Ashley and Brenda scurry towards the exit door of their high school. It’s been mere seconds since the noon bell rang, and as always Ashley and Brenda lead the parade towards the door with an eagerness in their eyes to exit the building as quickly as possible. The 11th grade girls reach into their purses and pull out their packs of Marlboro Lights 100’s as they approach the door. They each extract a cigarette and dangle it unlit from their lips as they open the doors and continue outside. A few feet down the sidewalk, they feel they’re a comfortable distance from the school to light their cigarettes without catching hell. They pull out their lighters and ignite their cigarettes to life, and their disposition instantly transforms from anxiousness to satisfaction. A look of sweet relief lingers on their faces as they continue walking, en route to their noon lunch destination a couple blocks away.
Once off school grounds, Ashley and Brenda stand at a crosswalk awaiting the presence of their third musketeer-long-time friend Kelsey. Scores of their high school classmates walk pass them as they stand in waiting. Nearly all of the boys observed the beautiful 16-year-old girls as they passed them, most noticing the girls were even more beautiful as they enjoyed the respiratory pleasure that put a gleam in their eyes every time they took a drag off of their beloved cigarettes. Some of the boys glared at Ashley and Brenda for several moments, observing how deeply the leggy blond-haired, blue-eyed, short-skirted Ashley dragged on her cigarette and at the artistic symmetry of the combination nose and mouth exhales coming from the petite and adorable brunette Brenda. Both girls were fully aware they were being watched closely, particularly by their male classmates, and were sure to put on as pleasurably of show as possible for anyone willing to watch. Even with all of the attention, however, it seemed as though a larger number of their classmates than usual were expressing mild disgust as they walked past the smoking beauties.
Finally, a couple minutes later, Kelsey was crossing the sidewalk to meet up with them, her shoulder-length hazel-coloured hair bouncing with each step. Ashley and Brenda smiled upon seeing her, even though they were briefly puzzled by the fact
that Kelsey wasn’t smoking one of the Marlboro Reds she always seems to have in her hand.
“Hey girl,” Ashley said. “You’re dragging your feet today. We only get a half hour to make it back and forth to Jake’s you know.” she added, half jokingly.
The three girls continued walking towards the strip of restaurants and fast-food places down the block, chatting randomly about school and boys. Even as they walked down the final stretch of the second block, Kelsey had still not lit up a cigarette, and began to wave her hand to brush away the smoke drifting towards her from Brenda and Ashley’s cigarettes. After doing this several times, a puzzled Brenda asked “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“You girls really need to quit smoking. It’s really gross, you know?” Kelsey replied.
Brenda and Ashley looked at each other in complete astonishment. This was the same girl who convinced them to sneak down to her parents basement and try smoking when they were only 11 years old. This was the same girl who passionately smoked two packs of Marlboro Reds every day and talked favourably about her smoking habit several times a day. They realised something was amiss.
“You quit smoking?” Brenda asked. “Why?”
Kelsey cringed her nose and shook her head. “Nasty habit. I got sick of smelling like an ashtray all the time.”
Brenda and Ashley’s jaws were hanging wide open listening to their friend’s out-of- character statements. Not knowing what to say, they just continued walking towards Jake’s Pizza, the hangout they go to nearly every day for a quick slice over cigarettes. As they approach the doorway of Jake’s, Kelsey stops in her tracks. Ashley looks over her shoulder and asks “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not really in the mood for Jake’s today. I think I’m gonna go to Bruno’s.” she said, pointing to a burger joint a short distance down the block.
“Bruno’s?” Brenda asks. “I’ve heard of it but I’ve never been there. Why do you wanna go there instead of Jake’s?”
“A lot of our other friends are going there lately. It’s a really cool place. Besides, it’s too smoky in Jake’s,” Kelsey answers before starting to walk away. “Enjoy Jake’s if
that’s where you’re going.” she concludes before picking up the pace en route to Bruno’s.
