The Gift

***

Not many could get away with the things Liz did. She was a walking natural disaster. She treated everyone around her like cheap, disposable commodities, tossing their lives away as soon as she was done with them, or got bored. But the night of the Emmy's had been a new high, or low, for her destructiveness. She had stomped her way across the freeway, like a Kaiju in high heels, crushing as many cars as she could. After they had the nerve to give the award for best reality show to Kim Kardashian, and not her, she rampaged her way through the Emmy's. 

She brought down the house, rather literally, and the collapsing Emmy building took most of the audience members with it. Liz, always the rap fan, had decided to use her idol, Kanye West, as a dildo. Unfortunately, he was a too small for her, and rather quickly fell out. It was well over a hundred feet from her crotch to the floor, and Kanye had a very hard and very wet fall. Later that night, Liz met up with an actress by the name of Joan and had a drunken night out on the town, causing far more destruction. The national guard made the mistake of firing on them, and after Liz promptly slaughtered the unit, there was public outrage about the army targeting such a beautiful young woman.

But it wasn't the rampages across the town that caught the public's attention. It was the Emmy's. That was where she had crossed a line. All the other times, she had killed everyday, obscure, unimportant people; the kind whose deaths, on their own, might get a few moments on the local news. Their deaths were only considered newsworthy in aggregate. But at the Emmy's, she had killed famous people. Rich people. People who could get a spot on the news for attending a basketball game. People who mattered. 

And so, for the first time in her life, Liz found herself on trial. Liz found herself squeezed into a courthouse that was much too small for her, with a judge and jury members who barely came up past her big toe. She had been granted diplomatic immunity from prosecution, but not from civil suits, and so the families of those killed at the Emmy's disaster tried to sue the princess. They stood to win a (small) portion of the princess' allowance for that week.

The facility lacked proper seating for a person of Liz's stature, and so the princess made due, and the jury quickly found themselves squashed under her behind. The judge, angry at her disregard for human life, made the mistake of yelling at Liz, and ended up crushed under her designer heels. The next judge and jury ended up the same way, as did several after that. Finally, a supreme court judge traveled in for the case. But the supreme court judge was also a giantess, and was understanding of the princess. The judge stated that because of her privileged upbringing, Liz couldn't be expected to know the consequences of her actions. Instead, she declared that Liz would from then on be immune to both criminal and civil charges, and forced the families of the deceased to pay a stipend to Liz for hurt feelings.

Liz took her new found immunity to heart. She decided to embark on a series of escalating rampages that destroyed much of LA. Ted kept track of the body count, or tried to, but it was far more work than one man could be expected to do. By all accounts, it was easily in the hundreds of thousands. She stormed through downtown LA, snapped airliners at the airport, and did the kinds of things that only a spoiled 300-foot tall princess can do.

With more destruction came more infamy, and thus more fame, and thus more money for Liz. In addition, it meant plenty of good footage for her reality show, and her upcoming documentary film, Cloverfield 3. Unfortunately, the movie, as well as the new reality show, have yet to be released. News coverage of Liz's destruction is also lacking, due to Liz destroying many of LA's news reporting agencies, there's little accurate information about the details of these rampages. However, one amateur historian, calling himself, 'uvwxy,' set out to write an account of Liz's quest to increase her body count. The accounts, if sometimes questionable in terms of accuracy, are always entertaining. Bloody good reading, one might say. 

***

"So Ted, what's behind the curtain?"

Ted, stood next to the base of Liz's high heel, which he was dwarfed by. Liz was standing there, wearing her nicest heels and accessories with short cut-offs and a ratty, too-tight T-shirt. The two of them stood in front of a huge red curtain, one that looked fit for some Wagnerian opera. Behind the curtain was something about the size of a two story house, though neither of them could tell what yet. Liz could have looked over the top of the curtain, had she wanted, but she made a point of not doing so. After all, that would ruin the surprise, and Liz loved a good surprise.

"Oh my god, Ted, is it a car? I've always wanted a car that I can fit in. Wait, no, I guess it's not big enough for that. Is it a giant go-cart? That would be pretty cool too, but I guess it's not big enough for that either. Maybe a giant skateboard..."

"Well, I guess it's about time for you to find out." Ted pulled out a small remote control. He pushed a single button, and the curtain fell down, revealing the new invention. "Go ahead, guess what it is."

"It's... a big metal box, with a glass front, with a bunch of Mexicans standing on top of it?"

Indeed, it was in essence a big metal box, about the size of a three story house, with a glass front. It looked a bit like a microwave, but taller and skinnier, and with some kind of metal object in the middle. There were some large glass cylinders on top, which appeared to be some kind of chemical storage tanks. And there were in fact several dozen people standing on top, all of whom looked Hispanic. Men and women, they were dressed in a variety of shabby clothes, and looked tired and confused.

"So what does it do?"

"Liz, I have some great news. Some time ago you came to me with a request for an unusual custom nail polish recipe."

"I don't remember asking for that..."

"You were a bit drunk at the time. Our engineers have been working on a device that will allow you to mass-produce as much of that specialty nail polish as you could possibly want. Now, there were some... difficulties in getting this device made, but it's now finally complete."

"But how does it make nail polish?"

"Watch and see."

Ted pushed another button, and the machine revved up. The chemicals from the storage tanks were injected into the glass cylinder. "First, the buffering agents are added... Then, the red dye..." A trap door on the top of the machine opened up, and the crowd dropped into the huge glass case.

"Okay, so it's a bunch of Mexicans sitting in a bunch of weird goo. I still don't see how this is supposed to give me nail polish."

