daria Morgendorffer, America's bitter sweetheart, and Andrew Philip McIntyre, more or less her boyfriend, walked up to the small, tidy brick house, then stood in front of it, just looking at it. "Why nervous?" A.P. asked. "It's just my mother." "There have been incidents," Daria explained. It was quicker than saying _Grant Clinton and Leslie DeWitt didn't take well to my intrusion into the handcrafted plastic bubble of home-schooling they'd built around Ted._ "My mother's not really the rampaging type. And anyway, do you think *anyone* could be accused of corrupting *me?*" "You may have a point there."
* * *
Inside, in a small, sunny kitchen, a tall, pale woman with long red hair was stirring something in a pot on the stove. The door slammed, but the woman didn't react. "*Mom!*" A.P. called out. "We have company!" The woman, presumably A.P.'s mother, turned around slowly as A.P. dragged Daria in by the wrist. "Um...hello, Mrs. McIntyre..." Daria began. "Lynn, please," the woman replied, "call me Carol -- we've had this conversation." Daria frowned slightly. A.P. blushed. "No, Mom, this is Daria Morgendorffer. There *are* differences between her and Lynn...if you look close enough." Daria raised an eyebrow. Carol didn't look at all fazed. "Ah, you're the girlfriend he keeps talking about. Nice to meet you at last. Would you like to stay for dinner? It's stew, so there's plenty." "Um..." Daria ummed. "Mom," A.P. steamed, "I told you about this day before yesterday -- staying for dinner is the main reason Daria's here. -- If you need us, we'll be upstairs working on our world domination plot." "All right," Carol shrugged, "just don't bore the poor girl to death." With that, she turned back to the stove. Daria raised an eyebrow again as A.P. dragged her out. As they came up the stairs into a hallway, Daria said what was on her mind. "Um...she seems..." "Vague, I know," A.P. admitted. "Um..." He was saved from any need to explain in more detail by their arrival at a door. "This is me." He flung the door open and ushered Daria inside. There was no bed to be seen, just a desk littered with esoteric computer equipment, various tools and pieces of paper with doodles, notes and equations scrawled on them. There were also closed cabinets, and bookshelves filled with titles like _Unix for the Advanced User_ and _Encryption Systems -- [address] Daria opened one of those cabinets and saw a chemistry set. Something orange was foaming in a beaker. "What's *this?*" she wondered. "Best you don't know. So what do you think?" She'd almost formulated an evaluation, but she still had one question that needed answering. "This is your room. So where do you sleep?" He opened a closet door. At the bottom of the closet was an air mattress with a sleeping bag on it. The walls were lined with shelves, and a couple of items of clothing were crumpled on some of them. Daria raised her eyebrows, and A.P. shut the door again. _That confirms it._ "My opinion is...mad scientist's laboratory meets bachelor pad meets Egghead." _And it fits you as perfectly as the Padded Room fits me, or the Chamber of Dark Mysteriousness fits Lynn._ He chuckled. "Just going online to check some things." He booted up the computer, logged on and brought up Subversion Is We from the favorites menu. Something on England's top one-stop societal overthrow shop caught the Psycho-Maverick's eye. "Oh, hey, this looks like *just* the thing for you, Erudite Emerald!" Daria read from the screen. "_Tales from the Subversive Side: a Short Story Competition for Generation X_." "Oh, come on, you could do that *easy!* o/~ First prize is a hun-dred dol-lars... o/~" he singsang temptingly. Daria got a thoughtful look. "Well..." "Oh, it'll be *fun!* Telling of your most subversive moment in your own inimitable style! What could be better?" "True enough -- if I could decide which one my most subversive moment *was*..." She felt her face quirking into a wry Mona Lisa smile. "Yeah, why not?" Downstairs, a door slammed. "Hon!" Carol hollered up. "Your father's home and dinner's on the table..." Daria and A.P. looked at each other a bit nervously.