Ashley and Brenda are stunned as they watch her walk away. They have been friends with Kelsey since elementary school and have never seen her act so strangely. As she disappears out of sight, they turn to walk into Jake’s. A look of surprise emerges on both of their faces when they find the usually bustling pizza shop at half the usual crowd. They scan through the smoky haze and fail to find a single one of their friends there. Something was very wrong here.
“Why don’t we check out this Bruno’s?” Ashley finally mutters to Brenda before the two of them leave Jake’s. As they walk the short distance to Bruno’s, both girls finish their cigarettes and immediately light up a second one. Given that they go two and a half hours without a cigarette in the afternoon, the girls always try to smoke three cigarettes during their half hour lunch break.
A few moments later, Ashley and Brenda approach the entryway to Bruno’s, cigarettes dangling from their lips as they open the door and walk in to find a packed ground huddled into the small burger joint. They immediately saw Kelsey and a bunch of the old friends they hung out with at Jake’s up until the past few weeks. Not a single person in the room was smoking and everybody was staring at them disapprovingly, while sitting there in an almost hypnotic trance. Ashley and Brenda began staring at a large jukebox cranking out tunes behind the crowd and found themselves continuing to stare at it blankly for the next few seconds before Bruno, the owner, came out with a large tray of burgers to feed his customers.
Bruno saw Ashley and Brenda smoking cigarettes in the doorway and immediately walked towards them. “Ladies, there’s no smoking in here!” Bruno exclaimed. “Put the cigarettes out or leave!”
Suddenly, a chorus of the teenage customers began to voice their disgust as well. “Yeah, get those stinky things out of here, you’re giving yourselves and everyone else here cancer!” were a couple of the comments Brenda and Ashley could discern as they found the cigarettes in their own mouths suddenly begin to taste awful. They pull themselves together, turn around and exit the restaurant. Stepping outside, their heads soon clear as they stomp out their cigarettes and look at each other for a couple moments with stunned looks. Finally, Ashley mutters, “Something is very wrong with this place.”
Ashley and Brenda begin to walk back to school, silently trying to understand what’s going on with their friends while dragging on the third cigarettes of their lunch break. About half way back, Brenda put the pieces together and turned to Ashley. “Things got weird the second we walked into Bruno’s and stayed that way until the second we left. There must be something in that jukebox sending out subliminal messages.”
Ashley thinks about it for a moment before responding. “You mean like anti- smoking messages?”
Brenda nods affirmatively. “Think about it. All of our friends have suddenly turned into prudes about smoking since they started going to Bruno’s. That bastard has them hypnotised.”
Ashley mulls it over and begins to realise her friend is probably right. “Brenda, we gotta do something. Should we call the cops?”
“Are you kidding?!” Brenda responds. “The cops will laugh at us. They may even be in on it. You know how much they hassle us about smoking.” Brenda thinks about it for a few seconds later before has her epiphany. “You know what we need to do Ash? We need to get to that jukebox, tonight.”
Ashley looks at Brenda and realises she’s right, and the two press on while blueprinting their plans. They know they’re going to have a busy night.
***
The quiet midnight streets of this small Midwestern town are awaken with the chimes of twelve bells from a nearby church and then revert right back to tranquility, until two shadowy figures begin to move about the sidewalks. The brief illumination of the lampposts reveals the figures to be Brenda and Ashley, dressed in tight black outfits and carrying knapsacks around their shoulders as one would expect to see thieves wearing on their way to a jewel heist. The girls quietly tiptoe to the back of Bruno’s building and find a giant closed dumpster providing them access to the store’s roof. The climb onto the dumpster and then proceed to leap atop the roof of Bruno’s, moving like cats to the vent on the roof leading to the ductwork.
