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"Just HOW fast is fast?" he wondered to himself idly, feeding his Chinchilla, Stinky Pete.
He finished spooning out the requisite 1 1/2 ounces of minced Spotted Aardvark, with peas, as he had been instructed to do by the guy under the bridge who had traded Stinky Pete for 2/3 of a carton of cigarettes, went downstairs, and dialed the phone.
"McGillavray's, where we make the fastest burger in the World," said a resolved voice on the other end.
"Yes, I have a question," said Denton, "exactly how fast do you make your burgers?"
"Sir, I can't tell you that," said the voice, more resolved than ever, "it's a trade secret."
"Well, how do I know you're the fastest?" asked Denton, feeling pretty confident that he had raised an excellent point.
"Sir, if you just come down to the restaurant, we can have your burger the exact, precise moment you order it. No waiting."
"You're saying as soon as my order leaves my lips, my burger will be ready?"
"We guarantee it, sir."
"That sounds like no cooking time at all," pointed out Denton.
"As I said, sir, that's a trade secret."
Curiosity rubbed Denton's forehead like a sock filled with Parmesan Cheese. He just had to know how a burger could possibly be prepared in absolutely no time at all.
He pondered his options. He could stop at the local pawnshop, buy a gun, and hold it to the cocky employee's head, demanding he spill his guts; he could claim to have a bomb in his coat, and threaten to detonate it if they didn't explain their cooking process; or he could do something really desperate.
Denton had been laid off from his job at the Pig-mutilating plant, and had spent the last six months in a prolonged state of nervous psychosis. Most of his day consisted of counting the balls of yarn that had accumulated under the ottoman, and teaching Swahili to the mailman's three month old niece over the phone.
His life had stopped having meaning three years ago, when his girlfriend, Archie, had left him for the adventurous life of a scullery maid, aboard a Japanese fishing boat. Denton had pleaded with her not to go, but how could he compete with her dreams of glamour, and an endless supply of fresh tuna?
No man could, he had reasoned, and for the first six months, he faxed her x-rays of his broken heart, over her vessel's ship to shore radio. One day the fax confirmation message came back "no can acquire signal," and that night, he toasted marshmallows over the crackling flames of his burning medical records.
Yes, it was time for Denton to enter the world of the fast food worker. He was sure that, as an employee of McGillavray's, he would most certainly learn the secret of the instantaneous burger, so he got in his car, which hadn't been started in a very long time. So long, in fact, that the eight track tape he had left in the player came alive with a blorrrrp that turned into a New Seekers medley of commercial jingles for products no longer available to the general public.
Denton had no idea why he would buy a detestable tape like that, and then he remembered it was a present from Archie. She was beautiful and sexy, but her taste in music was beyond despicable, as was the spot behind the faucet in her bathroom sink. Denton had given her a family size barrel of Mildew Intimidator with Lye Power! every Christmas, birthday and Valentine's Day they had been together, but for some reason, she never got the hint, and was always a little distant on these occasions.
Denton couldn't afford to dwell on such ancient history at a time like this. He was pulling into the parking lot of McGillavray's, awed by the gothic power of the stone structure housing the world's fastest fast food restaurant.
Every McGillavray's was made from 2,000 ton slabs of granite mined from a secret location alleged to be haunted by Druidic priests, or possibly dead baseball players. Either way, the media had speculated for years as to the cost of building just one McGillavray's, and many had come to the conclusion that it simply wasn't possible.
Another distinct feature of McGillavray's was an intense spotlight that shone well past the moon, and several other celestial bodies. If scientists did know how far those things went, they certainly weren't saying. There were already several religious cults that believed they went on into infinity, and McGillavray's had only been open a few days.
Inside, a beautiful woman clad in a black leather dress loomed menacingly from a crystal podium, with stars shining all around her. She looked as though she were floating in space, as the sound system oozed mellow jazz, with vocals dubbed from recordings made amidst a pack of wild dingoes during mating season.
"Welcome to McGillavray's," she said with a voice like music, "what can I get for you today?"
"I'll have a triple onion burger, with extra ketchup, three pickles arranged like the Mesopotamian sign for fertility; and burnt bacon," Denton smiled, affectionately.
"You're holding one in your hand, sir," she smiled, and winked, "that'll be $65.27."
Denton dazedly handed her a $250.00 bill, and unwrapped the very burger he had ordered. He lifted the lid of the bun, and there, underneath the burnt bacon, were the pickles, arranged exactly like the Mesopotamian sign for fertility, and for a moment, Denton thought he was dreaming.