* * *
In the dining room, Carol McIntyre picked dreamily at her food, while her husband (and A.P.'s father) Fred -- a small man with the same close- cropped salt-and-pepper hair as, and a grim expression similar to that of, Daria's short-fused history teacher Anthony DeMartino -- shoveled down his dinner and glared at A.P. and Daria, who were made very nervous by this and showed it. "So..." Fred led off, "what do you do?" Daria reacted as she usually does when she's not sure where the conversation is going. "Um...excuse me?" "For fun, girl!" _Oh._ "I write and read, mainly..." "Good," Fred half-joked. "Maybe your influence will stop my son here from becoming a *total* geek. Though it would have been better if you were into sports." A.P. slumped in his chair, looking slightly hurt. Carol didn't seem to notice anything amiss. Daria looked from A.P. to Fred, who went back to shovelling down his food. Her eyes narrowed, but she bit back what she'd been about to say and sighed deeply instead.
* * *
The next day in the Lawndale High gym, the girls were all gathered around Coach Morris, and the guys were stationed at the other end of the gym. Everyone was in gym gear except Lynn Cullen, Daria's look-alike, who was carrying a three-ring binder and a pen. Ms. Morris glared at her. "Cullen! Why aren't you dressed for class?" "I have a medical situation, Ms. Morris," Lynn explained. She removed her jacket, showing a bandage wrapped tightly over her left bicep. "I don't trust you...Let me have a look under that bandage." Lynn raised an eyebrow. "And let it get infected? Oh, please." "Do it or fail the year, Cullen." Lynn shrugged and unwrapped the bandage a ways, revealing what looked like quite a bloody, evil wound. Morris turned slightly green and flapped a hand at her. "All right, all right, I've seen enough. Go sit down somewhere out of the way." She wandered off to the other side of gym. Lynn smirked and said, just under her breath, "Thought for the day: never underestimate the powers of stage makeup." With that, she departed for the bleachers, shrugging back into her jacket. Daria and her arty friend Jane Lane looked after her. "Damn," Daria observed, mildly bitter. "I should have thought of that myself." Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Ms. Morris was giving the boys *real* athletic practice, rather than thinly disguised cheer- leading. (Whoever said Title IX was some sort of unstoppable juggernaut obviously never spent any time in Carter County.) "All right, men! Floor hockey!" A.P. looked panicked. Over on the bleachers, Lynn looked equally panicked. "Okay, I want two team captains...Thompson!" "*All right!*" Kevin Thompson announced, then took yet another opportunity to remind the world, "I'm the QB!" "Kevin," Michael Jordan Mackenzie tried to explain, "there *is* no QB in hockey." "Oh." Lobotomy Ken had to think about that one, or at least he tried, but it started to hurt a little too soon. "So what's the point in playing it?" Mack just sighed and shook his head. "Mackenzie!" Coach Morris called out. "You're the other team captain! Choose your first team member!" Mack looked at the guys and his eye fell upon... "A.P." "Oh...this is gonna be bad," A.P. philosophized.
