The Edger Collection

by David Beem

  The woman swings her bike at me—I suck in my stomach and leap back. The bicycle’s momentum travels in a wide arc and swoops up. She directs it down at me a second time. I lean left; the tire strikes the ground. The bike bounces up. I leap into the air. My foot connects with her jaw.

  A fist strikes my chest before I land, knocking my wind out. I smash into the pool gate. Incoming follow-up strike—haymaker aimed at my face. My palm guides it to the side; I return a back fist to the head, a kick to the back of the knee, and a jump-spin back kick to the torso, to finish him. Beach Bum gasps for air, writhing on the sidewalk.

  Bruce Lee has me weave my hands in opposite figure eight gestures, and then throw two high kicks in the air for our finale. I thank him, and he retreats into the Collective Unconscious, leaving me the task of rebooting my lungs after that strike to the chest.

  “That’s my best friend!” yells Fabio, hopping up and down and pointing.

  I hunch over and rest, hands on my knees.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” I say between gasping breaths. “It isn’t right. They’re mind controlled.”

  When Fabio makes no reply, I look up. Fabio’s smile is gone. I track his line of sight.

  Stopped traffic. A bus lets out its passengers. Pedestrians glaring at me and Fabio from across the street. They step off the curb, weave between stopped traffic, advancing toward us. Doors are kicked open. People climbing out. A candy store window lifts, and a kid scurries through. He pulls out a slingshot from his pocket.

  “Dude,” says Fabio. “Time for Superman. Let’s go.”

  “Rudeness is a crime, Edge,” mutters the downed bicyclist, now sitting up and rubbing her jaw. “But violence is punishable by death.”

  The mob closes in. Snarling teeth, cross talk—a glass bottle smashes at my feet. Acid panic rising in my chest. Wrapping Fabio in telekinetic energy, we rocket upward, fleeing the scene of the crime, fugitives on this new planet Earth.

  Historic Sayonara, by Herodotus (C. 484—C. 425 BCE)

  It has been said the winner takes it all. Few have said this better than ABBA in 1980, on the album Super Trouper. In 1981, the Swedish band Sex Hos Mig tried to say it better by releasing their single, The Dinner Makes It Crawl. But this just copied the ABBA song and pasted in weird lyrics and, to the surprise of no one, it flopped. Not to be deterred, Sex Hos Mig tried again in 1982 with their single, The Berliner’s Thing is Small. This song also flopped. In 1983, the no-hit wonders were at it again with The Printer Shakes and Stalls, which saw a slight uptick in sales due to the Swedish consumers’ natural penchant for morbid curiosity. But by 1985, the band went all-in and released The Loser Says It All. And indeed, they did say it all. Music critics railed against the song’s “inane lyrics,” which included such phrases as “Yeezy ideation centers,” “dragon energy,” and “hydrogen planes.” As it turns out, The Loser Says It All was ahead of its time. Exactly thirty-two years ahead of its time. The full genius of the song’s lyrics weren’t realized until Kanye West recited them to a bewildered Oval Office press corps for the president of the United States of America, whose raving endorsement, “Wow. That was really something,” might’ve helped lift Sex Hos Mig out of Swedish obscurity in the eighties. But, as they say in show business, that’s show business.

  Where were we?

  Ah, yes. The winner takes it all. For Nostradamus, this means quite simply: the winner takes the world. Synthesizing Edger’s blood to recreate the Zarathustra serum; reclaiming Tron-Tron at long last; deciding the future of humanity; and it means takeout pizza on the way to his secret lair, because nobody cooks after a day like that.

  For Alex, it means a superhero team fracturing on its first mission, Washington pulling the plug, and Caleb’s capture at the hands of a mysterious Nostradamus spy. It also means never getting to see Nigel Willianbottom’s famous-noses-from-history balloons.

  For Edger, “the winner takes it all” is a keen personal loss. It’s his substantial, though futile sacrifices: his academic career, his time in at the Über Dork scrimping and saving, and his faked death. It means regaining a father only to have him killed before his eyes. And it means falling in love, glimpsing the Promised Land through X-ray vision, planning a first date that never happened, and losing his favorite Notre Dame boxers and jersey.