"What about something to drink?" he asked, in a monotone voice.
"All triple burgers come with a complimentary thimbleful of water," she said huskily, holding one up in her slender, smooth hand, which Denton noticed was mercifully free of wedding piercing.
"Anything else, sir?" she cooed, invitingly.
"Umm, yes," said Denton purposefully, "I'd like to fill out a job application."
"I'm not surprised," she said, looking him up and down, with a smile, "fill this out, and I'll send Mr. Alpha over for an interview."
Denton sat down at a nearby table, took out a pen, and started filling out the application, slowly chewing the best burger he had ever tasted. It seemed like a standard job application at first, as he filled in his name; address; educational and employment history; date of birth and ability to withstand intense pain; much like the applications he used to fill out when he was in college, and would donate organs for drinking money.
Most of them had either been replaced with automated duplicates, or had simply grown back on their own, over time, although the rubber kidneys left something to be desired.
But then Denton came to a question he thought a bit odd:
"Do you have any objection to aging twenty times faster than your friends and family?"
He would have to ask Mr. Alpha about that question.
"No, no, I don't think he'll do at all!" shouted a large male voice, and Denton looked up to see Mr. Alpha standing with his chest out, doing his best to occupy Denton's personal space.
"You must be Mr. Alpha..." Denton started to say.
"I'll do the talking here. Just who's giving this interview?" demanded Mr. Alpha, demandingly.
"Ah, you?" Denton began.
"Now, I've told you about that talking. Is the application filled out? You didn't initial it here, here or here!" shouted Mr. Alpha, slamming his fist against the table each time he said "here," and indicating three places on the document.
"This is a lie. This is spelled incorrectly. Here you are exaggerating your qualifications. Another lie. Another misspelling. You appear to be quite worthless."
Mr. Alpha looked very mad. He pulled his face up to within 3/8th of an inch of Denton's and said, "why do you want to work here?" in a very suspicious voice.
"Well, you see, I, ah, um," Denton said eloquently.
"That's IT! You're hired. Now get out of here immediately," Mr. Alpha pointed towards the door, "you make me sick. Be at Corporate Headquarters at 9:00 am for indoctrination, um training."
Denton scrambled for the door, literally fearing for his life. There was no way he was going to be showing up at this lunatic asylum tomorrow morning, that was for sure.
"Don't forget, we know where you live," came Mr. Alpha's voice after him, even though he was already out the door.
That night Denton tossed and turned feverishly, dreaming of angry Restaurant managers whipping him as he grilled burgers, chained to an open flaming pit. His skin was charred and bloodied, and his lips were swollen to the size of Banana Peppers, not to mention that all the hair was burnt out of his nose.
He finally settled into a deep sleep, and just as he started to snore, he was awakened by a loud voice.
"It's 8:00," shouted the voice, "if you don't get up right now, you will be late for work. You will NOT be late for work. You will NEVER be late for work. Tardiness will result in immediate termination."
"Huh?" snorted Denton, trying desperately to join the world of the living long enough to understand what had just happened, "is somebody here? What the Hell is going on?"
"There is no time," shouted the voice, "you must shower. A McGillavray's employee must be clean and courteous at all times. Shave that beard. Cut that hair. You look disgusting. What is that hanging from your nose?"
"Oh yeah, and I suppose YOU wake up looking like Bride Beautiful every day, huh?" shouted Denton at nobody, wondering where that voice was coming from.
Denton was really beginning to panic now. Perhaps somebody had drugged his milk? This simply couldn't be happening. And yet, he found himself standing beneath the shower, shaving off his beard.
"I don't know how to cut my own hair," he said meekly, and the voice responded, "well of course you don't. If you skip breakfast, you'll have time to stop in at Great Hair, where you will receive an employee discount of 12.4%."
"But I don't WANT to skip breakfast," a hungry Denton protested.
"It's not always about what we WANT," shouted the voice, "and besides, you will be treated to a lovely breakfast of Danishes and coffee."
"I could really go for some eggs."
"There are hard boiled eggs in the vending machine of the Training Center."
"What about milk? I prefer milk to coffee."
"There is NO MILK!" shouted the voice, exasperated, "now MOVE IT. The company car is waiting downstairs. You will be picked up and dropped off for your first week. After that, you will utilize the city bus, like everybody else. And NO SMOKING."
"Look, I'm not doing another thing until you tell me who you are," said Denton, defiantly.
