Robots Have Kidnapped Alex Trebek

By Jackson Defa

Wesley Snipes is fresh out of jail and looking to make a comeback. In so doing he accepts the role of Hamlet on Broadway, being directed by Sidney Poitier. But his passion for karate and action overrides his desire to preform Shakespeare, and instead of memorizing his lines, Wesley gets embroiled in an inter-galactic mystery. Along the way he meets Kelly Ripa and together they put the pieces in place and uncover a robotic plot to take over the world. But their efforts may be too late! Having kidnapped Regis Philbin and Alex Trebek, the robot's threat seems imminent. Now, only Wesley Snipes stands between an evil robot takeover and the fate of planet Earth. Can he redeem himself and prove to the world he is indeed a super-action hero, after-all?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jackson Defa
• Release date: Feb 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311904492

Jackson Defa

Jackson is a creative writer living in Los Angeles, California. He was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Other than creative fiction, Jackson enjoys writing for the video game industry. His favorite color is purple.

Book preview

PART 3

32. 3 - 2 - 1, Blast Off

33. Red Rocket Ride

34. Space Jeopardy

35. Wesley And Regis Fight Robots

36. Then There Was Trebek.

37. Welcome Home, Heroes

PART 1

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

It is in the wind swept fall of 1992 in stormy Cape Canaveral, where this story begins, on the back lot of NASA’s Space Exploration Laboratory: an installation comprised of two metal hangers - tin domes - each roughly the size of a football pitch. Leading an effort of proportional size, two disproportionate scientists, pear-shaped brothers of Jewish decent, each sharing a lisp, each with a nasally tint to their voice, the Schphelp’s brothers, as they were known. Reclining in the lunch corridor between neatly wrapped sandwiches, safely oozing mayonnaise into their cellophane Ziplocs, crudely building deposits of white at the corners of their mouths, their genius combines in a snap moment to produce the brain child that would thrust the world into cataclysmic upheaval. Of course, this was neither their intention, nor could they have foreseen the consequences of their genius-at-work some 20 years in the future.

Thus, with the aide of 1992’s bombastic economy, and before gangster rap put its ugly hand on this nation’s daughter; before police violence and street crime combine to make the mean causeways of Los Angeles erupt with racial fervor; before any President with a lust for cigars had made good on the oath of office, two pear-shaped Jews, NASA as their wing-man, court ABC television with this formal proposal:

Dear ABC Television,

STARK program stipulates we expend a percentage of our contingency annual budget on media related space exploration events.

In light of this regulation we formally request the usage of two television shows which we will be beaming into outer space at our discretion.

This is to begin immediately, and will be in perpetuity, so long as the requested shows exist. We don’t care what the shows are. Please put them on VHS tapes. We will cover the cost of shipping and give credit to ABC television as we see fit, by the Space Exploration Laboratory's staff, should credit ever be deserved (which we hope it will be).

Kindly,Dr. Marty Schphelp

Dr. Ligus Polly Schphelp

Executives at ABC, following the advice of their producers, decide on two television shows, both for their popularity, as well as for their decidedly virtuosic rendering of what life is like on Earth, should others ever find it ...out there.

Those shows being Jeopardy, and LIVE! with Regis & Kathie Lee.

So the scientists, upon clearance from ABC Television, begin their experiment. And once a day, through nasal-tanged, lispy voices, beam up into outer space, the newest episodes of two of America’s favorite TV programs.

Once in the morning: It’s Live, with Regis and Kathie Leeee. And once at night: Thiiiiis Is JEOPARDY!

And out into space they went night after night, season after season, year after year. And nothing came and everyone forgot, yet it kept on happening. Years went by. A decade went by. Two wars went by. And still, nothing showed up.

CHAPTER 2. THE CHARACTERS

It is in the interest of your imagination to adjust to the present day, 2014, and to a certain as-of-yet unmentioned set of characters, all of whom share center stage in this action-packed melodrama about robots and kidnapping and karate-chopping Wesley Snipes. And of course, outer space, but that goes without saying.

1) THE GENERAL is the sort of man who must have been a lion in his last 100 lives. A force more than a man, he is the cornerstone of what a military general - five-stared and square shouldered - can and should be. Gruff talking, twangy, hewn. He is rough like toungey sandpaper, thinning only at the edges.

