No Job is Finished Until the Paperwork is Done

I had just finished up with some paperwork of my own and went back to playing bounce-the-ball-against-the wall when Elle came into my cell.

It was quite shocking. Not that she zapped me, I was just surprised to see her.

My imprisonment didn't last long. Which is a shame. I had converted a favorite game of mine, bounce-the-prisoner-against-the-wall, into a single player version. I was looking forward to playing my new game all day.

"Like, I am totally freakin' out, Mr. B," she said and tossed me a gun. Apparently her father was killed by Sylar and she wanted my help.

Long story short, I kicked Sylar's brain-eating butt. After that, I had a talk with Bob.

"So, Bob. We need to talk."

He was silent. Deathly silent.

I continued, "I know we had an agreement that I work with you and in exchange you stay away from Claire. But as it turns out, you guys just lost a ton of supervillains. They're all out on the loose, and I need to stop them. Now, now," I said before he could respond, "I know you don't like me and my so-called rogue behavior. But you know I'm the only man for a job this big. Those people are dangerous. I may not have any powers, but I'm good at shooting people. And to be honest, I've been dying for someone to shoot recently. I was excited when you offered me my job back. I thought you would send me to kill Nathan. I really think I was the man for that job, but hey, you went with some freelancer instead, that's fine. Who was it if you don't mind me asking?"

He didn't reveal that secret. Even in death he managed to keep so much from me.

"Alright, well I understand. My point is, it should have been me. And next time it will be. You've got a mess on your hands, Bob...and actually your face is kind of dirty too," I offered him a Kleenex. "But I'm going to clean up this mess. It's what I do. Those villains are on the loose, and it's my obligation as a father, as a paper salesman and as a person who likes to shoot people to see to it that they are stopped. You can't stop me, Bob, so don't try it. Someday, when you have a daughter, you'll understand."

I left dramatically without giving him a chance to respond to my eloquent monologue. It felt good. Good to have a gun in my hands. Good to know there are so many people out there waiting to be bagged and tagged. It feels like college all over again.

I'm No Villain

I'm wearing pajamas. And not the fun kind with the butt flap. These are standard-issue prisoner pajamas that all the villains we lock up wear while being contained by The Company. Why am I in them? I'm not a villain. Sure, I'm villainous. People usually mistake me for a bad guy. I think it's because of the glasses. But I'm hardly worthy of villain pajamas.

In truth, good and evil can be complicated. That's why I never take sides. I mean, just look at my current predicament. I'm protecting my daughter, which is good, but I am working for a secret organization that bags and tags people, which is bad. But I also sell paper, which is good, but it's not necessarily recycled, which is bad. So what happens when an evil (bad) paper (good) company (bad) imprisons (bad) me (good/bad)?

It all gets rather confusing, and Mohinder isn't here to narrate.

"Actually, Bennet, I am currently in existence in this very same room as you," he annoyingly interrupted.

"Mohinder? What are you doing here?" I asked.

"It is my obligation to inform you that Mr. Bishop requests your company."

I was glad. Anything to get away from his incessant rambling.

I barged into Bishop's office yelling, "Now, look, I agreed to come back to work for you guys, but the current pension plan is not worth putting up with Mr. Philosophical Chatterbox in there." I pointed back with my thumb.

"You won't have to worry about Mr. Suresh anymore, Noah," Bob replied. He stood and approached me.

"Good," I said.

"You see, Noah," Bob said as he reached into his coat jacket. "We have a problem with our current arrangement, Noah." He pulled out a gun, which oddly was not gold, and aimed it right at me.


"What are you doing?" I was shocked. "You shouldn't be shooting anyone. You're a desk guy! Look, you don't even have hair." I pointed to his shiny, never-ending forehead.

"My condition is of no concern, Noah. It's come to our attention," he explained, "that you have been appearing on several reality shows, and continue to, Noah." With the gun fixed on me with one hand, he pulled out a remote control with the other. His thumb pressed a button causing the TV to turn on.