* * *
Some time later, Daria and Jane (and the rest of the girls, for that matter) had dropped their pom-poms and were looking at the guys' hockey game. Suddenly, Daria and Jane winced; an instant later, there was a small chorus of screams and a crash-thud-clatter. It was like a car wreck -- you couldn't actually look *at* it for very long, but you couldn't quite look away from where A.P. and his evil twin, Charles Ruttheimer III -- the goalie for Kevin's team -- were tangled up in a collapsed hockey net. "Dammit, McIntyre!" the coach snapped. "Get *off* me!" Upchuck added his voice to the chorus. A.P. got up, and the Iron Maiden scowled at him. "Is there *no* sport you can do without fouling it up, McIntyre?" "Um..." he replied, "if there is, I haven't found it yet. Not that I've been looking very hard..." "Ugh...try it *once* more, McIntyre!" "I don't think you understand. Let me make it clear." He said the next part slowly and deliberately, as if to a retarded child. "I... suck...at hockey. I have *always* sucked at hockey." He paused to draw in breath, then yelled, "I WILL SUCK AT HOCKEY UNTIL THE DAY I DIE AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THEN *TOUGH*!" There was a terrible ghastly silence. Morris just *looked* at him. "Are you quite through, McIntyre?" "I think that about covers it, yes." "Good. -- *Now get back in the game!*" A.P. sighed and walked back toward the game with slumped shoulders. "*And put some effort into it!*" "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, "take that whistle and stick it..." He trailed off into merciful indecipherability. Meanwhile, Daria and Jane had made their way over to where Lynn sat on the bleachers, writing furiously. "What's with him?" Jane wondered. Lynn didn't even look up. "Like he said...he sucks at sports. -- I'd duck if I were you." The two girls ducked. Lynn held her binder up to shield her face, and a moment later, as if on cue, an orange plastic ball -- the traditional floor hockey "puck" -- hit it hard enough to dent the cover and bounced away. "*Sorry, Purple Peril!*" A.P. called out. Lynn lowered the binder. "*Aim for the net! Maybe you can decapitate Hefner's Folly!*" Daria and Jane got up cautiously, then stared at Lynn. "How did you do that?" Erudite Emerald asked her near-double. "Not hard. I've been through this all before. At least it's not on roller skates this time." "*Roller* hockey?" "Oh yeah. Basically, what happened was this: when we were 11 or so, our mothers decided we needed discipline, so they enrolled us into the Oakwood Eagles Junior League Roller Hockey team. I wanted to go for archery, but A.P. said, `Oh, come *on,* Purple Peril! Just think of the damage you're allowed to do to other people in hockey!' And then he tried to stand up, wobbled on his skates and fell over backwards. He did a lot of falling over...and running into walls...and colliding with other players. On both sides. I, on the other hand, did enough sticking and body-checking that I should have been tried as an adult. It could have been a lot worse, probably, but to be honest, I'm not sure how. But I suppose our own unique playing styles served one good purpose at least; we both got kicked out. There wasn't any point in us being there when A.P. spent most of his time lying on the sidewalk and I spent most of *my* time in the penalty box." There was a pause while the other two girls tried to think of something to say to a comment like that, but for the life of them, they couldn't think of anything. "So why the evil scheme to get out of gym?" Daria wondered. "Usually you just do the bare minimum participation thing in hopes that one day you'll annoy Ms. Morris enough to make her head blow up." "Needed some extra down-time. Big project in the works." She saw Daria and Jane's expectant looks and sighed. "It's a writing competition on Subversion Is We. Some goofball's offering a hundred dollars to the most subversive and warped story he can find and..." She trailed off, noticing Daria's stricken expression. With enforced casual tones, she asked, "You too, huh?" "Yeah." "Oh. Well, good luck and happy writing..." "Yeah, you too." "And may the best writer..." Jane caught the dark looks from both her friends and trailed off. "...never mind." Daria and Lynn gave each other dark, nervous looks...until a crash-thud and a Kevin-sounding scream from the gym floor beyond distracted them. "MEDIC!" A.P. called out.
ACT 2: INSOMNIA
"You don't want to go messing in with long-time business." -- Ed Deepneau
Later, up in her padded room, Daria was sitting in front of her computer, staring at it grimly. There was a knock on the door. "Daria!" came the distinctive bouncy tones of her attractive and popular younger sister Quinn. "Dad says come down for dinner 'cause he made something *special* this time." There was a moment's pause. "Um...do you think you could, like, get him to somehow sort of accidentally dump the brown goo he keeps scooping out of that pot down the garbage disposal or something? 'Cause it looks, like, *really* fattening and smells, like, *really* bad." "I'm not hungry," Daria replied. After a moment's pause to make the bane of her existence sweat, she added, with a cruelty she didn't really feel, "You can have my share." "But, *Daria!*" Quinn whined. "That's not *fair*! You *know* Mom's gonna try to, like, *bond* with us again or whatever! I need you there to deflect some of those *questions!* It's like, I don't want to talk to her about *Ted* or whatever so she can jump to confusions!" "That's conclusions." Then she remembered whom she was talking to. "Or maybe not." "Daria, *please!*" A pause to gather nerve, then: "I can pay you!" "Do you have any idea how much you'd have to offer me to put myself in the firing line?" "Twenty?" "Not even close." "Daria, it's all I *have!*" "Quinn, I'm writing. If that food smells as bad as you say it does, Mom will understand." She walked over to her boom box and switched it on. "Come Down" by Bush issued loudly from the speakers, drowning out Quinn's continued pleas. Then Daria sat back down at her computer and looked at it for a moment longer. Then she began to type, and the hours just melted away.
