Mr.School (by hegel5000)

In Allo's Town, everyone is referred to as 'Mister'. So is everything. Every brand name is Mr. something or another, and everything is run by the companies who all somehow run under the same 'Mr.' name. Mr.Store, Mr.IceCream, Mr.Pistol, Mr.Pie, Mr.Food, Mr.Hospital, Mr.Mother, and of course, Mr.School.

Every person in Allo's Town is an identical stickman. They do not have names, and they do not address each other by name, and when they would refer to someone, it would be something like 'that person'. In a number of ways, though, to an outsider, a stickman might seem like a robot mimicking human behavior.

The buildings in Allo's Town, too, are completely uniform. Besides the occasional abandoned Mr.Factory, there exist only identical four story Luxury Mr.TownHouses, and Mr.School. The streets are completely empty except for parked Mr.SUVs with twenty-seven inch Mr.Rims, but back when this story takes place, back in 2001, cars only had twenty-fours, and years before, they didn't even have Mr.Rims but normal twenty-two inch ones. Between now and when this story takes place, there have been quite a number of other technological changes. For instance, the Mr.Earbud headphones these days in Allo's Town no longer give off any sound whatsoever besides what the listener hears.

Back then, when this story takes place, you could hear the constant hum of all the stickmen blasting their music into their non-existent ears, played on their identical Mr.Mobilz (brand of cellphone), whose earbuds always let out a little bit of sound. Stickmen also lacked mouths or noses, and they smelt like dead bodies. They are only capable of smelling fragrances artificially added to products which they buy, anyways, so they don't care. A human, or a non-conformist as the stickmen call humans, might also notice that the shape of their original body, though invisible, can be still felt, which explains why they can wear earbuds in their invisible ears or keep a Mr.Mobilz in their invisible pockets.

In 2001, the year Fop Capone took over Allo's Town, she was living in an abandoned Mr.Factory. Nine years before then, when she was five, her human parents were assimilated into the stickman collective during an advertisement raid. Unlike most humans, she could preserve her human mind while switching to the appearance of a stickman, with its white circular head and limbs that are so small they can barely be seen. She lived in an abandoned Mr.Factory, sleeping in its little manager's office, and performing robotics, firearms, and computer experiments with parts salvaged from the assembly lines, but she spent a whole lot of her time at Mr.School. Mr.School in Allo's Town was a private school. Fop could get in because in addition to control over her human/stickman state, she could essentially control everything a stickman thought about her, which was enough to get into the school.

It was Friday, the 7th of September, last period. Fop generally tended to move between classrooms and grades. Today she went to a third grade computer class. It was really all the same to her, and to the stickmen she was really the same as every other stickman or teacher. She decided, though, that since the teachers acted more or less pre-programmed, she could've easily taught her own class. The teacher taught about the use of some of the more recently made Mr.ProprietarySoftware, like Mr.Paper and Mr.Picture. The students were using some extremely expensive and recently bought Mr.Computers, which were just fast enough to run on the latest, most expensive, and most inefficient version of Mr.OS yet. The students were hitting the Mr.F12 buttons on the nearest Mr.Computers to make Mr.Stuff fly around the screen, only barely listening to the teacher who had a Mr.Projector image on the Mr.Board.

The teacher was fumbling with the Mr.Board, which he thought had revolutionized teaching, when he saw that one of the stickmen in the classroom, at the back of the room, had taken the attention of all the students and was teaching them about the food chain and the rule of ten percent. That stickman was Fop Capone, but the teacher didn't know, because he was certain he was the only teacher in the room. He decided to call the principal stickman.

"Yo, it looks like have a second teacher in this room, yo." said the teacher into his Mr.Mobilz.

The reply was simply "Records state that you are the only teacher teaching this class this period. If you have any trouble, then you can call the backup. I'll text you where to go for the backup."

The teacher thought for a moment, but his brain hurt, so he went back to trying to understand his wonderful Mr.Board. He then decided it would be simpler to use the Mr.Computer's mouse to control things. He then decided not to continue his class on the use of Mr.Picture so he could instead check his text message inbox on his Mr.Mobilz. The principal stickman had sent him "bg rd btn n teh bk clst lol bkup".