"I am Albert G. Cribbs of East Coast Corporate Training Headquarters in Trenton, New Jersey, and I am simultaneously speaking with you and 845 other new hires, so quit slouching, and get out that door. I will be with you from now on."
"From now on? What does that mean?" Denton said, hyperventilating a little, "like for the rest of my life?"
"Longer than that," assured Cribbs, sounding just a bit smug.
Denton turned white, and very nearly fell down the stairs of his apartment building in horrified shock.
"Steady there," said Cribbs, "you'll want to make it here in one piece."
"Oh, so I'll get to meet you in person?" asked Denton.
"Well... no," answered Cribbs.
In the street there was a black limousine with the McGillavray's corporate logo, a Pterodactyl with a Buffalo in its mouth, emblazoned on each of the five doors on the passenger side. Denton never got a chance to see the driver's side, because he was whisked into the limo by a burly man in a burlap suit, who was wearing patent leather shoes.
"Hi, I'm Denton," Denton said, offering his hand to the mousy woman in the grey suit sitting next to him.
"No talking!" shouted Cribbs, "you will read the Employee Handbook, and memorize each detail of every rule. You will be quizzed later today. I do not recommend failing."
"How many do we have to get right?" asked a small, bald man with terrible acne.
"All of them, of course," shouted Cribbs, "now SHUT UP!"
Denton poured his attention into the handbook. Most of it was typical blather about the company's "open door policy," and dress requirements, etc, much like the handbook he'd seen at virtually any company he'd worked at.
"Hmm, that's a bit unusual," Denton thought, as he came to the passage that said, "WE ARE SWORN TO SECRECY UPON PAIN OF DEATH."
"Wow," thought Denton, "no wonder that guy wouldn't tell me about the cooking time over the phone."
The limo wound its way up a steep, winding mountain road, until they came to a beautiful granite castle, with the words "McGillavray's Corporate Headquarters" embossed sixteen feet high into the stone archway blasted into the side of the mountain.
The group walked solemnly along the cobblestones, until they came to a stairway that disappeared into the clouds.
"Wow," Harbelt Peterson of Orbert, Nebraska said in awe, "does it ever end?"
"Of course," responded the burly man in the burlap suit, "about three feet into that cloud is the doorway to the Familiarization Suite, where you will watch a short film."
They made their way carefully up, as there was no railing, and some of the stairs were broken, not to mention that the fall would easily kill any of them. As the burly man in burlap had said, they came to a door, and inside were greeted by grey linoleum tile, and fluorescent lighting.
"That's weird," said Alabama Hutchinson, of Hutchinson, Alabama, whose parents were not real creative, "this is the most amazing place I have ever seen, or even imagined. Why would they make this one room look just like the break, or conference room of every corporation in the world?"
"Sit down!" shouted the voice of Cribbs, and the lights went down, as a big television screen flickered to life on the East wall.
"Krylon Industries presents: The story of the world's Greatest Hamburger."
The credits were in 3-D, as the soundtrack pulsed techno dance music featuring pounding hammers.
Leonard Nimoy appeared, standing beneath a waterfall, in a pair of bikini briefs.
"I'm Leonard Nimoy. The story you're about to hear is classified. You must never divulge this information to anyone, even your Aunt Ethel, who is not to be trusted. Krylon Industries cannot be held responsible for any and all injuries, unusual deaths, sudden illnesses or family dismemberments caused by unauthorized dissemination of trade secrets."
Mozart's "Boogaloo Requiem in C#" swelled in the background as still photos of DaVinci, Einstein, Newton, Copernicus, Marlo Thomas, and Scooby Doo entered and exited from screen top left, and Nimoy's voice said, "A long time ago, well, actually six months, famed scientist Arpeggio Schwartz stopped into Burger Hate Me for a quick meal between experiments, and it was the middle of lunch rush, so it ended up taking him 18 1/2 minutes to be served."
"They ought to call this SLOW food, and not FAST food," said the actor portraying Schwartz, as the crowd of hungry patrons applauded, and some of the women threw bras and panties at him.
"Schwartz had recently been experimenting with Time Suspension, (a trademark of Krylon Industries,) and although his highly controversial theory of General Time Suspension was overbloated, and driven more by ego than any set of fixed variables, his progress with Isolated Time Suspension, or ITS was rapid, and highly compelling."
"I have tried every kind of room," said the actor portraying Schwartz, "I have tried big rooms, little rooms, rooms that have no locks, fat rooms, skinny rooms, even rooms with Chickenpox..."
