You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.

Be careful what you ask for.

I’d just chugged a 2-liter of root beer—Barq’s, the hard stuff—and was on my bed with the sugar jitters when a couple of Crimson Guardsmen busted down the door. They dragged me to a briefing room in a corner of the Terrordrome I’d never seen before.

I was trying to decide if it was OK to open one of the bottled waters on the table when the door opened and Destro and the Baroness strode in.

I jumped to attention.

“At ease,” Destro rumbled. “As far as records are concerned, this meeting never happened.”

“Or this mission,” the Baroness added. I tried to keep my eyes off her skintight uniform. It was hard, but I just focused on her weird glasses.

Then things got strange. They showed me a picture and asked me if I knew the gentleman in it. Of course I did—it was the Commander! I helped build the laser that was going to carve his face on the moon! How could I not know it?

Destro sighed. “Baroness, would you please play the tape?” he asked, staring down at his chest medallion.

She did, and I heard the Commander’s voice. Only instead of laying out a fiendish plan for world domination or sticking it to Joe, he was going on and on about genetic mutation and ancient societies of snakemen. And then, when I thought he’d come to his senses and launched into the good old battle cry, he just yelled “COBRA-LALALALALALALALALA!” for like three minutes.

“Turn it off,” Destro said.

The Baroness switched it off and looked at me. “The Commander’s gone into the jungle out on COBRA Island. He’s headed up the Hama River with an army of fanatics who worship him like a god. They’ll follow his every order, no matter how crazy.”

“Isn’t that pretty much COBRA?” I asked.

“We need you to go up there and put an end to this, Captain Loring,” Destro said. “This is bad for morale and bad for COBRA’s public image. We’re a terrorist organization, and no one’s going to take us seriously with this foolishness going on.”

“You’re going to head up the Hama River by boat. Gather what intelligence you can along the way. When you reach the Commander’s camp, infiltrate it and do what you must to stop this.”

I spent the evening back in my hotel room mulling it over. I’m a hard man, I know it, and I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty on a mission. Put me up against Joe, and I’ll do my duty. I’ve had sword fights with their silent ninja weirdo on the deck of a moving hovercraft.

But this. This wasn’t Joe. They wanted me to go out there after the Commander. The man who built this organization up out of a used car lot! So they say he’s crazy. So what! Aren’t we all a little crazy in this business? One time I wore my underwear backwards three days straight just because I felt like getting silly!

I knew this was just the Barq’s talking. I’ll do it. I’m a COBRA trooper, and we do what we have to. My orders are to report toCOBRA Harbor to link up with a Moray hydrofoil crew who’ll to ferry me up the river. Hydrofoils are pretty common, so we’ll blend in and not attract attention
.

Favorite part: “I knew this was just the Barq’s talking.”

(Source: mcsweeneys.net)