Work Text:
Dr. Heiter was once again eager to build a human centipede but the amount of new COVID cases was surging. The number of new cases per day surpassed 1 quadrillion. He contemplated the option of connecting each person's ass to mouth via a 6 foot pipe again, but there were now way too many cases to feel safe doing even that. He was at a loss and decided to indulge his sense of humor by reading some articles on Babylon Bee. He eventually came across an article about how people who attend church via Zoom will only go to heaven via Zoom, and that gave him an idea.
“I should build a human centipede via Zoom! That is genius! Why did I not think of that before? It will be the world's first Human Zoomipede!” He began typing up instructions.
“In these uncertain times, our way of doing lives has been upended, and that includes building a human centipede. Since we cannot do it in-person, we have to do it virtually now. Please click on this link to enter a Zoom call, where one person will have to place their laptop webcam in full view of their butthole, a second person will have to place their open mouth in front of the screen while it's showing a live video feed of the first person's butthole and at the same time position a webcam in front of their butthole much like the first person, and the last person will only have to press their open mouth against the video feed of the second person's butthole, and this will have to be maintained all the time or else it isn't quite a virtual human centipede. If you don't follow these instructions exactly, if I ever catch you breaking away from the virtual human centipede, I will cancel you on Twitter.”
Dr. Heiter e-mailed the instructions to 3 random people, who I will call Person 1, Person 2, and Person 3 because I don't feel like giving them names or genders.
Person 1 begrudgingly put their phone camera facing their butthole, person 2 begrudgingly viewed the camera that's viewing person 1's butthole and placed their open mouth on the screen while person 3 begrudgingly placed their open mouth over their phone that's watching person 2's laptop webcam begrudgingly peering into their butthole. It was a begrudging coordinated effort, but they didn't want to be cancelled.
Person 1 went to the fridge and was faced with a dilemma. Eat the cuttlefish or the vanilla paste. Making sure their laptop faced their bare butthole was kinda tricky but Person 1 made it work by holding the laptop behind them. They had to become expert level at dexterity with their feet.
“Vanilla paste!” Person 2 suggested.
“Cuttlefish, you say? Well then cuttlefish it is!” Person 1 ate some cuttlefish.
When Person 1 was pooping, Person 2 was dreading this next step. They did not want to actually scoop a turd from the toilet but maybe Heiter would be fooled if they could make a turd look-a-like and eat that instead. Dr. Heiter looked non-amused.
“What are you waiting for, Person 2? FIND SOME SHIT AND EAT IT!” Heiter demanded. Any plans of circumvention are going to have to wait, person 2 thought. I wish I'd gotten a headstart on that. Person 2 used a butterfly net to scoop a turd from their toilet and ate it. This wasn't quite the same as an in-person centipede but it would have to do. After that Person 2 got to work on making some turd-shaped brownies.
Meanwhile Person 3 was in a similar predicament, awaiting the inevitability that Person 2 would poop out the turd that they ate. Person 3 came better prepared and made some brownies for the occasion. They rolled up the brownies in turd-shapes and waited until Person 2's movement to indulge. When Person 2 finally had their movement, Person 3 bit down on the end of one of their turd brownies, pretending to revolt at its taste. Until they (the people at Silicon Valley, not the pronouns of the Person x's) came up with the technology to allow turds to pass thru phone and laptop screens, this would have to do.
The next day they all had to go to work. Yes, they still had to do their jobs while maintaining their human Zoomipede. Person 2 was a retail worker. Being a retail worker while being in front of your phone on a Zoom call with a laptop glued to your bare butt isn't very fun, and I am definitely not speaking from experience here.
“Person 2, please get off your phone. You're not supposed to be on your phone during work hours,” Person 2's boss said.
“Um, it's an emergency,” Person 2 said.
“And just what kind of emergency requires someone's butt taking up your phone screen, or a laptop to be glued to your bare butt at all times?”
Not seeing any other way out, Person 2 cut the knot. “Um, scuse me, but I think I might have COVID,” they said, and then coughed. This was way easier than telling the truth.
“Oh dear! In that case, please leave immediately!” Person 2 drove back home, making sure to have their phone and laptop in position at all times, which made it kinda hard to drive well. At one point Person 2 almost hit someone's house.
Thankfully Persons 1 and 3 only had a slightly easier time at their jobs since they only had to juggle one hardware each.