* * *
The next morning in the kitchen of Morgendorffer Home Base, Jake was hidden behind the _Lawndale Sun-Herald_ as usual. Helen looked rather worriedly at Daria, who was slumped over a bowl of cereal, looking vacant and half-asleep. Quinn cruised through, grabbed a piece of toast and ran on out without even slowing down.
* * *
In English class, A.P. looked at where Daria was slumped over her desk, half-asleep. Then he looked over to Lynn, who was in a similar state. This was making him concerned.
* * *
In the kitchen of Chez Cullen, a very tired Lynn was brewing coffee. The digital readout on the microwave would have let her know it was 3 in the morning, if she could have been bothered looking at it.
* * *
In the gym, Lynn was sitting on the bleachers, writing in her three-ring binder. Her eyes were half closed. A zombie-like Daria was standing next to a concerned-looking Jane. Ms. Morris approached and glared at Daria, who raised a hand the way she usually did when pretending to play volleyball. The Iron Maiden glared harder and moved on to the guy's side of the gym, where A.P. was trying to disentangle himself from the hockey net...again. Morris looked very much like her head might indeed blow up any second.
* * *
In her room, Daria was typing intermittently. The bedside clock read 2:57.
* * *
Up in her own deliberately dark and mysterious room, Lynn was also typing intermittently. The clock on her desk read 4:03.
* * *
In science class the next day, Jane looked with some concern at Lynn, who was still writing, but had her head propped up on her fist and was gripping her hair in a manner that suggested that she might just collapse if she let go.
* * *
In history class, Jane and the auxiliary cynic, cured superstudent Jodie Abigail Landon, were *both* looking with concern at Daria, who was slumped over and looked like one of the undead. Mr. DeMartino looked at Daria for a moment, then brought a cup of coffee from his desk and offered it to Daria. She nodded a weary thanks and took a sip.
* * *
Daria, Jane, Lynn and A.P. were sitting in their usual booth at Pizza King. Daria and Lynn were still writing, occasionally remembering to take idle bites of their pizza. Jane and A.P. were watching them. After a while, they realized they weren't going to get a response from these two, and Jane turned to A.P., noting as she did so the bruise on his left cheek. "That from gym class?" "Yep. A brief encounter with the wall while chasing the damn puck." He sighed. "I hate floor hockey. Everything about the concept sucks." "Oh, come on, you nearly knocked Kevin's teeth right out of that damn grin of his. That's got to be worth something." A.P. gave a reluctant grin of his own. "Okay, that's *something*..." Jodie and Mack arrived just then. "Hi, guys," Jodie led off. Jane met them with her traditional "Yo." "Hey," A.P. agreed. An idea formed. "Hey, Mack, could I talk to you a minute?" "Sure," Mack allowed as. A.P. got up, and they walked to another table. Jane addressed the look-alikes. "Hey, Daria. Lynn. Someone's saying hello here." In unison, not even looking up, they replied, "Mmm." Jodie was confused. "What's wrong with them?" Jane knew how to explain it at once. "You remember constantly competing against yourself?" Jodie sounded dubious, but acknowledged, "Yeah..." "Well, take that, add someone who's a lot like you who you're *also* competing against, and then you will find out what's wrong with them." "Ouch." Then something occurred to her. "Why aren't they taking their own advice?" "It's a matter of personal pride. I have a feeling they're competing for the right to wear the identity of Lawndale High's Misery Chick." She took a breath, then let it out in a sigh. "Again." _Last time it was drinking contests, this time competitive sleep deprivation. I shudder to think what they'll do *next* time around._ "I think that makes sense. In a sick, twisted, oh-so-much-like- them sort of way."