There I was, on the television, racing through the first leg of The Amazing Mutant Race.

"Hey, it's me!" I said, taking a seat in front of the TV. "I was wondering when it would finally air. I'd tell you how I did, but there's a lot of confidentiality agreements, you know how it is." I watched excitedly as I relived the Vision Quest detour in my head. "Do you have any popcorn? This would be good with popcorn."

"Shut up, Noah," Bob rudely replied.

"Oh, sorry. Here, I'll turn up the volume." As I reached for the controls, Bob blasted the TV screen with his Primatech handgun.

"We're not watching your little reality show, Noah. All this publicity is becoming a problem, Noah. We're a secret organization after all. Remember, Noah?"

Suddenly, I realized what was going on. The Company wanted to bag and tag me. And well, morally-speaking, that's where I draw the line.

"Hey, look! A seagull!" I pointed out behind Bob. As he turned, I jumped from my chair and ran out of his office, grabbing a banana from his fruit bowl on the way out.

I quickly made my way to the Company's tech department. Bob was no doubt close behind me. I didn't have a lot of time, so I quickly found Allan Arkush, Primatech's gadget expert. "Allan, I forgot where I left The Haitian, so I need something that can erase memories. Pronto!"

"Pronto?" he asked. It was clear he was high, as usual.

"It means quickly."

"Oh. I guess you should have just said that then. It would have been prontoer," he laughed.

I shook him.

He wept.

I stared.

He grabbed a slushi.

Bob entered.

I pushed Allan and the slushi outside.

"Allan, I need your help right now!" I yelled at him.

He handed me some sunglasses and said, "Put these on. That slushi is a flashy thing. Use it and--"


I don't know what I did, but as I was examining the pseudo-slushi it suddenly flashed a bright light.

"Does that mean it's on?" I asked. "How do I use it?"

Allan just stood there staring off into space.

Just then, Bob came outside. I didn't have time to figure out this fancy slushi gadget, so I dropped it and ran.

"Do you know where he's going, Allan?" Bob asked the bamboozled technician as I fled. "You're high again, aren't you, Allan?" Bob ran after me.

He didn't make it too far. After he had stopped, I called back to him and explained how he's just a desk guy. "After you lose that much hair, you just can't expect to run very far," I said. But before I could continue my fleeing, I was knocked unconscious by an unknown person.

I awoke to find one of my worst fears once again realized.



"Pee Wee!" I yelled. "Haven't I killed you? Several times?"

"Mayhaps!" he responded cheerfully as he turned to face me. "Now, let's get you into the proper prison attire."

"NoOOocoOoOOoOOO!" I screamed in horror.

Unfortunately, as Pee Wee was redressing me, I accidentally said "careful," as in "be careful down there," which turned out to be the secret word. Even with all my paper sales training, I found it difficult to make it through that situation alive.

At this point, it's anyone's guess what they plan to do with me. Maybe I can promise to re-assassinate a politician or something in exchange for my freedom. Or at least something other than these prisoner pajamas.

Magic Eye from a Yellow Henchman

Storyline continued from Henchman's Tag...

So, while I was out and about bagging and tagging and other such things, I ran into a yellow henchman. It seems henchman are everywhere these days. They're all envious of me, middle management. It's the far-reaching dream of a henchman to one day ascend the career ladder and be put in charge of his own team of mindless henchman.

"Isn't that right, Haitian?"

"..."

"Hey, what's this?" I asked and picked up an odd little sphere dropped by the fleeing Henchman.

"He seemed to have dropped his marble," The Haitian replied.

I handed the marble to The Haitian while I observed my surroundings. The Henchman was long out of sight; there would be no returning the dropped object.

Then, I began to notice the impoverished state of this particular part of town. Shacks were everywhere, with the exception of one grand skyscraper in the middle. Before I could begin to ponder the strange contrast, I heard the thunderous sound of a an approaching mob.

"Get him!" someone yelled. "He's got all the loot!"