Ashley and Brenda kneel down and lift the vent open, revealing a small and dirty metal duct. They climb in and begin to crawl through the ducts, seeing a hint of
light a few yards ahead. They crawl to the light and discover a vent shaft directly over the jukebox just as they had hoped. They reached into their bags and pulled out screwdrivers, unscrewing the vent and lifting it inside the duct. The girls then begin clamping down a pulley to the end of the duct, and winding a rope around Ashley’s belt. They look at each other with reluctant approval and begin to proceed.
Brenda holds the rope firmly as she lowers Ashley down into the restaurant inch by inch. Ashley looks feverishly around the store as she notices a small sticker on the front door and attempts to read it from behind. Finally, she recognises it to say ‘Protected by Acme Laser-Guided Security System’. Lowered about half way down into the store, Ashley thinks about what she read and suddenly has a revelation.
“Brenda, hold up for a second!” she exclaims in the loudest whisper she can muster. “I think there may be some security system that will detect my movement when I get to the floor.”
Brenda holds Ashley in a suspended position before asking, “What are you gonna do about it?”
Ashley thinks about it for several seconds before it comes to her. She reaches into her knapsack and pulls out her pack of Marlboro Lights and a lighter. She quickly opens up the pack and fires one up. A bewildered and fatigued Brenda asks, “What are you doing!?!”
“Give me a second and you’ll see,” she answers, exhaling a large cloud of smoke downward. She takes another quick but deep drag and exhales that as well. Within seconds, the clouds of smoke begin to reveal the light of a laser beam about three feet below Ashley, surrounding the jukebox in all directions. Ashley looks up to Brenda and informs her of the problem. “Laser trap.”
“Can you work around it?” Brenda asks.
“I think so. Keep lowering me down.” Ashley responds, carefully pulling her body in to avoid the laser beam and keeping the cigarette dangling from her lips to create a continued source of smoke necessary to keep the laser beam exposed. Finally, she reaches the floor and Brenda relaxes from up in the duct. Ashley wastes no time pull out a crowbar from her knapsack and smashing the glass surface of the jukebox. Having exposed the guts of the jukebox, she pries it open and beams her flashlight inside to look for something suspect. Almost immediately, she locates an
unusual looking microphone attachment to the main speaker and pulls it out by the wire. She has no way of knowing for sure if she’s discovered the source of the subliminal messages, but is confident that she has and gives Brenda the thumbs- up. Brenda begins pulling her up with one side of the pulley while Ashley helps her by pushing down on the other side, all with a partly-smoked Marlboro Light still dangling from her lips. Moments later, Ashley reaches the duct and begins to pull herself up into ventilation system, but not before she notices the long grey ash falling from her Marlboro Light. Both girls look helplessly as the ash falls right into the light of the laser beam below, instantly setting off a loud alarm.
Realising their mission is in serious trouble, Ashley and Brenda crawl furiously through the vent back to the aperture on the roof. In moments, they climb onto the roof and race to the back of the store, helping each other leap from the roof to the top of the dumpster and then onto the ground. Thinking they may be out of the woods, they race around the corner to find a dark figure a few feet in front of them. Both girls scream as a male voice warns them to stop and put their hands up. The figure slowly approaches, and the overhead light finally reveals him to be Bruno, pointing an Uzi at the girls while pushing a button on a remote control to turn the alarm in the store off.
“Give me the chip,” he orders, prompting Ashley to reluctantly throw him the microphone chip she removed from the jukebox. “Up until now, the biggest mistake you girls made was to start smoking. I guess what they say it right. Cigarette smoking leads to more dangerous behaviours. I’m afraid this one could prove fatal. Move it!” Bruno orders the terrified girls as he follows them at gunpoint to the store’s front door. He pulls out his key and opens the door, while still holding the Uzi on Ashley and Brenda.
