Afro Puffs Are The Antennae Of The Universe

by Zig Zag Claybourne

“Thus, you know way more than I do, such as references to ancient oracles.”

  “Cronkite was considered trustworthy,” said Keita.

  “Why?”

  “He was old and white.”

  “We see where that got us. You seen the captain today?”

  “Not yet.”

  “She doesn’t usually skip breakfast,” said Neon. “And Yvonne usually gets down here before me.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Heifer bishes scheduled a sleep-in day and didn’t tell us.”

  Yvonne, descending the stairs, said, “Good morning to you, too,” as she came into view wearing her favorite Wendy and Lisa tee shirt, raggedy shorts, and crazy hair.

  “OK, so where’s Captain?” said Neon. “By the way, avoid drone dick pics.”

  “The fuck?” said Yvonne, reaching for the mug of coffee Neon nudged her way. “Captain’s been trying to raise interstellar all morning. No word from Smoove.”

  “That’s probably a good thing,” said Neon. “Something was wrong, Smoove or Ramses would’ve sent an asteroid back with a message lasered into it by now, wipe out half of Nevada.”

  “You haven’t gotten any psychic inkling or Force shit from Bubba?” asked Yvonne.

  Neon jiggled the sugar dispenser. “Lemme add some more midichlorians to my Force latte.”

  “You eat way too much sugar,” said Keita, still poring over internet miscellany.

  “Hush,” said Neon.

  Keita frowned at her pad. “A lot of crazy shit happened during the night.”

  “Different from the proverbial days ending in y how?” said Yvonne, eyes closed as her first decent gulp did its thing.

  “A lot of it down in Florida,” said Keita.

  “Again, how?” said Yvonne.

  “Aggregate theory,” said Keita. “Stupid shit tends to group. There’s a lot of stupid shit…but none of it aggregates.”

  “A Golden Ratio of stupid shit?” said Neon. “Hush.”

  Keita gave her a quick bushy-brow raise of hell yeah for the Golden Ratio reference. “I’m serious. I mapped out both a temporal and psychometric correlation between clumps of stupid shit.”

  “When?” said Yvonne.

  “Last week. New shit’s got a new pattern. Chaos-driven but I can see it.”

  Desiree, at this point, flumped down the stairs to the galley.

  “Kept the pot warm for you, Cap’n,” said Neon.

  “Blessings upon your house,” Desiree said blearily. “Why exactly are we talking about stupid shit so early?”

  “Flowerpot noticed something,” said Neon.

  “Well, I noticed it last week. This week, I’ll try to confirm it,” said Keita.

  Desiree’s face disappeared behind a United Federation of Planets mug. The galley went respectfully silent. Then the mug lowered. “Do I need to worry?” said the captain.

  “No,” said Keita.

  “Good.”

  “What do you plan to do with Ralph and Alice?” said Keita.

  “No interest in getting into the private-prison business—the reprehensible fuckers—we let them out when convenient. Neon, that good with you?”

  “I’ma slap the fye out of ’em,” said Neon.

  “Oh, that’s a given,” said the Captain, stacking hot blueberry pancakes from the warming station until her plate had the proper heft. “Still no word from space but I’m sure they’re okay.”

  “Yeah, we discussed that,” said Neon.

  “Next up for us,” said Desiree taking her seat, “head down the coast and fuck shit up till we hit New York.”

  “30 Rock and Drumpf Tower?” said Keita.

  “Eat hearty, mates,” Desiree said and stuffed a forkful of pancake past her teeth. “Yo ho.”

  The Hellbilly didn’t know how or why, but stupid shit—since the moment of his birth (to hear it told, which it was by his daddy)—kept him at its epicenter. His father, a man who’d literally once told somebody to hold his beer so he could climb a tree to take a piss on a campfire, had also told the Hellbilly a week before the funeral resulting from that climb that he—his son—was a mutant owing to his mother’s excessive natal diet of Mountain Dew and cum—and of course Daddy Boyd laughed at that part because see previous; Dad could run off a ready litany of weird, stupid shit that only ever happened when his boy, Middle, was around.

  Middle Boyd.