* * *
"Let me guess," Mack began. "This is about the hockey." A.P. sheepishly wondered, "How'd you guess?" "Well, it's obvious you need help. And since you don't talk to any of the other guys..." "Yeah. Good point." Mack raised an eyebrow. "So...what am I doing wrong? I mean, I don't really *like* sports, but I'd like to get through a game without a maiming." "Well...I think your problem is that you're trying too hard at something you don't like. There's no motivation for you to get it right, so all your efforts go into...well..." "Screwing up?" "Well...yeah. Anyway, I may have the solution for you." He saw A.P.'s hopeful look. "Have you ever seen Daria play volleyball?" A.P. raised an eyebrow at Mack, who gave him an ironic little smile in return.
* * *
Jodie had taken the spot next to Daria that A.P. vacated. In slightly desperate tones, she told the look-alikes, "But you both *know* you're good at writing. Why get into this sort of state about it? I mean, it's not like Highlander, you know -- there *can* be more than one." "Jodie," Jane interjected, "I've got to admire your persistence, but I don't think it'll do any good." "Why not? I mean, they helped me this way..." "Well, for one thing, they're less nice and more stubborn than you are. And anyway..." She gestured to where Lynn and Daria were now lying face down on their notebooks, fast asleep. "...they're not listening." Jodie sighed and shook her head. Jane shrugged. Mack and A.P. returned, both grinning. "Well, at least *someone's* happy." "Oh yeah!" A.P. manically confirmed. "Hey, the Sandman finally hit the Bobbsey Twins! It's about time!" "Maybe we should wake them up and get them home." "If we do that," Jane pointed out, "all we'll be doing is encouraging them to go back to their computers and continue to wear themselves into the ground. Best leave them for now." Jodie and Mack looked confused, then looked to A.P. as if for confirmation. He nodded. Daria stirred slightly, sat up, and blinked at the Original Overachiever. "Oh. Hey, Jodie." "Daria," Jodie pointed out, "you look awful. Maybe you should go home and get some rest." "I'm okay, Jodie. The nap did me a lot of--" She yawned. "--good." "Oh yeah," Jane snarked, "I can *feel* the vitality pouring out of you." "More than her," this with a slightly smug glance at Lynn. "Look, I'm going home. Even considering my oblivious or overworked parents and my own best efforts to remain invisible, someone at home is bound to have noticed I'm gone." Jodie reluctantly got out of the booth. Daria got out, staggering slightly as she stood up, and walked out. A.P. sat down in the spot she'd vacated. Mack grabbed a chair from one of the free-range tables and sat at the head of the group. "I feel awful," Jodie confessed as she resumed her place on the other side of A.P. "I mean, I really want to help but..." "There's not a lot you can do," he told her. "This is a writer- thing, not just a competition-thing. The two together...deadly." "And they don't feel like individuals anymore," Jane added. "I think it scares them...but don't *ever* tell them I told you that." Lynn stirred and sat up. "Mrph?" she philosophized. "You just missed Prince Charming. He went that way." She didn't bother to point. Lynn seemed angry, in a bleary sort of way. "Mrr..." She raised a hand as if calling a waiter. "Garcon! Coffee!" "They don't *do* table service here." "Mmph. Right. Home. Coffee. Later." She looked at Jane, who was blocking her way out. "Move." "Magic words?" "`Do it now or die'?" "`I am going home to get some sleep.'" "I can wait this out, Lane. I did notice you had three large sodas with your pizza." Jane glared at Lynn, who gave her a weary smirk in reply. Then Jane got up and walked out of the restaurant, and Lynn slid out of the booth. Then she noticed Mack and Jodie and blinked. "How long have you been here?" "Long enough," Jodie replied. "How can you tell me to not give a damn about other people and what they think and then go and do the opposite?" "Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing, Jodie." She took a breath. "Sorry, but it's not about pleasing anyone. And what it *is* about is none of your business. Now if you'll excuse me..." She walked off. Jodie and Mack turned to A.P., who shrugged with a morose sigh.
