"Food!" Sucar screamed, and he pounced on L'Age with wild joy. "At last! Something I can really sink my teeth into!" He lifted L'Age by the shoulders and reared his head back, fangs springing out as he bared her throat—then froze. Puzzlement clouded his features. "How did I used to do this? It's been so long that I can't remember!"
"Just the way you're doing," Roderick prompted. "Bare her throat, then bite!"
"Don't give him any help!" Buzzabeez clapped a horny hand over Roderick's mouth, and Roderick recoiled at the stench. "You can't do it," the devil assured Sucar. "Not without condiments."
"Condiments! Of course! Now I remember!" Sucar dug in his coat pocket and pulled out a saltshaker with a triumphant flourish. "I always carry it with me, for my tomato juice!"
"No!" Buzzabeez screamed. "Don't you dare touch her with that!"
"Why not?" Roderick asked.
"Because… because…" Buzzabeez was trembling. "Why, because it isn't in the script!"
"What is a 'script'?" Auntie Dil asked, frowning.
"Only a prediction," Roderick assured her. "Nothing that can't be changed."
"You can't change it!" Buzzabeez howled. "It is written!"
"But I don't have to follow it. We are the masters of our own actions."
"Heresy!" Buzzabeez screamed.
Deviz yapped up at Roderick.
"What?… He's afraid? Yes, I can see that… That means what? He shouldn't be? Why?… Because if he really had power over us, there wouldn't be any reason for fear? Hm! Good point, that!" Roderick looked up brightly.
Buzzabeez could see his brain working, and shuddered. "I order you not to think! It's immoral! I'll do the thinking around here!"
"No you won't," Roderick said reasonably, "you'll just follow a script." He frowned at the devil. "What makes you so tense, anyway?"
"I don't know." Buzzabeez stood rigid, trembling. "I really don't know."
Roderick pursed his lips. "Could it be you really want Sucar to use that salt?"
"I prefer saltpeter," Buzzabeez corrected. "After all, I'm a devil."
"Don't worry," Roderick assured him, "I'll figure it out."
"That's what I'm afraid of!"
"What? People doing their own thinking?" Roderick nodded. "Makes sense. You never can tell what'll happen then. Makes life totally unpredictable. And I am thinking, now."
Buzzabeez nodded, still trembling. "Becoming pretty willful, too."
"Yes, I am, aren't I?"
"Thou art near to wakening," Auntie Dil advised him.
"Yeah." Roderick frowned. "I just can't remember who I really am."
"Roderick," Buzzabeez said quickly. "Just ordinary old Roderick."
"Close." Roderick nodded. "Close. But maybe just a little too much."
Sucar pressed a hand to his forehead. "Come to think of it… I used to be somebody, too…"
"You still are," Buzzabeez snapped.
"No," Roderick contradicted, "right now, he's who you want him to be. And doing what you want him to do. We all are—just taking your orders, without resisting much. Between you and the script, you've had all of us just meekly accepting your orders."
"Yes! Wonderful way to live, isn't it? So peaceful! So harmonious!"
"For you, maybe. Not for the rest of us."
"But isn't it better this way?" Buzzabeez pleaded.
"NO!" said everybody, all at once—except L'Age, who was frozen, and Petty and McChurch, whose lips weren't free at the moment.
Buzzabeez's face wrinkled with disgust. "What a revolting development!"
"Good idea!" Sucar cried. "Let's have a revolution!"
"Shut up," Buzzabeez snapped.
But Sucar went on. "Myself, I'm beginning to remember that I'm not really me—not Sucar Blutstein, anyway."
"Shut up," Buzzabeez snapped again.
"I was once someone else," Sucar cried, "but somebody did something to me, fed me something, that made me into what I am now!"
"Shut up!" Buzzabeez shouted.
"No, you shut up!" Roderick commanded. "Sucar has the floor."
"Who appointed you chairman?" Buzzabeez snarled.
"I did, myself!"
"And I impeach Buzzabeez!" Sucar cried. "I move that Buzzabeez be deposed!"
Deviz yapped.
"He says, 'I second the motion,'" Roderick explained. "All in favor?"
"Aye!" shouted Auntie Dil, Roderick, and Sucar. Deviz barked.
"The vote is unanimous," Roderick confirmed, "except for L'Age, who's incapacitated, and McChurch and Petty, who're oblivious. The motion passes, and so does Buzzabeez."
"You can't do this!" Buzzabeez shouted.
"We just did, as I remember."
"And I remember something else!" Sucar cried. "I remember that what whoever-it-was fed me, was only supposed to put me to sleep and make me more amenable to suggestion! But it did more—it made me willing to do whatever this deposed dumbkopf dictated!"
"Watch the pejoratives," Buzzabeez snarled, but Auntie Dil cried, "I too," and Roderick said, "Same here."
Deviz yapped and snarled.
"He says, 'The drug that produces those effects is commonly known as the zombie drug,'" Roderick translated.
"I deny it!" Buzzabeez ranted, waving his hands. "I deny everything! I didn't do it! I didn't give orders for it to be done! Nobody told me…"
"That, I believe." Roderick nodded. "You're probably just another poor zombie like the rest of us—but for some reason, you were much more apt to do what the script said."
"But that means he's the one who's acting as the voice of the script!" Sucar cried.
"Aye," Auntie Dil said, frowning. 'T truth, we know not what this 'script' doth say, save what he doth tell us."
"So," Sucar said, with a bright smile, "if we can just wake up Buzzabeez, we won't have to listen to any nonsense about this 'script' anymore!"
"No!" Buzzabeez was beginning to foam at the mouth. "You can't! That'd destroy any semblance of order! It'll shred sensibility! It'll play dice with the universe!"
"But we'll be able to do as we think right," Roderick said.
"See? Rampant chaos!"
"But we'll all wake up, and quit being zombies," Sucar pointed out.
"Anarchy!"
"Grab him!"
They all pounced on Buzzabeez, who realized what was happening just a second too late to dodge. He thrashed about, howling and trying to break free, but Sucar and Roderick wrestled him to the ground, and Auntie Dil sat on his legs while Roderick pinned his arms and Sucar pulled out his saltshaker.
"You can't do this!" Buzzabeez shouted. "It's immoral! It's unethical! It's against all… GACK!"
"Helped that he had his mouth open," Roderick commented.
"I couldn't miss," Sucar agreed.
Buzzabeez swallowed convulsively, and his eyes bulged, staring, his whole body rigid. He began to tremble, and as he shook, he faded away and was gone.
Auntie Dil landed with a thump on her rump, and stared at the empty floor in astonishment. "Forsooth! Wither went he?"
Deviz yapped happily.
"He says, 'Wherever he came from,'" Roderick translated.
"But where is that?" Auntie Dil asked.
"None of us know," Sucar told her. He turned to Roderick. "Do you know where you came from?"
Roderick stared up at the ceiling, frowning, then shook his head. "Not quite. I can almost remember…"
Deviz yapped, barked, and growled.
"He says he does," Roderick explained. "He says, 'I know who I am—I am Notem-Modem 409, a computerized notepad—and I know where I came from. But where did all you zombies come from?'"
Sucar shrugged. "I don't know, to tell the truth."