  “My-Boy,” dad used to call him. A genius of untold comedic talent. Wasted on this Earth, the Hellbilly thought ironically. Same as shit on concrete.

  The Hellbilly sighed deeply. Goddamn Madam Thoom wanted him. The Hellbilly? He wanted sleep till the sun pestered him awake, maybe later get in some fly-fishing. The lady in bed with him had said her name was Lindsay Lohan, but they both knew that was a lie meant to protect both their benefits, not that obvious lies put a damper on all twenty-three positions they’d tried last night. Was it still night? Shrooms, Mountain Dew, and several bottles of whiskey made time immaterial.

  He opened one eye.

  Sunlight warmed the edges of the blackout curtains.

  Fuck.

  “Lindsay.” He nudged her gently. “You wanna stay or go? It’s morning.”

  “Whatimizzzit?”

  He tapped the phone on his nightstand. “Twelve thirty.”

  “Still night,” ersatz Lohan mumbled.

  “Afternoon,” he said.

  “Oh. Stay.”

  “Okay.” He drew the covers away and rolled out. Drawing them back, he remembered his manners and patted her butt through the layers of fabric. “Good sex, by the way.”

  “Always is,” she muttered, and resettled into dreams.

  “Life in Hollywood,” he half-sang, his Arkansas twang sounding like a tired hound in a backyard pickup on a chilly afternoon. He strode to the curtains and opened them just enough for his face to peek out and his willy to get warmed.

  Fly-fishing would have to wait.

  “Hello, California.”

  By tonight, he’d be on a flight to Florida or, as Thoom called it, “The Promised Land.” They’d tried muscling in on Disney’s stranglehold, but the Mouse had a grip more efficient than any mafia. Personally, as secret-headquarters fiefdoms went, he found Florida to be unnecessarily irritating, what with the humidity and retirees with guns.

  Arkansas, though?

  Yeah. Eventually, there’d be the Hellbilly Pavilion.

  Neon’s breach suit, on full camo, electronically disguised every aspect of her, including breath since she was on a rebreather unit. The world looked strange upside-down; she found she didn’t like it. But being provided with an opportunity to say—even to herself—“This is what I trained for” pleased her no end, as she and Yvonne had specifically trained for weeks in harnesses, wirework, and antigrav situations before the moon mission, and Neon Nichelle Temples did not pass up an opportunity to entwine herself with a tasty pun, pop reference, or moment of freaking zen.

  She enjoyed that personal cheese without shame as she dangled inside a Nonrich data shaft, facedown so she could see any unforeseens ASAP. It was a defunct shaft, but only in that it was obsolete and abandoned; waste was Nonrich’s downfall. Sharon had provided Keita with the scan parameters to detect the shaft (“Since we’re here,” she had said, here being a stop in fucking Florida to investigate Keita’s “fuckton” [science] of unusual confluences), a shaft in a long-dusty sugar factory now used by large rats and an unusually cohesive band of rapidly evolving, quasi-manic alligators unknown even to the Jetstreams in its deepest subterranean bowels.

  It wasn’t guarded in any way that mattered. Arrogance, another Nonrich downfall, “Too big to fail” being for amateurs aiming for Forbes lists. The False Prophet Buford had designed Nonrich to be genetic. Omnipresent. Molecular.

  Gene-mapping applied to insidious motherfuckers, too. The Jetstreams and the Agents of Change had been unraveling Nonrich strands for decades; they knew how to take advantage of unrestrained hubris.

  “Four more
meters, please,” Neon said to the auto-winch rather than type it on the wristpad, having already determined there were no listening devices in the shaft. The goal was the shaft’s midpoint. Slap a Mimic patch to the shaft wall, make sure it talked to the tech behind the wall, encode it with instructions, then silently and surely rise cool AF courtesy of that slender black cable.

  She descended, coming to a smooth stop exactly where she wanted to be. Taking the shaft four meters at a time (and she was glad Yvonne’s ass wasn’t here to make jokes at her expense) had been deemed prudent; it gave her time to assess. She assessed that, despite her training, she really didn’t like going down long, dark holes (Shut UP, Yvonne! she told herself, reaching for any stress relief as she keyed in the encoding link from her wristpad). Night-vision filters didn’t help things. She’d seen way too many found-footage paranormal flicks to find comfort in shadowy, pallid green imagery.