ACT 3: GOTTA GET AWAY
"You can't run from your own legs! How you gonna run from your own legs? 'Cause they're what you're using to run from 'em *with!*" -- St. Janor Hypercleats of the Church of the SubGenius, quoted by Rev. Ivan Stang, "The Third Fist"
The next morning in the Morgendorffer kitchen, Daria was on the verge of falling face-first into her cereal. Helen looked over at her elder daughter -- instant and, for a change, 100% genuine concern appeared on her face. "Daria...sweetie, are you feeling okay?" "Fine, Mom. Why?" "Well, for one thing, you didn't evade that question." "Oh. Didn't I? Damn. I must be losing my touch." "Daria, I think you should stay home from school today. You're not looking well." "Mom, I'm *fine.* Would you please just trust me to know my own limits? I'm nearly an adult now, after all." She got up and left. Helen looked after her, concerned and lost.
* * *
Jane trailed after Daria down the school hall. "Wait a minute. Your mother offered you a chance to skip school for a day, guilt-free. And you turned her *down?* Daria, if that isn't the sleep deprivation messing with your mind, I don't know what else it could be! Daria, talk to me!" Daria said nothing -- just stopped at her locker and opened it. Jane heard yelling from just down the hall -- she didn't have to look to recognize its source. "Lynn, I know the signs -- you're on the stupid Turkish coffee again, aren't you? -- Lynn, will you go home and get some rest? You know my mother'll call you in sick even if Kate's in...is it Hong Kong or Houston this time? -- Lynn, don't make me pull out the knockout gas!" That obviously got the Cullen's attention; Jane heard the smack of fist on flesh. "*Ow!* There's no damn reason to hit me!" "You're as bad as each other, you know that?" Daria glared at her, and Jane realized she'd just lost any ground she might have gained. "Look, I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said that, but..." Daria slammed her locker and walked off. "Dammit, Daria!" She heard another locker slam. "Dammit, Lynn!" Then A.P. came into her field of vision. "This is bad." "Oh, yeah." A thought struck her. "*Do* you have the knockout gas?" "Sorry. I used most of it on Ms. Li's bomb-sniffing dogs during Operation Ace of Spades, and what little I had left after that decomposed. It does that pretty quickly." "How long to make more?" "I don't think it would do any good. And if it did, I'd have to contend with the wrath of Purple Peril. And Erudite Emerald..." "Daria would never speak to me again," Art-Smart Scarlet admitted miserably. "It'll be over soon." "Yeah. Yeah, it'll all be over when this stupid contest closes." But he didn't look any more convinced than she felt.
* * *
In the gym, Morris blew her whistle, looking apoplectic. "McIntyre, put some *life* into it!" A.P. was standing off to the side of the gym, not moving. The little orange ball serving as the "puck" rolled by him. A moment later, he held his hockey stick out in a half-hearted pretense of trying to hit it -- just like Daria playing volleyball. "*Dammit,* McIntyre!" He grinned. Morris stalked over to the girls' side of the gym and stood before a sagging, near-lifeless Daria. "Morgendorffer, *move your tail!*" "No," Jane explained, "that's not Daria. It's just a puppet. She only moves when I pull her strings." "Damn you, Lane..." Daria bleared groggily. "Or jerk her chain..." The Iron Maiden rolled her eyes and chose her next target. "And *Cullen!* That arm of yours healed yet?" Lynn was walking into the gym in a halting sort of way. Three steps in, she stopped in her tracks, swaying slightly. In a voice of quiet misery, she observed, "Oh...crap." Then she collapsed on the floor in a boneless little heap. There was a moment of silence. Then Morris turned to Jane. "Get her to the nurse." She looked twice at Daria. "And take her too." "I could use some help if I'm taking them both..." Jane pointed out. "Take McIntyre. Get him out of my sight!" Under her breath, she added, "Stupid little punks think they're too *good* for team spirit..." She walked off, still muttering. A.P. ran over and looked down at Lynn for a moment -- then looked at Daria, who looked about ready to join Lynn in unconsciousness -- then sighed. "We'll take them to your house and I'll take a quick pit stop to mine. I have an idea."