I drew my gun, ready to defend myself and, if I had to, The Haitian as well. But the mob circumvented us. They continued down the path after the strange yellow henchman.

"Looting? Wide income disparity? Angry mobs? Are we in Brazil again?" I asked The Haitian. I could have sworn our mission had us placed somewhere in Tennessee.

"I do not believe so," he replied. Handing back the marble.

He was right. We weren't in Brazil. There were way too many fat people in that slow-moving mob. We were still in America.

After a successful bagging and tagging of our target, I returned home, I placed the marble in my desk drawer, and there I forgot about it for months....

* * *

"Um, Dad?" a girlish voice called from the living room. "There's a floating eyeball talking to me!"

I ran in quickly, expecting Henry Gail, a former target of mine who had the power of having really big eyes (at least we think it was a power, maybe it was just genetics. But hey, that's why we capture 'em, right? To find out these things?)


But it was no Henry Gail.

"Shoot it, Dad!" a lanky boy screamed at me.

"Who are you?"

The eye began to speak.

"Not you," I said, "this little punk kid in my house. You can't just come in here bringing your big ol' eyeballs, probably getting cytoplasm-like goo all over my furniture."

"Dad, it's me, Lyle!" he replied.

"Oh, yeah, sorry...uh...you got a haircut, right?"

"No."

"Um, yeah, I don't have time for this dysfunctional family stuff," the eye spoke. "I'm a very busy eye."

"Well, what is it you want?" I asked the optical organ.

"I am a genie. You can have two wishes. Make 'em quick, though. You've had me in that drawer since Christmas. I'd like to get out of this place, maybe meet a nice girl eye or something."

"Wow, I get two wishes!" Lyle cried out.

"You mean you get to watch me make two wishes," I corrected him with a pat on the head. "Let's see. First....I want a raise at The Company."

"How much of a raise?" the eye asked to clarify.

"Um...ten percent?"

"Done!"

"Woo hoo!"

"Wish for a Cadillac, Dad! I'm so tired of Nissans," the kid pouted.

"Don't distract me, Kyle. I'm thinking." I wrinkled my brow hard as I considered my final wish. "I've got it! I wish for an action figure to be made after me. How cool is that, right?"

"Done!" the eye replied. "Now, can you pass me on to someone else please?"

I put the eye back in my desk drawer and went to my local toy store. "Check it out! It's me!"



The eye genie is still in my desk drawer waiting for Mr. Muggles, Lyle, or Claire to find it....

Mr. Bennet: Pepped and Ready

You know what they say, the third time's a charm. I didn't win the first two Last Gladiator Standing competitions, but they were rigged, I tell you. I only lost the first one because I wasn't invited to compete. Then, I lost the second because Dark Jedi Kriss knew she couldn't win against me in the final two. But this time, I'm going to win.

How do I know? Simple, I'm now a staple of blog reality shows, and we in the paper business know the importance of staples. I recently won Sylar's Bachelor, and with it, I ate George Clooney's brain and now have the power of super stardom. It'll be just like Rob & Amber going on to the Amazing Race after kicking tropical butt on Survivor.

"What do you mean they lost the Amazing Race?" I threw a stapler at my publicist.

"Ow, I just mean that they came in second," he replied. The stapler that had struck him suddenly grew insect-like legs and scurried away.

"So are you saying fame doesn't win you reality shows?"

"Only American Idol, the rest require talent and skill." Then, my publicist was no longer my publicist. I mean, he was, but it was like he was my mom as well.

"Mom?"

"Oh, shut it, Noah. Get that loofa and have at my back," my publicist/mom shouted.

"We don't have time for your hygiene, besides you're still dead, remember? Ask Jesus to wash your back."

"You mean Buddha?"

Then, John Lennon walked up to me, placed a hand on my shoulder and said, "Mr. Bennet, you can't win this one with fame alone. You have to be the ball."

"But I'm famous, George Clooney famous!" I protested.

