Duckman; Last Moments of Chilean Bondage

The world turned to a blur as Vladimir punched Duckman across the face again. Duckman felt the flesh on his forehead tear open; a drop of blood dripped down the side of his cheek.

“Always remember this Duckman: because of your failure, the endangered pandas you tried to save will be experimented on with dangerous drugs for the rest of their lives,” sputtered Vladimir. Ever since that fateful day, Duckman vowed to dedicate his life to ridding the world of the injustice that plagued it.

The memory began to fade away and Duckman found himself standing at the end of a dark hallway. He noticed an ominous door on the opposite side and starting walking toward it. Duckman reached forward and pulled the door open; General Nelson Miles was sitting behind the large oak desk.

            “I have a very important message for you, Duckman,” Miles stated.

            “Lay it on me, Miles.”

            “Well, to put it plainly, the fabric of the universe is being torn apart.”

            Duckman ripped the dark shades off his face. “Great Scott! Not again!” Duckman paced around, wondering what to do next. “Give me the rundown, Miles,” he beckoned.

            “It all started 47 years ago, on a night not quite like tonight. Back in Chile the government was taken over by a military junta. Their leader, Augusto Pinochet, decided to dismiss the junta’s plan and rule the government alone,” Miles explained.

            “I’ll go back in time and take care of this problem once and for all,” Duckman replied.

“Surely you can’t be serious.”

“I am, and don’t call me Shirley.”

“Unfortunately, the time machine has been malfunctioning recently, so we can only go back about 31 years. However, going back to 1980 will still give you enough time to defeat Augusto Pinochet and stop him from killing thousands of people,” Miles reported.

            Duckman stepped into the time machine. He turned to his right: chose the time period of 1980, and turned the destination dial to Chile. Lights began to flash; a high pitched sound rang out. Suddenly Duckman appeared in a building located in the heart of Valpraíso.

            Duckman whipped around and spotted a door leading to a hallway. Just as he was about to leave the room, he heard two voices talking to each other. Luckily Duckman always carried a Babelfish with him, so he could understand the foreigners’ language as though they were speaking English.

            “Seriously, I heard a strange noise coming from the room over there! Let’s just check it out, and if I’m wrong, I’ll give you a free coupon for Allegretto,” one guard said to another.

            Afraid of getting caught, Duckman searched the room for a place to hide. Due to his lightning fast reflexes, he spotted a grate leading to the ceiling ducts within seconds. Duckman jumped up into the duct and secured the grate back in place, just as the two guards entered the room. Slowly, but surely, Duckman crawled through the duct until he came upon another room.

            Just as he was about to jump down, Duckman realized that there were another two guards: one sitting by a computer, the other standing next to the door. Duckman looked intently and saw that one of the guards name was Tomás Torres. He heard them talking to another person; Duckman listened.

            “Don’t worry Mr. Pinochet; the 20,000 people we captured are hidden in Cerro de el Muerto. It’s practically impossible for anyone to find them,” Tomás Torres said.

            “Perfect. Now all we have to do it ready the missile to blow that mountain to smithereens,” responded Pinochet.

            Duckman knew this was his time to shine. He punched through the grate and jumped down into the room.

            “WHAT TH…” Duckman knocked Tomás out cold before he could even finish his sentence. Duckman quickly turned around and round-house kicked the other guard against the wall. He ran to the desk the computer was on and opened the drawers.

            “Every time,” Duckman stated as he pulled out two pieces of rope. He then tied both men to chairs and locked them in separate closets. Duckman rushed over to the computer, typed in multiple numbers and letters, and tried to figure out where Pinochet was hiding. Duckman picked up the two-way radio and started talking to Pinochet.

            “You won’t get away with this act of injustice, Pinochet. I will free those prisoners if it’s the last thing I do.” Duckman could only hear the sound of breathing, when suddenly a voice came from the other side.

            “Go ahead, make my day,” Pinochet responded. Duckman heard a noise coming from under the desk, and decided to see what it was. He flipped the desk over, and to his surprise, Duckman saw Pinochet cowering underneath where the desk once was.

            “It appears that you have found me,” Pinochet sneered. “Little did you know, I am a master in *MAGIC*!” Pinochet threw a cherry bomb at the ground and jumped out the window. Duckman jumped out the window to follow Pinochet, and found himself amongst a large festive crowd.

            “Why don’t you celebrate Fiestas Patrias by dancing the cueca with us?” asked Roberto, a celebrator. Although Duckman would have instinctively accepted the offer to dance, he had other important business to take care of.

            “I’m sorry sir, but I’m looking for a man: a man who is a master of magic,” Duckman said. He looked down at the ground and saw shards of glass and a trail of blood. Instantly Duckman knew it was Pinochet’s, and began to follow it.

            About 20 minutes later, Duckman happened upon a large abandoned warehouse. He heard steps coming from inside, and decided to enter. Duckman opened the door and smelled something. It was the smell of evil. Duckman knew Pinochet was lurking nearby. Suddenly, a light flashed on and off. Duckman slowly walked over and into the room. He reached to his right and turned the lights on. Duckman saw Pinochet holding a gun to a panda’s head.

            “Take one more step and the panda gets it,” Pinochet threatened. Duckman looked behind Pinochet and saw the timer for the missile: only 10 seconds until the launch.

            “Duckman, please don’t let this evil man kill me like you let Vladimir do to my kind 20 years ago,” the panda pleaded. A tear dripped down the side of the panda’s cheek. Suddenly, Duckman flashed back to his first mission and remembered the hundreds of endangered pandas that he let die.

            “There’s always a choice,” Pinochet said. “Either you save the panda, or you save the people.” Duckman jumped in the air, kicked Pinochet against the wall, and grabbed the panda. Just as Duckman was about to leave the room, Pinochet shot him in the leg and died.

            “We have to get out of here! I strapped C4 everywhere!” Duckman yelled. He sprinted toward the door, when his shot leg gave out and he fell to the floor. The panda stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Duckman, lying helplessly on the ground.

            The panda looked at the door, then back at Duckman. He took a few steps and put Duckman man his back. “Thanks for saving me, pal,” the panda said. The panda and Duckman made it out of the building just as it blew up into a big fiery mess.

            Duckman carefully removed the bullet from his leg and wrapped the wound with some cloth he found on the ground. Duckman stoop up, and he and the panda walked over to the building where Duckman first appeared and stepped into the time machine.

            Ten years passed. Duckman was sitting on his couch at home. The phone rang, and Duckman stood up to answer it. It was the panda; he wanted to meet Duckman as a nearby coffee shop. 20 minutes later, Duckman sat down at a booth near the window. “Just a regular, please,” he told the waiter.

            The two talked about life for a while, when the panda brought up the incident back in Chile. “Even though you killed those people to save my life, Duckman, you did a good thing that day.”

            Duckman nodded his head. He took a sip of his coffee, and looked out the window at the sun setting, knowing for a fact that he didn’t actually let 20,000 people die that day. Duckman smiled to himself, not having the heart to tell the panda that his life wasn’t even worth one of their lives.

TPW