  “Chérie, you good?” Keita said, inaudible but for the earpiece in Neon’s ear.

  “For the fourth time, yes. You keeping me company?”

  “I am.”

  “Thank you. Patch is secure and active,” said Neon.

  Desiree cut in. “Still clear topside.”

  Neon closed her eyes, filled her lungs, exhaled with focus, then said, “Good. I’m coming up.” She executed a tight harness somersault, bare inches of clearance at head and heel. No light below. Light above.

  A quick yet quiet ascent.

  Cool AF.

  He hadn’t chosen The Hellbilly. No, that was Daddy too, after the first fight Boyd had had in his young life, a cat-scratch, monkey-thump, raggedy flailing scarecrow of a fight with a boy who kept bugging him in front of the Hellbilly’s own house. The Hellbilly had been a licorice whip of a thing; still was. Scrawny with a big Adam’s apple. No, back that up. The Hellbilly was wiry. Which meant strong coastal winds infringed on his personal cool. Reason nine hundred and twenty-three to hate Florida.

  But these old fucks didn’t seem to have any problems. Again, guns in pockets. Suckers were weighted.

  At least standing there outside this airport, he didn’t have any loose-fitting clothing. Undue flapping would’ve been mortifying beyond belief. Long hair didn’t count. Long hair flapping was cool. His was that mangy dirty blond with unidentifiable dark streaks that would’ve looked good on a rambunctious breed of midsized dog.

  Madam Thoom had indicated some choice places just begging for his brand of chaos theory, just a little something to get people’s attention and let ’em know the Thoom were not a force but the force to be reckoned with. Hellbilly gave zero fucks either way. Madam paid him well and left him alone most of the time. He supposed a trip to Florida was a sliver compared to most crosses. Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and then the sticks.

  He undid the top lace on his sleeveless denim vest to let some slurry in as gusts pounded him. His jean cargo shorts—tailored to look like cut-offs—big-ballooned a second, and he panicked that somebody might have seen that loss of manhood and cool, but all was clear. Airports were the den of no fucks given; he could have farted fire and flashed wings, and people would’ve annoyedly bumped past him to get to whichever waiting car’s exhaust awaited them.

  With the car rental of course being a mile away on the other side of the entire damn airport, he waited under a corrugated awning along with several other travelers trying not to breathe too deeply with every shuttle but the one they needed chugging to a stop near them, loading up, and chugging off.

  He tried not looking at these people unaware of the awesome power amongst them: Black lady with her grandkids; white dudebro who didn’t know he’d flown to Florida to get dumped by the girlfriend he kept haranguing on the phone for not being there to pick him up in this freaking heat; two or three new retirees; college girl with more bags than her body weight and height should have allowed. Studying, no less, while she waited. Comparative mythology. Damn. The Hellbilly was impressed. If he’d been a freshman or sophomore they might have had a life, but the here and now equaled asphyxiation for both under the bright gulf sky. The whole world was just outside the airport. He hoped she’d find a bit of it.

  None of these people would receive the Hellbilly’s power; that was his promise. Except for complaining dudebro. He was annoying as hell.

  The Hellbilly thought negatively of bro’s future. That was all it took. Even though he had no idea of the shape of dude’s impending misfortune, negative vibes were now a burr on dude’s burpee-toned ass.

  “Such was the power of the Hellbilly,” the Hellbilly actually murmured. He glanced to make sure nobody’d heard, but college girl was too deep in thought, old folks too focused on the indignities of traveling for the elderly, and broseph’s fuming had reached maximum brosephus; all he heard was hot blood squirting through his temples.

  Airports sucked.

  By the time the correct shuttle arrived, Boyd’s entire mouth felt like he’d fellated a tailpipe for an hour, even though the wait was less than ten minutes. The uncomfortable, packed ride to the rental station was an exercise in meditation lest he damn the entire human race. Shallow breathing. Stare at the palms. No thoughts, no desires but one: get the fuck away from this airport. Same thought as everybody else.

  The rental clerk, she too in hell, abstained from any attempt at customer service that gave a damn whether it was monitored or recorded.