General Jack Rodney, Special Command: NASA. Married once, divorced once. Owns a home. Has a son. Lives in the suburbs of Virginia. Sumerset. It’s outside Langley, the city which houses the Pentagon. He drives 30 minutes to work every day, has top level clearance, oversees a battle command station inside the Pentagon which correlates its actions around outer space and the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a shoe-in job, the kind of patrol they give a man who’s earned his stripes, who’s one click away from a long-overdue retirement. It’s the kind of outfit that doesn’t see action, it’s a desk job without being a desk job, and is given much like a gift, to a five-star general who’s seen shit, and survived shit, and who needs to coast for a year or two before retirement kicks in.

He drives a 2015 Lincoln town car. Always has. He doesn’t sleep, doesn’t like catnip, has never been de-clawed, and has a big hole in his chest where his heart should be. Have you ever met one of those kitties? That’s this guy. That’s General Jack Rodney, special command with NASA’s rocket brigade. The kind of guy who sleeps in his uniform.

2) STANLEY, the General’s son, is a 9 year-old boy with a roundish face and an eggy complexion. His big eyes sit delicately on a face parted neatly by a mop of sandy hair. He is bright beyond comprehension but somehow different. People call it autism whatever that is.

Stanley is smart but that’s not the problem. He does not relate to others, lives alone with his five-star father, who is disconnected emotionally, hardened, and almost never home.

Stanley is especially keen on the afternoon television program Jeopardy. It’s a quiz show wherein questions are asked in answer-form and the contestants, whilst still answering difficult trivia, must do so in the form of a question. Alex Trebek is the faithful figurehead of this prized television event: a tenured game-show host. Each and every day he dons a pressed suit, a curly fro, and a smile so warm it has been known to roast a marshmallow or two.

Thiiis Is JEOPARDY; don’t forget. Stanley turns to Jeopardy for a sense of comfort that is not present in his home life. Using the Internet, Stanley begins watching old episodes, both for the trivia, but more so for the sense of comfort he finds in the repetition of the routine. The ritual of bright blue Jeopardy becomes the backbone of 9 year-old Stanley’s lonely, brilliant bane. His will to live depends on the serene television experience, and its main character, the little routine that is Alex Trebek. Something like a savant, Stanley surreptitiously becomes immersed in the world and history of the quiz-show Jeopardy.

3) KELLY RIPA, for those of you that do now know, is the woman who replaced Kathie Lee Gifford on Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee after Kathie Lee was exposed in 1996 of having hired child-laborers to construct the clothes under her brand, Kathie Lee. Kathie Lee was seen in the media as a slave driver: an evil female Indiana Jones who went on luxury vacations to Indo-Chinese countries and stood large over factories of slave-children and maniacally cracked her whip.

I am Kathie Lee, work for me!

Crack

The television networks were horrified.

Exit - Kathie Lee

Enter - Kelly Ripa

Kelly is smaller, blonder and has a bigger smile, and a matching personality to boot.

What do you think of her, Regis?

Fuck it, she’s great! Let’s do it, Regis says as he knocks back an amber hit of viscous whiskey.

And in 1999 after a season and a half of searching, Live! With Regis and Kelly was born. It made Kelly Ripa what she is today, what Kathie Lee was once before, a successful television personality, an honored person in the sacred order of studio TV. Kelly lives part-time in a neat condo which stands on the corner of 83rd street and Central Park West in Manhattan. The front window looks out over Central Park, the back window has a balcony overlooking an inward-facing courtyard. The condo is hued in soft yellows and straws, earthy elements mixed into modern, classy décor. It is here Kelly Ripa lives during the week while she is uptown to film Live! On weekends and her days off Kelly spends time with her husband Mark and their three beautiful kids in Jersey where they have a stunning, charming paradise.

4) WESLEY SNIPES, as you know, is the incredible action-movie star from the 1990s and early 2000s, who made such hits as The Blade Trilogy, White Men Can’t Jump, The Fan, and To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar. And although Wesley was once at company with such names as Jean-Claude Van Dam and Steven Segal, Wesley was beginning to transcend those lowly heights, and - much like Mel Gibson, coming off the Lethal Weapon roller-coaster - Snipes was about to enter the realm of true stardom.