Once inside, Bruno orders Ashley and Brenda to sit on two stools next to a booth. He directs the girls to set the chairs back to back and hand him their knapsacks. He takes the rope from the knapsacks and begins to wrap it around Ashley and Brenda in their chairs, tightly clamping down their arms and bodies and limiting their mobility to virtually nothing. He then uses the other rope to tie their feet to the chairs as well. He sets the knapsacks on the booth only a few feet away. “I have to make a phone call. Don’t you two ladies go anywhere now.” he says mockingly, before letting out an evil and boisterous laugh.
Bruno then proceeds to the front of the store and starts dialling on the telephone. In seconds, he begins conversing with the person he called. Bruno has his back to the girls, but they try to make out the muffled conversation as he speaks and
overhear, “We got a big problem. Two girls just discovered the microchip at our store. We can’t let them alert the authorities or they’ll destroy our whole operation. More than 1,000 jukeboxes have been equipped with the chip at teen hangouts throughout the Midwest. We could virtually eliminate teen smoking in five years if we can make this work.”
Recognising the depth of the conspiracy, Ashley realises she needs to come up with a plan. She looks at the knapsack in front of her and fairly quickly organises her thoughts into an escape plan before whispering over her shoulder to Brenda “I have a plan. I’m gonna get us out of here.”
“How?” Brenda whispers back.
“I’m double jointed remember” Ashley responds, while twisting her right ankle out of its socket and then slipping it out from under the tight rope. She then kicks it hard on the floor to align the ankle with its joint again, biting her lip to avoid screaming from the temporary pain. When the pain subsides, Ashley extends her right leg, lifts the knapsack off of the booth and pulls it towards herself, ultimately plopping the bag onto her lap, looking up nervously to see Bruno was still on the phone with his back to her. She pokes her nose in the bag and finds both her cell phone and her cigarette lighter. She grabs the lighter with her teeth after whispering to Brenda to prepare to catch it. Brenda watches as Ashley releases the lighter and Brenda manages to catch it with her left hand. Meanwhile, Ashley removes her cell phone from her bag with her teeth and proceeds to drop that behind her own bag and catch it. Ashley quickly wraps that handles of the knapsack around her leg and proceeds to lift it back to the booth where it came from. She then gives Brenda the necessary instructions.
“Brenda, I need you to use the lighter to burn the rope. I’m gonna call the cops.” Ashley whispered.
Brenda manoeuvres her tightly bound hands enough to thrust the cigarette lighter and push the flame onto the rope tying them together. Meanwhile, Ashley pushes the volume button on her phone to its lowest position and prepares to call 9-1-1, knowing she is going to have to time this perfectly. Brenda is having success with burning through the rope as both girls listen to Bruno finish his phone conversation. “You’re right. I know what I have to do. Not that it’s gonna bother me to waste two more smokers.” he closes with another evil-sounding laugh.
As Bruno hangs up the phone, Ashley dials 9-1-1 and quickly tucks the telephone into the back pocket of her pants, waiting a couple moments before shouting “Please don’t kill us, Bruno! Please!” loudly enough to get the attention of the dispatcher on the other end of the line.
Bruno turns around and approaches them, not realising anything is amiss. “You give me no choice! You should have just left things alone. You could have kept going to Jake’s and contaminating your lungs with those cancer sticks every day of the week, but no! You had to stick your nose in my business.”
“But you’re using subliminal messages in your jukebox to brainwash kids who visit your restaurant every noon hour!” Ashley shouts, playing largely to the telephone. “That”s illegal and immoral…and you need to be stopped.”
“Don’t you lecture me about immorality, Missy! Not you of all people! You come walking into my store smoking those cigarettes, contaminating my air, giving cancer to me and my customers. Have you no shame?!”
“People have been smoking tobacco for centuries, pal” Brenda chimes in. “It may not be the healthiest thing to do, but it’s not gonna make you keel over dead for simply being around us. You’re lecturing us about killing you with cigarette smoke, but you’re pointing a gun at us and planning to kill us. Doesn’t that strike you as the least bit hypocritical?”