"So was he once," Lennon said before flying away on a yellow submarine.

This definitely threw a wrench into my plans.

"Mr. Bennet," I heard a voice calling out. "Mr. Bennet?"

I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the ground with an incredible pain in my head. "What happened?" I asked.

Find out what happened!

Press Conference

Ah, Earth Day. By far the greatest day ever. It's the kind of day that makes a paper salesman proud to play his small role in making Earth a better world by ridding it of its malignant jungles, growing like a cancer on the weathered skin of Mother Nature. We, the paper industry, are a lot like chemotherapy for the environment.

I walked up to my podium. The solar panel was in place beside me, it alone will power over 0.004% of my office electronics.

"Greetings, fellow Earth-lovers and paper enthusiasts!"

The crowd roared.

"Today," I continued, "is Earth Day. It is perhaps the most important day in the world. Even the name suggests so. There's no greater earth on Earth than the Earth."

The crowd roared and seemed confused.

"My fame has been skyrocketing lately, and I know you all want more of me."

"I LOVE YOU, HRG!" a young woman cried out.

"And there will be more of me." I looked out into the hope-filled eyes of my audience. "Together we will make the world a better place. We will put an end to pollution. We will fight the impoverished..."

"BOO!" The crowd bellowed.

"I mean, we will fight poverty and help the impoverished."

"Yay!" The masses cheered.

"Now, I will be taking your questions."

The woman who had previously screamed out at me jumped at the usher. She took the microphone from him and said, "Hi, I'm Elizabeth. Is it nice to be so sexy?"

"I get asked this question often," I admitted. "It is nice. It is very nice. I feel so sorry for all those unsexy people in the world, like my good friend Matt Parkman. Just think how hard life must be for him. That is why we need these social programs in place to help people like Parkman. We sexy people have to use the fame our good looks can bring to speak out on their behalf, because nobody wants to hear them."

An usher approached a familiar looking man. It was Jon, the so-called intergalactic gladiator. I knew this question would be trouble, but with my George Clooney powers of fame, nothing could throw me off.

"If Primatech is just producing and selling paper and paper products," he asked, "why is their facility responsible for 96% of the pollution in Odessa, Texas?"

"That is a good question indeed. Today, we are here to address the concerns of pollution. Some of you look at this with a broad brush of disdain, not realizing the true complexities of pollution. It has such a negative connotation, yet some pollution, such as that created by Primatech, is genetically engineered to improve the environment. There is no question our Ozone is depleting. Think of Primatech Pollution as synthetic ozone with none of the helpful side effects."

"That doesn't really answer my question," he replied.

It was clear this would be the stubborn cynic my publicist warned me about. Luckily, I brought visual aids to help placate his inquiries.

I waved over a Primatech intern with pictures on poster board and said, "If I may draw your attention to this photograph..."



"...as you can see, that is a lot of toxic waste. Any paper production facility can be expected to have large quantities of such waste when they offer top quality products like we do. We maintain a large staff of over three bio-geneticists. Now, you may be wondering why we would need them. Isn't paper dead? Well, it comes from trees, living organisms. We lock special trees we find all over the world in specially formed tree-holding cells in our basement. Our scientists perform a wide range of experiments and genetic alterations on these people...excuse me, trees, and as a result, we put out a lot of CO2 emissions, radioactive sludge and that stuff they make Grammys out of."

Jon was clearly suspicious, but I moved on anyway.

"Show the next picture," I said to the intern.



"Already we have begun implementing ways to cut down on the harmful pollution. We've hired Captain Planet to work in our waste refinery, personally supervising what leaves our facility and enters your water supply. Believe me, he is very particular when it comes to pollution. He only lets the safest and most beneficial pollutions to contaminate our environment."

More questions followed and I answered them all with the rhetorical wit of a flabbergasted philosopher. Finally, as things were drawing down to a close, an usher approached a uniformed member of the armed services. It was my publicist's idea.