* * *
His idea involved two glasses of soda, now sitting empty on top of the dresser in Jane's room. Their contents, secret ingredient and all, had gone into Daria and Lynn, who were consequently sprawled out on the bed, dead to the world. Jane and A.P. smirked at each other. "Well, that worked!" A.P. concluded. "Never underestimate the power of prescription medication." Jane had another thought. "Isn't your mother going to notice the missing Valium?" "Um...no. Not really." That came out a little too quietly. She saw the consternation on his face and let the subject drop. "Isn't the contest due to close soon?" "Day after tomorrow. If I know anything about Purple Peril, the story's already perfect, but she'll keep tweaking it until the deadline." "I'm glad they're not awake. That's about what Daria does. But I don't think they can survive another couple of days of this." In casual tones: "So if we submitted their entries as is...what do you think the reaction would be?" Equally casual: "Well, they'd *probably* try to kill us...but they wouldn't be able to *do* anything about it. And it would force them to drop the crusade. And they'd probably forgive us eventually..." _At least Erudite Emerald would._ "Can you get into Daria's house?" "No problem." Grimly: "Let's do it."
* * *
Jane walked into Morgendorffer Home Base through the unlocked front door, saw Jake asleep on the living room sofa with a half-empty (or, from Daria's point of view, half-full) Martini glass by his side, shrugged and walked upstairs.
* * *
A hypothetical observer (don't clap too hard, it's a very old net) inside Lynn's room would have heard the slight scraping sound of a laminated card being used to jimmy a window lock open. The window slid up and A.P. slipped into the Chamber of Dark Mysteriousness through the window, approaching Lynn's computer directly.
* * *
Daria and Lynn were still fast asleep when Jane and A.P. walked into Studio Lane, smirking with glee. "Mission accomplished?" A.P. checked. "Even though I have to wonder about Daria's parentage, it's times like these I'm glad Jake's an oblivious goofball." _And I *do* have to wonder. She won't even tell *me* how much truth there is in her account of the El Paso incident -- I get the same Mona Lisa smile and "What do *you* think?" as everyone else at Lawndale High._ "No problems." "Lucky you. Password protects everywhere. But done anyway." They looked at their friends for a moment and their faces turned thoughtful and worried. "Do you *really* think they'll forgive us at some point?" He sounded grim. "I'd rather they never forgave me than watch them break." They mulled that over, then nodded at each other. Jane decided to switch on the TV. Conveniently enough, there was quality programming on, as there usually seems to be *somewhere* on the dial. "She got virtually smooched by a sick friend 3,000 miles away... and got the flu herself! Computer viruses that byte *hard*, next on _Sick, Sad World_!"
* * *
Sometime later, A.P. had gone home and SSW had given way to music videos -- Fred Durst was talking about one of those days when you don't wanna wake up, when everything is f***ed and everybody sucks, as Jane painted a picture of Daria and Lynn in the cryogenic freezing tubes from the '98 movie of _Lost in Space_. And then, her models began to stir. "Hmrph," Daria noted. "Wsphg..." Lynn added. Then they opened their eyes and looked at each other for a moment. "AUGH!" they chorused, bounding out of bed -- Daria to the right, Lynn to the left -- and then fell over. Jane laughed. "Well, well! The day of the Resurrection is at hand!" "What...?" Daria blurgled intelligently. Lynn was slightly quicker to come fully awake. "Very amusing. I'm assuming that, after A.P. spiked the sodas, he ran like a cowardly dog?" "Well...yeah," Jane admitted. And one other thing." She sighed. "You're not going to like this..." And, indeed, they didn't. Jane was sure people could hear her halfway down Howard Drive shouting, "*Ow! Ow! Stop hitting me!*" "*Stop* hitting you? It's `Being Hit on the Head' lessons in here!"
