CYOA: Thomas Asby and the Minimal Mastermind (Volume 1, Chapter 1)

“Good evening.”

“Hello there.”

“What is your name, question mark.”

“Thomas Asby.”

“Door unlocked. You may enter, dot dot.”

Asby strode through the opening door and found his way blocked by a workplace that had been crudely constructed smack-dab in the center of the claustrophobic hallway. A Dell computer and a ream of scattered printer paper lay on the office desk, which had been jammed lengthwise across the passageway. Asby nodded to the technician working on the computer – he wasn’t sure if his name was Henry or Harry – as he set himself to the uncomfortable task of shimmying past the construct. After he had squeezed out the other side, he looked back and saw that the technician had Dell’s text-to-speech open and had last typed “You may enter…” into the program.

“Effing budget cuts,” Asby muttered to himself as he crossed the dimly lit hallway to the door at the other end. The plaque on the door had “John Doe – Head of B.I.A.” scribbled on it in mechanical pencil, and was strung up crookedly to a thumbtack jammed in the door. Asby raised his right hand, rapped on the door, and the plaque caromed off of its mount and clattered pathetically to the ground.

“Come in!” came a voice from the other side.

Asby turned the knob while violently jiggling the door on its frame and the contraption creaked open. His boss John Doe came into view, sitting behind a table at the far end of the square room. A fixed-pane window shielded by iron bars let in light on the left side of the room; the daylight, already smothered by the Los Angeles smog, waged a holy war against the grime on the pane to enter the room. Doe had set up a small desk lamp to compensate for the lack of natural light, but besides that, the table it was resting on, and two rickety chairs there was nothing else in the room whatsoever.

“Have a seat, Thomas,” Doe said, gesturing to the seat opposite him.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Do you like the lamp?”

“Very much so,” Asby said as he seated himself. “It much improves the room’s aesthetic.”

“Good! I’m glad you like it.” Doe coughed into his hand and wiped it on the breast of his tweed jacket. He looked up at Asby, his eyes magnified by the convex lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses. “I wish we could continue the pleasantries, Thomas, but we must get down to brass tacks. The Basic Intelligence Agency is on its last legs. You and your brother are the only agents we have left, and I’m quite close to letting our technician Harold go. Our chances to prove our worth to the U.S. Government are fast dwindling.”

“I agree, sir.”

“Good! Well then you’ll understand that the mission I’m about to give you is of utmost importance. I know I say that about every mission but now it really means something. If we fail, we may very well be shutdown permanently.”

“I see, sir.”

“Good!” This exclamation he tended to repeat frequently and always seemed to clash with the tone of whatever conversation he and Asby were having. The word was always accompanied by an ear-to-ear smile, his already magnified eyes expanding to dragonfly proportions, and the placement of both his hands palm down on the table in front of him. “Here is the file, then.”

He stuck a hand into his jacket and then withdrew it. It took Asby a moment to realize that Doe had actually presented something; the manila file folder had blended deceptively well with the color of the tweed. Doe dramatically slid the pitiful folder – “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY” was not stamped on but instead written in red Sharpie – across the table. Asby picked it up, putting his right leg over the other and leaning back as he opened it. A grainy photo of a man, one with an unusually large forehead and scarcity of hair, stared cunningly back at him. A single tuft of orange bristles spouted from the center of his scalp, giving his head the semblance of an erupting volcano.

“A ginger,” Asby intoned.

“And a dwarf.”

“Hmm?”

“He’s a dwarf.”

“A ginger dwarf?”

“Yes.”

“Hmph.”

“His name is Frederico Fitzgerald. Occupation: criminal mastermind. He serves as a consultant to other criminals. When someone wants to know what to do or how to do it, they ask Fitzgerald. His stature may be small but his wisdom is vast.” Doe was prone to such juxtaposition.

“So what’s the situation, sir?”

“Fitzgerald is meeting with criminal kingpins from all over the world in New York a day from now. The government tells us that what they are discussing is important but not that important, which is probably why they’re letting us handle it. We must eliminate Fitzgerald before he reaches that meeting. Chop the head off of the snake before the head can tell the snake what to do!” Doe’s majestic finish led to a coughing spree. Asby waited patiently for the sputtering to cease.

“I have to kill a dwarf?”

“Yes. But don’t think of him like a dwarf, more like a very evil child, if that helps.”

It didn’t, but Asby played along: “It does, sir. Thank you.”

“Good! Well there are two possibilities as to your first move. I asked the higher-ups where Fitzgerald would be today, and they said ‘probably in Las Vegas somewhere.’ If that is not specific enough, they also gave us the address of his right-hand man currently here in Los Angeles. You might be able to squeeze him for information to get to Fitzgerald.”

What should Thomas Asby do next?

- Depart for Sin City, saving time but also gambling his job and the wellbeing of the nation on the government’s vague intelligence.

- Ambush Frederico’s right-hand man in the City of Angels, wasting precious time but ensuring accurate information if Asby is successful.

Vote for your choice in the poll on the right, and check in next Monday for the next installment of Thomas Asby and the Minimal Mastermind!