Fop, who had the class's full attention by now, was talking about fat soluble toxins. She was about to tell one of her stickman students to get some copies of Mr.TextBook Explains Ecology, but she realized that school would end soon, and stickmen always kept to their schedules, especially the 2:30pm Friday dismissal.

When Fop was living in her abandoned Mr.Factory, it had full electricity and gas, and even an Internet connection. None of the various stickman gangs would hang out there, since all the stickmen believed the abandoned Mr.Factories to be haunted. The haunted thing was merely a myth created to keep people from taking the free utilities instead of buying a Mr.TownHouse. Today, now that Fop has taken control, the Allo's Town government has decided to stop using the haunted myth and to start using Mr.DeathMechs, which are five foot tall heavily armed robots to keep people out. Although the Mr.DeathMech was originally invented and manufactured by Fop in her Mr.Factory, the robots today are manufactured in Malaysia, and their software is manufactured in the Philippines.

After finishing her homework, which took her until Saturday night, she finally went to bed. Even after 40 hours of being awake, she still couldn't fall asleep since she was too busy thinking of ways to de-assimilate the stickmen. She decided to make Wednesday Scrabble day. There was a Mr.Dance that day at her Mr.School, but she wanted her Scrabble day to conflict with it. She finally fell asleep, and when she got up Sunday morning, she went over to the Mr.School, because she decided that the best way to draw the stickmen from the dance would be through the use of the intercoms. She also set the factory on auto-pilot so that it would do something useful while she was gone.

In Allo's Town, rap is currently the popular musical genre. Some of Fop's recent advances in rap CD technology have been used as extremely powerful energy sources. Back when the story takes place, the popular genre was rock, the popular sub-genre was emo, and the popular sub-sub-genre that day the ninth of September, year 2001, was Mr.Emo type 93 out of 302. Economists say that hadn't Fop intervened, grunge type 42/600 would have become popular by the twelfth of September.

At the Mr.PlayGround in front of the Mr.School, Fop was met by the principal stickman and a number of soldiers. She knew who was the principal stickman because he wore a hat over his stickman image of a white, circular head. She knew the soldiers were soldiers because their original human bodies, which only she could smell, reeked because the stickman soldiers always slept closets until summoned. Only the principal stickman had his Mr.Rifle out, but other soldiers probably had theirs ready to be pulled out from their invisible pockets.

"We know why you're here, Fop Capone." Then the principal stickman waited for a reply. There weren't any animals in Allo's Town, so the only sound that could be heard was that of some music being played by the stickman soldiers. Then the she just said "Feh."

"We know what you're planning to do, Fop" the principal stickman continued, "I knew something was up Friday, when you began teaching the class about biology with a minimal amount of material resources. I don't think the market is going to like that."

"Well, I bet you're in love with the market, ain't you." She held up a CD "You gonna make any bets 'bout what the market'll think of this?" She switched her appearance to a human one. Because the soldiers only expected to fight a stickman, they all shuffled into the school, unlocking and leaving open the door on the way into the building.

"Hmm, you can control these stickmen. I can, too." The principal stickman put his gun down on the pavement, and switched to his own human form. He was a skinny guy, wearing a tweed suit. The hat on his stickman self wasn't there on his human self. "Like me, you're brain is human, Miss Capone. These stickmen are always stuck showing the illusion of their . . . "

"Dude," Fop interrupted the principal-who-seems-to-be-more-than-just-another-stickman, "I know it all. I've read the books on Allo's Town. Economists're sayin' Allo's Town's the perfect role model for the entirety of society. Scientists say that the place is gonna collapse on itself, with . . . " Fop paused for a moment while she began walking right up the Principal. She she also changed back to her stickman form and put her foot down on his gun so he couldn't pick it up again. She was intimidated by the Principal whom she never really saw in the school, but she didn't show it. She never finished what she was about to say.

"Fop, we are living in the perfect society. Do you see how hard these stickmen are working? They all have nice jobs at which they work hard, and for their hard work, they are rewarded by Mr.Products. When I was your age, I was afraid of consumerism. I'm also psychic, like you. All the advertisements I saw . . . All the hundreds upon hundreds of advertisements everyone saw. I'm more than this school's principal, Fop. When I created stickmen and the Mr.Product, I wanted to end the competition between all the companies trying to get name recognition. Every single Mr.Product in every single Mr.Store . . . you probably can't see past my illusion, but they're just hundreds and hundreds of brand names: they all just look pretty much the same once my influence sets in. If I didn't do what I did, you'd just be too confused by the myriad of products for you know what to do."

