Humor Commandeers Atom Splitter and Holds Stuy for Ransom

The following is a transcript from February 3, 2022, found in case file B53-29.

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LILITH: Hi, I’m Lilith!

ETHAN: And I’m Ethan, and these are your morning announcements! Today, Stuyvesant’s escalators will be breaking down once again to build up everyone’s physical endurance.

LILITH: Stuyvesant Transformers: Dark of the Moon Fan Club will be having its first meeting today in room 304, and the Stuyvesant Co-Ed Quidditch team will be having tryouts on the roof, hosted by Mr. W. No experience is necessary, but die-hard Harry Potter fans are not welcome, since they are known to bombard Mr. W with questions about the Wizarding World. And now, please rise if you wish to recite th—wait, what are you guys doing? Hey, WAIT—

(Sounds of struggle are heard until someone takes the mic with a loud screech.)

***

IVAN: Hello, my name is Ivan, an editor of the Humor Department. I hope you’ve all heard of us because we are very funny and absolutely nothing else. We would like everyone to know that we have an atom smasher, a.k.a. the Cyclotron, in our hands. If you don’t know what it is, don’t worry. You don’t really need to know. All you need to know is that it can destroy Stuyvesant High School, and we ARE willing to do that.

ETHAN (in the background): You really don’t need to tie us up like that man, it’s not like we have enough energy to escape anyway.

HUMOR HENCHMAN #1: Shut up and stop moving around!

IVAN: In the 1940s, there was a top-secret government program called Project S, where “S” stood for none other than Stuyvesant High School. This program used students to make top-secret nuclear technology, but instead of paying them, kids were given 20 extra credit points on any test and 10 homework passes as long as they didn’t tell anyone about the obvious child labor law violations. Though the government didn’t have much hope, the brilliant Stuy minds, powered by coffee and adrenaline, partially developed a new atomic weapon, known as the “atom smasher.” If used to its maximum potential, it would have had the power to destroy entire countries. However, the war ended too early and the students ended up procrastinating on finishing the atom smasher. It was shelved and moved to the old Stuyvesant building, away from the student body.

IVAN: You may be wondering: how did we find the Cyclotron? Well, funny story. In 2010, the Humor editors accidentally intercepted plans sent to the News department about an atom smasher at Stuyvesant while they were attempting to hack into their e-mail. Instead of writing an article exposing it, they decided to steal the plans for themselves and find it, like the true student journalists they are. And so this had been a Humor editor secret for generations. Only two months ago were we able to find the unfinished atom smasher after years of looking through every nook and cranny of our school in Sub-Basement Level Five. But obviously, we had no idea how to finish it. So we kidnapped a bunch of Stuy Robotics kids to rebuild the atom smasher for us to use against the school. And all of those escalator breakdowns? Those were just us testing the atom smasher to see if it would work for our plot.

IVAN: Anywho, here’s what we want every one of you guys to do. We want 10 pepperoni pizzas delivered to us from Little Italy Pizza by the A/C train station. We would also like 10 iced coffees from Ferry’s (two sugars, two creams each) and five boxes of mochi, the perfect amount of sugar needed for the typical Humor kid. On top of all of that, we demand all Humor members have a 100 GPA, no matter how poorly they actually do in their classes.

HUMOR HENCHMAN #2: Hey! That’s not fair! Everyone doesn’t deserve good grad—

HUMOR HENCHMAN #1: (stabs HUMOR HENCHMAN #2) Traitor!

HUMOR HENCHMAN #2: (screams)

IVAN: Anyway, as I was saying, if you all don’t fulfill our demands in 24 hours, we will…

(a pause, followed by intense whispering to someone in the background)

IVAN (frantic): What? Uh huh… WHAT?! What do you mean it's gone? How can it just disappear? It weighs literally two tons!

(long, awkward silence with intermittent “Think, Ivan, think.”)

IVAN (back to the microphone): Haha, you all just got pranked! (awkward laughter) There’s no real atom smasher, and there are no ransoms… all of this is just how we outdo 2019 Spec Humor’s SoundCloud album! Yep, just a little trolling, that's all. This is totally not me panicking after the Cyclotron just disappeared… Just think of this as a joke, please… Don’t believe what I said before... Please don’t suspend us…

HUMOR HENCHMAN #3 (faintly, in a whisper): Ivan, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think our plans have been foiled.

(door slams open)

???: THAT’S BECAUSE WE HAVE IT NOW!
(scuffle)

MARISSA: Hello, I am Marissa, and this is The Spectator’s Features Department… We have the atom smasher. Here are the terms and conditions you must follow to ensure that we don’t use it against the whole school…