Bad Fan Fiction: Dune
As Paul Atreides waited, nervous, for the Reverend Mother to enter the room, he allowed his mind to drift back to his most basic training in the Bene Gesserit Way, carefully woven into the fabric of his very being over the last decade and a half by his mother, Jessica.
She had taught him well: He only checked his email once an hour, instantly responding, delegating, deleting or archiving each message. He knew how to make his own mayonnaise, and how to make others feel inadequate for being too lazy to create the simplest emulsion of egg and oil. He carried around a little Ziploc bag of silica gel packs in preparation for dropping his cell phone in the toilet, which, of course, he had never done. Paul never used the elliptical machine while happily humming along to Madonna’s “Die Another Day,” instead engaging in vigorously timed Tabata reps on the treadmill without the aid of any musical accompaniment at all, not even watching ESPN on the monitors. Not once had he withdrawn twenty dollars from a bodega ATM, preferring to take larger sums of money from the local branch of his own bank, even if he was already there to buy a Luna bar.
All these things, he feared, would provide little help to him.
A panel slid back from the wall, and a beautiful woman walked in. Not, perhaps, a classically beautiful woman; she appeared to be in her late twenties, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a figure she would have wavered between listing as “slim” and “average” on Match.com. Her right breast appeared to be marginally larger than her left breast, and she had some early sun damage appearing on her face and chest, but she was obviously very attractive and possessed of a piercing, raw intelligence.
“I expected you to be older,” Paul said, hoping his voice did not quaver.
“The Bene Gesserits have been moving towards more of a…yummy mummy…mystique in recent years,” the Reverend Mother replied, in a slightly squeaky, yet imperious tone.
“You’ve come to test me, then?”
“I have.”
“I am ready,” he said, with an assuredness he did not feel.
“I hoped you’d say that,” she said, beginning to step out of her yoga pants.
“How did you become the Reverend Mother?” Paul asked, wildly, hoping to distract her from her plans long enough to gain some information about how to outwit her.
“The usual things,” she said idly, removing her earrings. “Spice addiction, the kind of Pilates that uses the really expensive equipment, Kabbalah.”
“And the spice!” he said. “Tell me of this spice.”
“The natives of Arrakis call it…sriracha. It goes with everything. Eggs, vegetables. Rice. Those who control the spice, control Arrakis. Those who control Arrakis control the Empire.”
“Then I shall control the spice,” he said, bravely.
(…to be continued)