"Problem is, all the jobs've been exported. The reason why so many stickmen come to Mr.School is that they don't really work or create. These stickmen of yours, whoever you are, ain't gonna be able to take out no more loans soon. They'll keep buyin' and buyin'. Some 'ave jobs, but who's gonna pay 'em? Counterfeiters?" Fop picked up the Principal's Mr.Rifle, stunned him with a swift kick to the testicles, and ran into the empty school, locking the doors behind her. At the tiny little barred windows of the school's front doors, Fop held up her CD, and yelled out through the windows little windows at the Principal who was crying in pain: "This ain't Emo type 93/302! When those stickmen see my brand of change, they're coming to Scrabble night. Maybe I'll see you, too, at my Mr.Factory."

Fop knew where to go to find the intercom systems. It was in the same place as the Mr.School's security office. Mr.OS crashed a number of times, so Fop ended up re-installing the school's system's from scratch. It was late at night when she was done setting up the intercom systems to play her CD in school. She had even set it up to play a reminder about scrabble night on Wednesday. Fop just slept right where she was in the security office, terribly hungry, rocking back and forth on the swivel chair. She had to keep the office constantly locked, in case the Principal or his soldiers ever tried to come.

The next day, Monday the tenth of September, Fop had all the stickmen under her thumb. Stickmen are generally only interested in new consumer products, money, sex (they lose the capacity to love when they're assimilated, so their talk about sex is completely artificial), and extremely large rims. Although Fop's music was art, she was stuck having to sacrifice her creativity to make something that would appeal to the stickmen. When Fop rapped, she neither did so in her human form nor her normal stickman form. Instead, she took on another image, a male one called M.C.Janxin, simply because it would not have worked to have a woman as the voice behind this extremely sexist type of rap of hers. M.C.Janxin looked in a few ways like a normal stickman, but he had sunglasses covered eyes, an extremely heavy gold necklace, a baseball cap, somewhat long hair, and a mouth with teeth and gold fronts.

In the M.C.Janxin form and with her rap music playing (as him), she was easily able to distract the stickmen from their Mr.BrandNames with her new fad. In addition to convincing the stickmen to go to her Mr.Factory for Scrabble night on Wednesday instead of the dance, she convinced them to actually read the textbooks themselves, to stop listening to music on their phones, and to at some point get a job. She was still, however, unable to convince them to bathe, since they weren't even aware of their human bodies.

These days, stickmen only work in M.C.Janxin's army or his various factories for the manufacturing of rap and stickmen (out of humans), Mr.DeathMechs, weapons and armor, food, and various cleaning supplies. The stickman army no longer reeks like the average stickman did under the Principal.

The next day was Tuesday, the eleventh of September. That afternoon, while in her security office in her stickman form, Fop was leaning back in an extremely large office chair. Because she used her stickman form most of the time, she felt more comfortable in it. Still, her stickman and M.C.Janxin forms were merely illusions like any other stickman's stickman visage. Fop was eating a donut with her mouth from a box of donuts which was on her chest, while going to various news sites on the computer in front of her with her feet, reading carefully. Her hands held the Principal's Mr.Rifle, with it set on full auto-fire and the safety off. The door opened and Fop spun around on her swivel office chair, causing her to drop her gun. It fired a few shots at the wall. She also dropped her box of donuts. The Principal, in his human form, was standing in the doorway with a Mr.Shotgun, its barrel right on Fop's nose. He could probably see past her stickman self to her human one, since he knew where her nose was.

"Do not move, girl."

Fop picked up a donut out of a box on the floor, and she took a bite, all without moving her nose or head. It wasn't on the side of chair where her Mr.Rifle was, and that was probably why the Principal didn't shoot. She chewed it very carefully, but at the same time said in a muffled, mouth-full-of-half-chewed-donut-voice "Could you put the gun down? I got a sensitive nose, dude."