  But for Charles Bonkovich, “the winner takes it all” means dying so his son gets the advantage he needs. It means making good on the twenty-year sacrifice of a lifetime—orphaning his son to win the battle, and then orphaning him again to win the war. Because Charles knows that for Sarah Bonkovich, it means a day yet to come. It means hiding in the shadows, building an alliance, and learning all there is to know about the immortal Nostradamus. It means twenty years of planning for this strange new world, and a long-awaited reunion with her son. For the time of Zarathustra has come.

  CHAPTER Fifty-Eight

  The air is thick and musical in my ears. The blue sky is endless. The curvature of the Earth on the horizon, we make it as far as the Mojave Desert before Fabio has further thoughts worthy of verbalizing.

  “Dude! I need to pee! Let’s land!”

  We land in a dune. Fabio collapses onto his butt and buries his face in his hands.

  “I thought you had to—?”

  “No, dude,” he says, not looking up.

  His posture is more contemplative than upset. His shoulders aren’t shaking. I’m not sure what to say.

  He’s freaked out, Edge, offers Dad.

  I blow my air out and join him. Heat phases through the seat of my pants and radiates down on my neck. Hot, dry air sucks the moisture from my pores. It’s weird being out here in the middle of nowhere. People die doing what we’re doing. We’ve got no supplies, my skin is getting drier by the second, and yet, I’m not afraid. It’d be tempting to claim it’s because I went back to the Golden Dome and “faced my greatest fear,” but that makes it sound more noble than it was. It could be I’m not afraid because the end of the world already happened, and the fear turned out to be greater than the reality. But taking inventory: We’re not going to starve. We won’t die of dehydration. We can fly out. We can go anywhere we want.

  “We can’t go anywhere,” says Fabio, cutting so close to my thoughts, it takes a minute to realize he can’t read them. Sometimes it’s hard having this superpower, battling mind-reading supervillains, and then pivoting back to normal. Insofar as flying to the middle of the Mojave Desert is normal.

  “The whole planet’s been overrun by dicks! Happy World Peace Day,” he says, striking a bitter tone. “I mean… I guess we could go hang out. But, dude? Are they even gonna make video games anymore? How can they make Grand Theft Auto without the rudeness?”

  I frown. How can they make Grand Theft Auto without the rudeness? It doesn’t get much more rude than punching hookers and stealing cars.

  “Are you gonna get sick of me?” he asks, finally lowering his hands and facing me.

  “Never.”

  “But you miss Mary,” he says. “Dude. I want a Mary to miss. Goddammit. When do I get to miss my Mary?”

  “You’ll meet someone,” I say, resting my hand on his shoulder.

  “No. I’m stuck like this. All my life. I look like a baby dwarf! I always thought I’d grow up. I can’t look like a baby dwarf forever. Eventually, this beard will make me look manly. And when that happens… Some beautiful, wonderful, kind, thoughtful, intelligent woman is going to look into my eyes, lovingly, and say… Happy World Peace Day.” He slumps over.

  “No,” I say. “She’s going to say, ‘You’ve got corn in your beard.’”

  He shakes his head, stands, and dusts his butt off. “Dude. You’ve got to fix this.”

  Again, I blow my air out. This is heavy. What do I do?

  Advise him to learn kung fu, says Bruce Lee. Chicks dig kung fu.

  [Tell him small people can fit into tight places,] offers Hanzo. [With the right training, he could be a formidable assassin.]

  Edge
, says Dad. He’s your Samwise. Be his Frodo.

  I stand and squeeze his shoulder. “Fab. I’ve never let you down. I never will. You carried me up Mount Doom. But, buddy, I don’t know where this goes. Yesterday, I was dead. But today I said hi to Gran and Shep.”

  He looks up at me. His gaze is clear and hopeful.

  I swallow. “She’s in there. I know she is.”

  I sit again in the hot sand, pull my knees in, and then cross my arms over the tops and gaze out over the Mojave Desert. Fabio sits next to me and copies my pose, taking care to study every detail, and then he’s peering out over the desert too.

  “You think she remembers how to make her famous apple crisp?” he asks.

  “I was wondering about that.” We exchange a smile. “Seeing her wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for, though, I tell you that. ‘Hey, Gran. I’m alive!’”