Private Hudson stood reverently as he was handed the mic. He held it sturdy and spoke, "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

"Not anymore, but we do have Queen Elizabeth in a tote bag," I motioned at the intern who flipped to the next image.

Call Me Sylar's Bachelor

Winning Sylar's Bachelor has really changed my life. As part of the prize, I got to eat George Clooney brains, giving me the power of absolute fame.

As soon as I walked out of the mansion, the paparazzi were waiting.

"Mr. Bennet! What are you going to do now?"
"Will you be in Sylar's Bachelor 2?"
"Are you really Jaime Lynn Spears' baby daddy?"

The questions and camera flashes shot at me like Bosnian sniper fire, only more real and life-threatening, as I made my way to my Nissan.

I believe I ran over a couple paparazzi on my drive out.

As soon as I got back home, Sandra introduced me to my publicist, Justin Stauber. I swear he seemed drunk. He was certainly an enthusiastic drunk, though. Reminded me of Ivan.

He stood and shook my hand. "Hello, Noah. I'm Justin Stauber, VP of Marketing with Primatech."

"Yeah, I know you," I replied. "Didn't Sylar kill you?"

"Didn't Mohinder kill you?" he asked.

"Good point. But Sylar ate your brain."

"Yeah, well...I got better." He offered me some cantaloupe, which I declined. "You're the hottest paper salesman in the world right now, MB. The Company sent me here to help you capitalize on that fame."

"I like Capitalization," I said, making a pun only noticeable had I written it instead of spoken it orally to him. I'm sure he would have laughed.

"Exactly, and so that's why we have a five point plan lined out..."

"Hold on," I said. I started laughing. "You probably didn't notice, but I capitalized capitalization when I said it earlier."

"Huh?"

"Get it?" The joke clearly went over his head.

"Yeah, so as I was saying, we have a five point plan. First, we get you out there while keeping you hidden."

Sandra picked up Mr. Muggles and said, "Mr. Muggles, listen to this. This is how you become a superstar, yes you do."

"How exactly does that work?" I asked.

"We get you into movies, underwear ads, Dilbert calendars. Anything where people will see you, adore you superficially and beg for more. That's when we move to phase two, a press conference."

I nodded. I've been in the business since this kid's mom was buying him Primatech diapers from, you guessed it, me. I knew a thing or two about Capitalization. Ha! That kills me.

"How about this," I offered. "Let's do the press conference tomorrow."

He seemed nervous. "But Mr. B, my five point plan..."

"My plan has one point: me. Besides, tomorrow's Earth Day, and the people will love to hear from a paper company representative on Earth Day."

"I just think..."

"Get to it, Jason. This press conference has to be top notch."

"It's Justin."

"Yeah, that's not going to work either." I looked him over. "How about Larry?"

"I like Justin."

"Alright, Larry. Get started on my press conference. My public needs me."

"Yes, sir." He shuffled up papers into his briefcase and slammed it shut.

Sandra stuck Mr. Muggles in his face and said, "Mr. Muggles could use a five point plan! Yes he can!"

So, Larry and I set to work preparing for the big press conference. Got any questions for me? Comment them.

In My Down Time...

Well, I guess I should start blogging again, eh?

First thing's first, though. I need to tell you what's been going on. As you know, I'm back with the Company. My first mission, after assassinating someone whose name I can't mention yet, was to apprehend Sylar.



He's always managed to elude even my most elaborate of traps.

So, I went on his reality show, Sylar's Bachelor to win his heart, and cage it in the bowels of Primatech.

I beat out many exceptional contestants and Adam Monroe.

It was a long and difficult journey in which I:

• dated Sarah Michelle Gellar
  
• formed a boy band with MC Hammer, Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Haitian
  
• partied it up with my fellow contestants
  
• Wrangled with Simon Cowell, Richard Simmons, Peter Petrelli and Jack Bauer
  
• went on a celebrity-filled date with Sylar and shark attacks
  
• and even killed George Clooney
  

It was a fun experience, but the best part was winning, even if Sylar escaped.