"Honestly, Fop, I don't give a damn."

She gulped down the rest what was in her mouth and took another bite. "Kill me if ya' want. You ain't got no more stickmen on your side. You know I took everything you ever had."

"Then why, might I ask, did that group of stickman soldiers follow me when I summoned them?"

"Nevermind them. Yer only code pink. Pull that trigger and yer code purple."

The Principal brought the shotgun up over his head, and slammed it down on Fop's, stunning her. He then locked the security room door, never pulling the Mr.Shotgun's trigger. He put the Mr.Shotgun's safety on, and even unloaded it for fear what command she might have on the stickmen and what they might do to him if he fired. Then he resumed beating her to death with the gun's butt. The stickmen never even noticed. The Principal saw what Fop was reading. He didn't feel horror, but delight, because he wanted to use it to take back control over the stickmen.

9/11 is a day everyone remembers. Everyone outside of Allo's Town, at least. Outside of Allo's Town, everyone is quite aware of what happened on that date, and everyone who died. The stickmen in the school would've been completely ignorant of the attacks, but the Principal told them. He also blamed it on M.C.Janxin (they never really knew Fop, because when she became a normal stickman, she was essentially just like the rest). The Principal told the stickmen that M.C.Janxin was the leader of the terrorists. The Principal's psychic power was only enough to make the stickmen believe him and to make them follow his commands. He was quite unsure as to how he could end the effects of the rap music. Even if the Principal could make the stickmen hate M.C.Janxin, they loved the music Fop created in M.C.Janxin's name, which she also created.

The next day, Wednesday, the Principal tried lecturing the stickmen. He tried selling various anti-M.C.Janxin or 'M.C.Janxin killed Americans' products. He made the stickmen read books or watch TV shows, all of which he made on the fly just to make them love him and consumerism and the market . . . and not the music. Still, no matter how much he could make them hate M.C.Janxin, when he tested the rap music on them, they continued to enjoy it. The Principal didn't know how much he should have feared the music.

It was last period Wednesday. Fop Capone was quite dead. Her M.C.Janxin creation, though, stayed alive in its own form. The Principal decided to command the stickmen to start setting up the dance that night. While the stickmen were working, the intercoms began playing some more of the highly male chauvinistic rap music about owning women, along with insane amounts of cash and SUVs with insanely large rims. Somewhere along the line, the song also gave a reminder about Scrabble night. It also began giving directions as to how to get there. When the stickmen heard it, the stickmen immediately stopped hanging the ribbons and such for the dance, dropped what they were doing, and started walking calmly to their Mr.SUVs. Then they all started driving rather calmly.

By this point, Fop's Factory was ready to create an army out of the stickmen. Fop's home-made Miss Computers were busy processing incredible amounts of rap music, creating as many sexist songs as they needed to command the stickmen. The computers also started the factory's assembly lines. Stickmen weren't running the factory: experimental Mr.DeathMechs started manufacturing guns, ammo, and even more robots. When the stickmen came, M.C.Janxin's army was complete. Although Fop's body was dead, her mind was alive. She didn't exist in the computers, but she existed in the minds of all the stickmen as M.C.Janxin. Fop had already set the factory to auto-pilot when she left for school on Sunday. When the stickmen got to the factory, following the rap music, they immediately received further rap instructions to take a bath, and then the guns.

The problem, though, was that Fop's rap music as M.C.Janxin never said anything about becoming an army. It never really said anything at all. She created the M.C.Janxin image to be someone cool, someone that the stickmen would follow so that they could learn to play Scrabble and expand their vocabulary, stop conforming, and maybe become human again. Maybe the power of the Principal still remained on the stickmen. Maybe when Fop was killed, her M.C.Janxin form still remained, separately but identically placed into each and every stickmans' head with their own minds. Maybe the Principal never really finished off Fop, and when she saw her power, she decided she liked being M.C.Janxin more. Either way, its not like Fop has made any greater improvement to Allo's Town than the Principal did when he turned everyone into stickmen and every brand name into 'Mr.' I, Narrator, am extremely angry at Fop, or M.C.Janxin, or whatever, because she/he has made 27 inch Mr.Rims go into style. My Mr.SUV isn't even big enough for those!