“The messages in these jukeboxes will save hundreds of thousands of lives from being ruined by the portable toxic waste dumps the two of you smoke all hours of the day. Your deaths are a means to an end…collateral damage.” Bruno raises his gun signalling that he’s about to end it for them. The girls hold their breath anticipating the worst before hearing the shrill sound of police sirens in the distance. “What the…” Bruno mutters, distracted by the approaching sirens. “What is this?” he shouts before walking right up to the girls and noticing the shine from the cell phone in Ashley’s back pocket. A look of rage fills Bruno’s face as he points the Uzi directly at Ashley and prepares to pull the trigger.
Ashley instinctively lifts her untied right leg into the air and kicks the gun out of a surprised Bruno’s hands, the gun firing repeated bullets into the store roof before crashing onto the floor. Ashley then uses the same leg to kick Bruno in the crotch. As he stands in temporary paralysis from the pain in his balls, Ashley and Brenda rapidly undo the rope they burned with Ashley’s cigarette lighter and pry their feet loose from the lower rope. The grab their knapsacks and the microchip from the
jukebox on top of the booth and race outside as squad cars begin to surround the place.
An enraged Bruno starts to regain his momentum and lunges for his Uzi on the floor. Only a few feet behind the girls, Bruno sprints out the door shouting, “Nooooooo!!!” as he pointed the Uzis at the girls and begins to fire upon them. The girls dive behind a squad car for cover as a cop fires upon Bruno, hitting him in the leg and knocking him to the ground. Several uniformed police officers surround Bruno. One begins to handcuff him while the others read him his rights.
Ashley and Brenda stand up and watch with a sense of victory as the police bust Bruno. They decided to have a victory cigarette, each pulling out their Marlboro Light packs. Ashley takes out her lighter and attempts to flick it, but quickly realises she ran out of fluid burning the rope in the restaurant. Desperate for nicotine, Ashley and Brenda look ahead near Bruno to find his Uzi on the ground a few feet away from him. As the police continue to read him his rights, the girls walk up to the Uzi with smug grins on their faces, pressing their cigarettes to the barrel of the gun still hot from firing off so many rounds. Their cigarettes are quickly lit and they drag furiously on them, looking at the defeated Bruno with an orgasmic pleasure and indulging the sensation even more with each deep inhale they take from their cigarettes.
Two days later, Bruno sits alone, dejected, in his jail cell, but his mood turns from bad to worse as the jail gate buzzes and his nemeses Brenda and Ashley walk into the visitors area. Trying to salvage whatever good news he can think of, Bruno says, “You may have won this battle, but you’re not gonna be able to stop my jukeboxes from turning an entire generation of young people away from cigarette smoking.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Brenda says smugly. “The police traced the phone call you made to the jukebox company the other night. They brought down the entire operation and are currently destroying every jukebox in the region equipped with your anti-smoking brainwash. It’s all over but the sodomy for all of you.”
A look of total defeat emerges on Bruno’s face.
“Aww, cheer up,” Ashley taunts. “We have a little present for you,” she adds, handing three packs of cigarettes and a lighter in between the bars. “Once you get to prison, you may find these come in handy.”
Bruno reluctantly takes the cigarettes and lighter, but remains speechless. At this point, another buzz sounds and Ashley and Brenda’s friend Kelsey walks in with an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. Further shock emerges on Bruno’s face as he sees how even the progress he thought he had made was so quickly coming undone. Kelsey walks right up to the bars with a look of combined anger and vengefulness on her face. She leans towards Bruno and asks “Got a light?”
Like a slave to his master, Bruno uses the lighter Ashley had handed him to light Kelsey up. “Thanks” she said, exhaling a stream of cigarette smoke straight into his face. Yet another buzz from the jail door produces dozens of girls that used to hang out at Bruno’s restaurant, each smoking cigarettes. They stand directly in front of the cell, taunting Bruno and forcing him to choke on the cigarette smoke they blow at him for many torturous moments.