  “You’re blocking the TV, kid,” says Fabio, doing his Shep voice before I can do mine.

  A profound silence sets in. There’s no wind, only the desert sun bearing down on us. I’m not sure how to undo what Nostradamus has done. The thought of fighting him and losing scares the crap out of me. Are all those brainwashed people aware of Nostradamus scurrying like a parasite in their heads? What does that feel like? Are they watching their lives play out against their intentions?

  Mary.

  I miss her. I miss seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, even sitting in LA traffic together. I need to know she hasn’t been assimilated into Planet Borg. And if she has…well. A smile rises on my face. It’ll be nice saving her life. A chance to even things out for all those times she’s saved mine. Maybe I’ll finally get to kiss the girl.

  “This sun is baking my brain,” says Fabio.

  “Getting hot, right?” I reply.

  We climb to our feet. Fabio rolls his shoulder and neck to prepare himself, and then assumes his Superman position, raising his knee, one fist to his chest, the other punching skyward. After a second, he hops to the left as he loses his balance.

  “Fab, you’re going to meet your Mary,” I say. “And I’m going to get my Mary back. We’re going to keep going. Because yesterday, Edger was dead. But today, Edger lives.”

  The Two Ninjas

  They are as different as two ninjas can be. The first is lithe and nimble, and while he is not a real ninja, his slight stature is advantageous for skullduggery. If drafting a ninja curriculum vitae, he could say his slender fingers are skilled in picking pockets, locks, and, more often, his nose.

  The second ninja is downright boobish. The best his curriculum vitae could do is word barf about his round belly’s knack for digesting beer, Cheetos, and remote controls. And while he is wearing a black belt with the word NINJA stitched on it in red-and-gold lettering, there’ll be no displays of supernatural reflexes, catlike stealth, or anything like that. To be perfectly honest, only a nearsighted turtle with the IQ of crack cocaine could confuse this beer-disposal unit for a real ninja. Basically, you could slap the most comatose Walmart greeter you can find into a ninja uniform and ask him or her to be a ninja and at least this person would show a little spunk by saying, “Welcome to Walmart.” This ninja has yet to react to the Honda Insight that crashed into his living room way back before God invented the album Cuz I Love You, by Lizzo. We’re talking about a man who, at this precise moment, is interpreting the words “Keep it down, you sentient turd” as “When sneaking, it is best to bang around in the air ducts like you are drunk-playing the timpani for the LA Philharmonic.”

  The bright octagon-shaped vault below our stealthless invaders has no hair-trigger temperature fluctuation detection, two-key entry, or retinal scanners as you’d see in the movies. There is, however, a pressure-detection device on the pedestal at the vault’s center, on top of which is a box of Trojan Extended Pleasure Premium Latex Condoms. Also, since this vault formerly served as headquarters for the Silver Whips of America BDSM Society…there is a diaper bondage swing bolted to the ceiling near the vent.

  The first ninja unscrews the vent cover above the pedestal. He drops a screw, flails, but catches it before it falls into the room. He sighs. His hand strokes his hip in search of a pants pocket and nearly drops the screw again before he remembers his ninja uniform does not have pants pockets. At his side, the aluminum shaft flexes and pops loud enough to be heard two counties over as the second ninja notices the fortuitous diaper swing mounted above the prize, reels it in, and begins stuffing his two chunkers through the leg holes.

  But do not let anyone dismiss these hapless wonders as half-baked. On the contrary. They are as fully baked as a golden baklava placed on the center rack at 350 degrees for forty to forty-five minutes. To wit, these two half-wits put together make one, formidable wit.

  Their names are Wang and Shmuel. They are…the A-Team.

  Mission Unfathomable

  Wang glides into the vault on the glimmering line like a spider. Shmuel gulps, holds his breath, swallows, and scoots his butt over the edge.

  His stomach plummets. His lines snap taut. His teeth clack. He grunts, grasping with both hands for the cables. Gravity squeezes his butt through the diaper, and the bright room bucks and spins. Pain pinches in his neck. Hot flop sweat soaks into his ninja mask. He clenches his gut, but his gut, too weak for prolonged clenching, gives up. Seconds tick past, and the swaying octagon room slows. A crinkling smile crosses his face. He settles into his diaper, pumps his legs, kicks out, and leans back.