“Oh my gosh, I've got some good news!” Dr. Heiter said excitedly. “The COVID vaccines have been approved for emergency use. This is the beginning of the end of this pandemic! Once the pandemic is over, that means we can resume in-person human centipedes!” All 3 Persons gasped in horror. “I know you all are depressed about how much different things are right now but at least virtual human centipedes are better than nothing, right?”
“I'm fine with the virtual centipedes. Really, I am!” Person 1 said. “I like my poo to not be eaten by the person behind me.”
“And I like not having my mouth in front of an actual butthole,” Person 2 chimed in.
“Well too bad,” Dr. Heiter said.
“Guys! We cannot let this pandemic end!” Person 2 said to Persons 1 and 3. “I read that the UPS sorting facility near here is going to be shipping out COVID vaccines. I propose that we break in and steal some vaccines.”
“YES!” Person 3 shouted. “I would especially hate to be the rear end of an actual in-person centipede.”
All 3 Persons drove all the way out to the UPS sorting facility that was aways from where they live and climbed over the barbed wire fences, covering themselves in medieval suits of armor to protect their skin. And yes, they did all this while having their respective hardware devices in front of their two major orifices for the entire time, and yes it was majorly difficult.
Once they snuck inside one of the large buildings that had boxes riding conveyor belt roller coasters, they searched the insides of trucks and some of the conveyor belts for any vaccine shipments. Person 2 indulged their inner child by running atop one of the conveyor belts like a treadmill.
“GET DOWN FROM THERE!” Person 3 whispered harshly. And then just like that their plan immediately fell apart faster than a house of cards on a top fuel dragster.
“Sirs, do you all work here? I need to see your ID's,” an employee demanded.
“Uhhh.... Here?” They all pulled out their state ID's.
“Wrong form of ID. I need to see your work ID or you will be fined for trespassing.”
“God dammit!” One of them swore. They didn't care if this employee would believe them, this was a hail Mary pass worth trying. “You don't understand. I don't wanna be part of an in-person human centipede. Right now we have to be part of a virtual human centipede or else we're gonna get cancelled on Twitter and we need to steal some vaccines in order to prolong the pandemic so that we don't have to be part of an in-person centipede.”
“GET OUT!” The employee yelled, while waving a hex bar at them that he pulled off of one of the carts.
“Well shit. They won't let us steal vaccines or even be on the property without being employed there. Now what are we gonna do? That employee was totally rude. He literally didn't care about the looming threat of us being part of a human centipede!”
Person 1 sported a devilish grin on their face.
“Are you all ready for an epic car chase? Those trucks are going to pull out any minute with all sorts of packages in them, including the coveted COVID vaccines. Remember that scene in 101 Dalmatians when Cruella was chasing the moving truck with the dalmatians inside it? We should all do something like that here with the UPS trucks.”
Person 3 was the most aggressive driver since they were the one with the most at stake. They rammed into the truck as hard as they could.
“What in thunder are you trying to do?” The UPS driver said angrily. “Crazy Kanye West supporter driver.” The road eventually became narrower and passed right next to a huge ditch. Person 3 drove like Cruella if she was drunk. And then Person 3 could hear police sirens wailing. They ignored them. And then Person 3 accidentally veered off the road and into the large ditch. They backed up and then forward repeatedly, building up momentum to escape.
Once Person 3 drove out of the ditch, they drove through a bramble thicket which stripped their car naked. Barely able to glimpse the truck at a distance estimated to be about 3 miles away, Person 3 gunned it so hard the pedal went thru the floor, and the speedometer read 120 mph. Person 3's face looked just like Cruella's nightmare face during the car chase scene in 101 Dalmatians and was just about to T-bone the truck, probably about a centimeter away before conveniently being T-boned by Person 1 and Person 2's cars.
“We were SO CLOSE!” Person 3 slapped Persons 1 and 2. “It's YOUR fault I'm gonna be at the end of a human centipede!”
The UPS truck ultimately succeeded in not getting run off the road, the pandemic was allowed to end, and Heiter resumed in-person human centipedes, so he sewed person 1, 2, and 3 ass to mouth in person. That's what they get for stifling efforts to deliver COVID vaccines to the population. They weren't sure which was worse, being part of a human centipede, or just simply hearing the phrase "in these uncertain times". Also, since it's kinda hard to maintain a virtual human centipede while in the process of being in a car wreck, they also got cancelled on Twitter.