"Hold on. The machine's still gotta work its magic." The machine started to hum, louder and louder. The crowd inside the machine got on their feet, increasingly worried, some of them trying to escape. "Wait for it..." In a moment, it became clear what the machine really was: a blender. The giant blade started up, and in an instant, limbs were flying around in a whirling tornado of red. A few seconds later, and the blade stopped. There was nothing left but a thick red goo. The goo drained down into an unseen chamber below the glass case. A moment later, there was a 'ding' sound. A robotic arm slowly lowered down a bell jar, about the size of a beer keg, filled with red nail polish. 

"That's all? Isn't that kind of wasteful?"

"That's the best part, Liz. 99% of the human body, as it turns out, is completely unsuitable for nail polish uses. The system drains out all the extra stuff, all the gross brains and guts and stuff, creating the purest, smoothest nail polish possible. And then the extra odds and ends are mulched into fertilizer. So it's eco-friendly!"

"Yeah? That's pretty green, I guess... But isn't it, I don't know, like, wrong, somehow, to use people for nail polish? I just hope there aren't any laws against that."

"That's why I used illegal immigrants, Liz. They're criminals. There's no law against killing criminals. I mean, I assumed they were illegal immigrants, anyway. I found them standing down at the corner by the home depot, holding farm tools. Really, how obviously illegal can you get?"

"Oh Ted, you're such a joker." Liz unscrewed the top of the jar, which revealed an applicator about the size of a broom. To her, it was smaller than a toothpick, yet she carefully picked it up between her fingers and applied the polish. Liz started to paint the nail polish onto the fingernail of her right index finger. After a few dabs, though, it became clear that there was nowhere near enough of the nail polish. After a moment, the bottle of nail polish was empty. Her nails were bare, save a small, crimson dot on her fingernail.

"Oh my god. Ted, I love it! This is. The. Sexiest. Color that I've ever seen! I want to wear this every day! But we'll need to make a lot more of it. How are we going to get enough people to use for all that nail polish?"

"That's the best part! You see, the great state of Arizona has a bit of a Mexica-- I mean, Latino-- I mean, illegal immigrant problem. Their jails are full of Mexica--err, illegal immigrants. Most of them were were pulled by cops in, umm, completely random checks, and were jailed because they didn't have any government ID with them. So I've arranged a little deal with the governor. Basically, we supply the vehicles to take them away, and he lets us drive them off by the van load, no questions asked. Pretty sweet deal, right? And maybe a dozen or so van loads per day doesn't sound like all that much, but you'd be amazed how many of them you can cram into the back of a van. Seriously, that's like their talent, as a people. But at any rate, we'll have plenty of them."

"That's awesome! They'll look great on my nails. Mexicans are the best nail polish! But... I've been thinking, and... I'm not, like, a bad person, am I?"

"What? No Liz, of course not! You're one of the most beautiful, caring people I know!"

"You're sweet, Ted, and you're right, of course I'm a good person. But... I don't know... I was just looking at one of those T-shirts you made me a while back, and... What did it say on it, '300,000 kills and counting?' The stupid thing doesn't really fit anymore, because my stupid tits have gotten bigger, but I was looking at it, and... Well, a while back, Richard Dawkins was on TV, and he said that some of my actions were morally questionable. He got booed from the talk show, but still... And then, I was watching Ratatouille the other day, and I was thinking about the evil critic who wrote those mean reviews, and made everyone sad. Am I being like that critic, going around and hurting people? Ted, tell me honestly. I'm not a jerk, am I?"

"Of course not, Liz. You know what it is? Californian liberals. They hate success. The minute anyone gets successful, they say, 'hey, you, stop being successful! Give up your money! It's everyone's now! Give it all to the poor!' And if you say, 'no, I want to keep my money, instead of giving it to a bunch of minorities,' they call you a jerk. Or say you're three hundred feet tall, and you kill a few hundred thousand people, because you felt like it. Well that's what you get to do when you're three hundred feet tall! Maybe if those little people had worked harder, they wouldn't be so little. They should have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, and become three hundred feet tall too. You're a real American, Liz. You're a job creator. You create tons of jobs. Just look at how many interns we go through in a given week!"

"I know you're right, but... sometimes, it just... feels wrong, somehow. I was thinking about maybe cutting out the killing, and the drinking. I could try and... be nice to people. You know, help them."

"Liz, I know what you're thinking. You want pull an Angelina Jolie. Clean up your image, do a reinvention as some kind of celebrity Mother Theresa, adopt some African kids, become a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador, the whole nine yards... It's a savvy idea, in theory, but the timing's all wrong. You want to do that later on, maybe in your forties, when your career is flagging and you need some extra media exposure. But now, the you don't want to mess up a good thing. Your paradoxically innocent bad girl act is killing right now. You're all over the media, your show's ratings are through the roof... If anything, I'm thinking you should maybe try and go on a bigger rampage..."

"I need a break from rampaging!" Liz stomped her foot hard against the ground, as her heel tore into the pavement and sent a shockwave through the ground. It registered as a 3.2 earthquake on the richter scale. "Let me just try to be a good girl for one day. I'll stop drinking, stop cursing, and I'll even stop killing people. Just for a little while."

Ted, knocked down by the shockwave, staggered back to his feet. "Okay, you've got it. One day. One day. I'm sure this will go great. By the way, I almost forgot to tell you. You got some kind of a gift from your Mom earlier today. She shipped it over by boat, it just arrived at the L.A. harbor. Sounds like it's something big. But I'm afraid you have to go through downtown to get there... It might be hard for you to get all the way down there without hurting anyone, so maybe we should just wait until tomorrow to pick it up..."

"A present! Oh my god, I'm so excited! I can't wait, let's go right now! I'll try and be careful on the way over..."