  He drove off in a 2018 Imposing, hit the hotel for a piss and a shower, then straight to work.

  Hit ’em with some concentrated weird first. Burner phone in hand linked to private Thoom GPS with hits preprogrammed. Loose These colors don’t run tee over the most boring boat shoes and khaki shorts he could find. Hell bile building up in him for maximum efficacy.

  Florida.

  The Hellbilly put on sunglasses, got in the car, and pulled out into traffic going fifteen miles below the speed limit, as it was early afternoon and the old folk were out and about for errands.

  The first Nonrich facility he hit suffered inexplicable and catastrophic data loss. Hellbilly didn’t know this, but he walked with a teeny more pep in his step, which meant heinous fuckery delivered on target.

  Throughout the day, confirmations of fuckery being discovered rolled in on his phone. Fires. Employee walkouts. Secret emails calling for internal takeovers leaked by disgruntled staff who’d been fully gruntled before. A serverful of dick pics blasted to Thoom, Vamphyr, and Mo Kosugi, all with their owners’ identifying coding—because when you’re high enough to store your dick in the cloud, you make sure that sucker’s tagged for posterity.

  Ping ping ping went his phone. He was a driving, walking, smiling fool.

  Heading down one avenue on foot, he noticed a lady with a magnificent frizzy ’fro glancing at her phone as she rotated in a semicircle, chewing her cheek that way that said shit was about to be figured out, while three other women waited on her. They stood right in the middle of the sidewalk. There was no avoiding them. Another wore a similar frown but she didn’t have a phone; she merely stared directly at the Hellbilly.

  “Pardon,” he said, head down to move through them. They parted, he moved on, something in him saying to move a little quicker.

  He strained his hearing, caught something about “anti-fye,” a couple muttered words, then damned if they didn’t follow him.

  8

  All That You Can Be

  “What’s the objective with this guy?” said Yvonne. “I mean, we’re following him like he’s done something.”

  “We have a destination,” said Desiree. “Serendipity seems to think he’s sharing that.”

  “I don’t believe in serendipity,” said Keita, glancing upward from her phone at them.

  “Spooky connections, then,” said Desiree.

  “Totally real,” said Keita, eyes refocused on the readings.

  “Serendipity suggests structure. Structure suggests intent. Intent means we’re running when we could be relaxing. I trust my instincts when something’s really weird,” said Ne
on. “Dude is weird.” Despite letting him get a block ahead of them, he nonetheless walked with that self-conscious gait that said he knew he was being followed.

  “What’re the odds he’s going to the same place we’re going?” said Yvonne.

  “Right now? One to one.” Desiree nodded that he’d stopped in front of the Nonrich Broadcasting System supertower.

  “NBS: nothing but bullshit,” said Neon.

  “Keita, you got him fixed?” said Desiree.

  “I could tell you what color underwear he’s sporting,” said the scientist.

  “The science we need. All right. Let’s get casual. Anybody hungry?”

  “I could eat,” said Neon.

  You couldn’t walk ten feet without being in front of an outdoor bistro. They moved out and picked a table.

  “So,” said Desiree, “Hayseed goes inside, we do check please and have a chat with him.”

  Hayseed went inside.

  Desiree stood.

  “Sonsa bitch, we didn’t even order yet,” said Neon as Desiree nodded her to her feet.

  “Bring your psychic ass on. Yvonne, Keita, hang back.”

  Yvonne gave an acknowledging nod.

  They walked with purpose, their pace direct and steady. If he came out and spotted them, so be it.

  He didn’t immediately come out.

  They waited for him on either side of the giant, marble-framed revolving doors, their backs against the sun-warmed stone as if (one) they owned the building, (two) the guards watching on camera could be summoned to fetch them dos cafes, and (three) the skinny guy would be utterly cooperative. He hadn’t had any discernable equipment on him, and this was the building’s only public entrance and exit.

  Traffic slogged along. Gulls played chicken with way too much confidence at intersections. Commerce in human guise flowed all around, entering and exiting the marvelously baroque architecture of downtown Tampa.

  He’d been in there, all told, ten minutes; he pushed his way out of the controlled-temp air back to the immediate humidity that barebacked Florida’s temperatures.