"Why is he singing?" asked Shyata Harper, who was originally from Chicago.
"Shut UP!" scolded Cribbs.
"I have tried every type of room, and I am beginning to believe that only a fast food kitchen contained within a large structure of granite or solid gold would be suitable to make ITS a reality."
"That's highly unbelievable," said Harper, and then she let out a little yelp, "HEY! Are these chairs rigged to give us electric shocks?"
"Of course!" shouted Cribbs, "and you can't say I didn't warn you about the talking."
"Imagine," said Nimoy's voice-over, "if a fast food kitchen could stop time. The customer would say their order, and, just like when you push the 'pause' button on your Plasma Cable Unit, time would stop for everyone between the kitchen and the granite walls of the outlying structure. While the cashier and the customer are frozen in time, the expertly trained professionals in the kitchen can make a perfect burger from scratch, exactly as the customer ordered it, put the burger right in the customer's hand, and save valuable minutes for the person on the go."
This was all dramatized for the group, all of whom had their mouths wide open, and were drooling a bit, completely mesmerized by the mind-bending notion of manipulating Time to serve a burger faster.
The film went on to explain how during an eight hour shift, a kitchen worker would age eight hours in a period of anywhere from no time at all to 12 minutes 11 seconds, depending on how busy it was. This meant that in order to cover the average lunch rush, 83 different employees would be needed just to cook burgers.
"Stop the film! Ouch! Stop the film!" Denton had leapt from his chair after the fairly intense electrical shock he had just received.
"Sit down!" shouted Cribbs.
"No! I refuse to listen to any more of this. This is madness! MADNESS! This man has mastered one of the most amazing forces anyone has ever known, and he is using it to make a better burger? This could be used to prevent war; heal dying people; grow mass quantities of food to feed the world!"
"We're working on that, but it right now it only works in a fast food kitchen," said the tall, windblown man who walked in through a sliding door, as everyone in the group gasped.
"That's..."
"Arpeggio Schwartz at your service," he said, smiling, as he picked his teeth with the claw of a Beagle, on a silver chain.
He walked up to Alabama Hutchinson, and said, "if you could have anything you wanted right now, what would it be?"
"It would be my cat, Mr. Snuggles. I would want him to be right here, in my arms."
"Isn't he?" asked Schwartz, and sure enough, he was.
"I thought it would only work in the kitchen of a fast food restaurant, surrounded by granite," protested Harper, who paid the price for forgetting about the electric chair she was sitting in, "OUCH!"
"She's right," said Denton, who was standing, "we aren't in the kitchen of a fast food restaurant..."
"Aren't we?" laughed Schwartz, indicating all the busy kitchen workers, grills, meat cutters and ancient grease that now surrounded them.
"None of those were there a minute ago," said Harper, who had finally stood up.
"Weren't they?" laughed Schwartz, who was thinking of changing his name to Johnny one-note.
"No," replied Denton, "the room wasn't even this big before. We are on a platform, that is on an elevator, and we have been traveling downward for the duration of this film, and now find ourselves 12,000 feet below the Earth's surface."
"You weren't watching the film," shouted Cribbs.
"I can watch films, and still pay attention to what is going on around me, thank you very much," shouted Denton back, "and this place is weird, and you're weird, and nothing you can say will induce me to risk aging 20 times faster than normal, no matter what you say, or how you threaten me."
The entire group shouted their agreement.
"I haven't told you about the pay structure yet," said Cribbs.
Two weeks later, Denton was leaning against the counter, chatting with the beautiful woman who had sold him his first McGillavray's burger.
"I don't know," she was saying, "I've always gone for men who were a bit older than you. I guess I just like my boyfriends a little more seasoned."
"Well, give me a couple of months," said Denton, "maybe you'll see something you like."
"Oh, it'll take a bit longer than that," she said, trying to let him down easy.
"We'll see," said Denton, who would march into the Assistant Shift Manager's office and sign up for overtime on his way out.
"Good night," she said with a smile, "it was nice talking with you."
"Good night," said Denton, exiting.
As the door clicked shut, a voice came from behind her.
"Nice work, my dear."
"Thank you Mr. Schwartz," she said lovingly.
"You can call me Arpeggio."
As Denton walked out of the Assistant Shift Manager's office, Mr. Chum turned to Ms. Calmliar and said, "that man signed up for too much overtime! He'll be dead before he can finish his last shift."
Ms. Calmliar said, "well, what do you want me to do?"
Mr. Chum scowled at her derisively, "run some more ads for burger makers, of course."
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