  “Da fuck are you doing?” asks Wang, still twisting on the line in his Mission Impossible pose.

  “Swingin’,” Shmuel replies, arcing past. “What’re you doin’?” he asks on the way back.

  “I am clenching my ass, you diaper slut! Now gimme the thing.”

  Shmuel stares at Wang’s outstretched hand. The thing? What thing? Oh. That thing. His God Almighty action figure. The homeless rabbi at the corner of 16th and Newton had blessed it for the mission. Shame to part with it. He never had a blessed God Almighty before, and this one’s got a Hallowed Cloak of Invisibility and Kalashnikov AK-47. But Wang said they needed a counterweight for when they took the condoms off the pedestal or “Indiana Jones things would happen.” But would that be so bad? Not all Indiana Jones things mean Mola Ram and the wrath of Kali. Sometimes you get to grab a statue’s boobs to open a secret passageway. Also, there’s the chilled monkey brains. Eating those would probably get you high, if you made it with a nice marijuana-chipotle-jelly sauce, that is.

  “Dude,” says Wang. “Wake the fuck up and gimme the thing!”

  Shmuel shoves his hand between the diaper swing and his hip, his fingers searching for his secret ninja pocket, also known as the inside of his tighty-whities. His shifting weight twists the swing. He arcs diagonally through the vault. Wang’s eyes widen.

  “Hey-hey-hey!”

  “Incoming!”

  Elbows collide. Wang swings left. Shmuel’s hand pops free of the diaper. God Almighty flies loose, His invisibility cloak and AK-47 separating midair.

  “Nooo!” yells Wang, flailing with outstretched hands for God Almighty.

  Shmuel spins 360 degrees.

  Wang’s cord slackens and snaps tight again, this time inches from the floor. Arms and legs splayed, his shin bumps the pedestal—

  The box of condoms teeters—

  Alarms blare—

  The vault doors begin to lower—

  The condoms tip—

  Tiny holes open in the walls to issue thick yellow gas—

  Shmuel’s cord slackens—

  The hard white-tiled floor slams into his shoulder. Gas seeps into his nose, and a pleasant, light-headed spell washes through him. His head lolls to the side in time to spot Wang tucking the condoms into his pocket. Then the door lumbers open. Through watering eyes, he spots a brown-and-pink pig in a gas mask trot into the room.

  “Wow, dude… This is some good Indiana Jones shit…”

  The pig circles around his feet, drives its head into his stomach, and pus
hes.

  Shmuel lurches toward the door.

  The pig pushes again, and Shmuel scoots farther, his watering eyes rolling up into the back of his head. Darkness takes him.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE LIVING…

  Z-Team

  Edger Bonkovich (Zarathustra, the World’s First Superhero)

  Fabio Jimenez (Edger’s Best Friend)

  Mary Thomas (GSPOT Spy)

  Caleb Montana (Quarterback, Butt Model, HARDON Spy)

  The A-Team/Church of the Ladder Day Dudes

  Wang & Shmuel (Stoners, Cult Leaders)

  Spy Pig (Spy Pig)

  Consuelo & Christine (Cow-Crossed Lovers)

  Johnny Gemini (Thespian, Dak Q. Neutron)

  Ralph (Documentary Filmmaker)

  Danny and Leo (Aggressive Collection Specialists, The Haunted Bush)

  The Rebel Alliance

  Sarah Bonkovich (Mother of Edger)

  Prime Minister Watson & First Lady of Australia (Parents of Mary)

  Anna Penility (Scientist, Geek Culture Enthusiast)

  Clark, Wile E., Bob & Mufasa (Rebel Guardians)

  Bad Guys

  Nostradamus (Full-Time Overlord, Micromanager, Seer of All Things)

  Ed, Ted, etc. (Nostradamus Agents)

  Zombies (Assimilated People of Planet Earth)

  Kate Clarke (Ex-Girlfriend of Edger)

  Blythe Watson (Evil Clone of Mary)

  Yourmajesty Fapa’fapa-Bal’buster (GB Defensive Tackle, Buster of Balls)

  …AND THE DEAD

  Herodotus (Busted Greek Classic, Father of History)

  Dr. Charles Bonkovich (Father of Edger)