* * *
One week later, in the Chamber of Dark Mysteriousness, the Jacketeers, all four of them, were sitting on the bed, staring at the computer, not moving. In unison, the look-alikes announced, "I don't want to look." They then looked at each other dubiously. "I'm really sorry -- again," Jane insisted. "We thought..." "We know," Daria wearily replied, "we know -- the best of intentions." Lynn sighed. "Well, here goes..." She logged on...but before she went on the Net, she checked her e-mail through long-standing habit. She frowned at what she saw...then looked back at Daria. "Hey, there's a message here from the Subversion Is We people -- copied to both of us." "What's it say?" "`Dear contest entrant, thank you for your entry,' yadda-yadda- yadda..." She stopped a moment, then continued, aghast. "`Due to the similarity of the entries ``The Overthrow of Pamela Wu'' and ``The Flack- Jacket Mafia vs. the Nazi Jackboot'', we could not make any kind of judgement between them. Therefore we regret to inform you that both entries have been disqualified.'" There followed a deadly, loaded pause as Daria and Lynn stared at the computer screen. They turned to each other at the same time, stricken looks on both their faces. Then Daria turned and walked out. As she did so, Lynn (having nobody to curse except herself this time) stood up, walked to her wardrobe, opened the door and walked in. She shut the door behind herself, and the other two could distinctly hear the sound of a deadbolt being slid home. The rest, as the Prince of Denmark has it, was silence. Jane and A.P. looked at each other for a moment. "Daria!" Jane shouted then as she ran out after her friend. "Purple Peril?" A.P. sat down in front of the wardrobe and sighed. _This is gonna be a long night..._ he thought.
[tsuzuku]
ADAPTOR'S NOTES Those montages are going to kill me one of these days, but it wouldn't feel like a Canadibrit fic without a montage. And all this time I've been thinking it was the Times-Herald. A recent check of the opening sequence deconfirmed that. The original form of the "Don't clap too hard" is probably something like "It's a very old house." In _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_, the Player gives it as "It's a very old world." Quick poll: If CB did a "Look-Alike" prequel series telling the tales of Lynn and A.P.'s pre-LHS days, how many of you would read it? I know I would. Obligatory legal blap: Daria Morgendorffer was created (as were the rest of the Lawndale characters) by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis Lynn, and she and her neighbors are copyright 1993, 1997, 2000 MTV Networks, a Viacom company. (As Michelle Klein-Haess has pointed out, work-for-hire sucks the yolks from ostrich eggs.) Monty Python quotes and characters are copright 1970, 2000 Python (Monty) Pictures Ltd. They are here used, without the permission of their creators or owners, in the not-for-profit context of fan-fiction. The characters of Lynn Cullen and A.P. McIntyre are copyright 1999, 2000 Janet "Canadibrit" Neilson, as is this storyline, which was adapted by Austin Loomis (to whom the prose format version is copyright 2000) with permission. All other characters, locations and incidents (of which I don't think there are any, actually) are either imaginary or used fictitiously. Any coincidence of names is regretted, and any resemblance to persons living, dead, undead, or wandering the night in ghostly torment is either purely satirical or not my fault. As a "substantially transformative" derivative work, this story is protected by the Supreme Court's decision in re Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music. It may be freely redistributed as long as this copyright notice is maintained intact, but may not be in any way redistributed for profit without the permission of the legal owners of all concepts involved. The present author hereby gives permission for any and all keepers of Daria fanfic pages to archive this work (as if I could stop them). Any publication of this story for profit without the express written permission of Austin Loomis, Janet Neilson and MTV Networks (like any of that'll happen, especially the last) is strictly prohibited, and violators, if I ever decide to track them down, will be strung up by the thumbs, beaten about the head and shoulders with a free-range carrot, and then handed over to corporate lawyers who will do terrible things to them. On purpose.
Austin, and good day. Al D T0 W- Q Fw^Fr O+ Ow+OH+Of m c- MV+ F:111,208,313 BB+ FCT -DT+ q fJ^fj^fD