He was incarcerated, however, in 2010 on three misdemeanor convictions for failing to file his income tax returns for the money he had earned over three years prior. It was a shock to us all, I need not remind you, and sent Wesley to upstate Pennsylvania where he spent three years in the slammer. It bankrupted his career, and he disappeared into the dusky, shadows of prison life, only to emerge in April of 2013, a changed man. Wesley stayed out of the spotlight for over a year after his release. What he did during that time is anyone’s guess. It wouldn’t be until June of 2014 that Wesley would approach the William Morris agency, a talent management group in Hollywood where Snipes used to be held in elevated esteem. But now Wesley’s image was one more resembling a mangled jaguar emerging from a long three years in the jungle’s pitch-black night. Would they take him back? What could be done with the former Wesley Snipes, if anything at all? And who is this new Wesley Snipes? And that, ladies and gentleman, is precisely where this story begins.

CHAPTER 3. WESLEY, LEMONADE AND SIDNEY POITIER

Petite against the river, a neat, treed-in cafe sits on that one boulevard in Brooklyn which faces that one bridge in Manhattan, as a black towncar - not a limousine, mind you - pulls up to the curb and parks.

Against a terra-cotta tiled patio, with earthen walls to match, amid an orangy glow and shadowy trees, Wesley Snipes sits, sipping lemonade from a straw. He listens closely to Sidney Poitier, who sits across from his, sipping tea.

You see, Wesley, Sidney Poitier outlines a rectangle in the air with his broad fingers. It’s about this space, this dimension. It’s about what we can do with our bodies in this space. That is the theater, my friend.

Right on. Right on?

Yeah, man. Right on.

Wesley’s flat response draws Poitier close. Listen Wesley, I respect your work and I think we could do something tremendous. Right here, right now. But it’s gonna take more than right on.

I feel you.

Do you feel me?

I feel something.

I feel like that something is not me, Wesley. Sidney’s eloquent voice and speech is like an immaculate lesson in manners. As he speaks, he picks up his tea-cup and sips it lightly, checking Wesley out from behind its cover. It’s about your commitment. Commitment, Wesley. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah man, I’m committed. It’s all me.

I feel like you are holding something back.

I’m just chilling.

Is it the text?

Com’on, man, Wesley shifts his weight in his chair, makes circles with his straw through ice-cubes in the empty, clinking lemonade glass. You know, I just never done this stage shit before.

You mean the theater?

Yeah. The theater, or whatever.

There is nothing to fear about the theater, my good man.

I didn’t say I was afraid.

I am by your side - and will be the whole way.

I guess it’s the text too, I mean. Hamlet?

Not Hamlet, Wesley. HAMlet! Sidney Poitier makes a sweeping gesture with his hands. Look, Mr. Poitier, I respect you and all that, but I don’t know if Shakespeare is my thing, man.

Nonsense, Wesley.

I’m an action-star, man.

You are going to redeem yourself. Isn’t that what you want?

I mean, yeah.

Then redeem yourself, you must!

But karate--

...From the grubby ranks of incarceration, Wesley Snipes has stunned us once again, putting on the torrid, complex mask of one of drama’s most acclaimed characters, that of HAMlet! Sidney inhales, leans forward in his seat. My dear boy, we are re-birthing a star. It takes some time. It takes some patience. And it takes some Shakespeare. Now won’t you come along and let’s talk about the awesome character of HAMlet!

Wesley sighs, turns to a passing waitress with a neat bob of brown hair and says,

’'Nother lemonade, sweetheart. Easy on the ice this time.

CHAPTER 4. KELLY RIPA AT NIGHT

As night falls over midtown Manhattan, Kelly Ripa bounces between the modern fixtures in her condo flipping on various lights. Her single-story flat is made out in glowing oranges before she settles again on her overstuffed sofa and resumes the delicate reading she was, before dusk, immersed in.

A strange, overwhelming urge to devour raw cookie-dough enters her and she is shaken, distracted - as though the run-up to any foreboding event is preceded by a craving for desserts. Cookie dough? Cookie dough ice cream? Just cookies, perhaps? She couldn’t be seen buying these rudimentary pleasures at a store - that is precisely the kind of rhetoric which tabloid paparazzi are brandish and crazen for. Luckily, Kelly keeps a stash of dark chocolate in a shoe box on the top shelf of her walk-in closet. An emergency stash; and yes, this is one of those times. Neatly, carefully, as though someone with the power to stop her just might, Kelly creeps into her boudoir, past her bed and armoire and into the ominous walk-in. Using the chair from her vanity, she wrestles the sacred shoebox from under a stack of old magazines and behold! a stash of chocolates! Some are half-eaten, others still wrapped, each bar a well chosen addition to her secret harem of dark and tasty treats.

Back on the couch, back with