by Eirik Gumeny
“What the fuck, sir?” she said, the words soaked in weary exasperation.
“You get your eye back when I get my pancakes.”
“Fine,” huffed the waitress before turning and walking away.
“Fuck, man,” Thor muttered to no one in particular. “Fucking cyborgs. Fucking Oklahoma Treaty. Just because the robots decided they didn’t want you anymore and the humans wouldn’t take you back is no reason to give me shit. Especially about my damn dinner.”
“Wow,” said Catrina, her mouth full of bagel. “Now who’s a racist?”
“I didn’t ... It was a very stressful situation.”
“I’m pretty sure a lack of pancakes doesn’t qualify as a stressful situation.”
“I’m pretty sure it does.”
“You took her damn eye, Thor.”
“I’ll give it back.”
“I certainly hope so.”
Thor held the eye in the palm of his hand. “It’s a lot heavier than it looks.”
“She’s an older model.”
He began bouncing the implant up and down. “Warm, too.”
“It’s probably radioactive or something,” said Catrina, swatting Thor’s hand. “Stop playing with it.”
“It’s just radiation.”
“Radiation equals bad.”
“They wouldn’t let her near food if she was radioactive.” The former Norse god began spinning the eye across the dinged tabletop.
“She’s probably got dampers in her head or something,” replied Catrina, swatting her friend’s hand as he started to spin the implant again. “Seriously, Thor, stop it. You’re gonna break it.”
***
The waitress returned with Thor’s pancakes.
“Your pancakes, sir.”
“And your eye,” said Thor chivalrously. “As promised.”
The waitress took the ophthalmic implant from Thor’s outstretched hand and placed it into her skull.
“Damn it,” she said, blinking furiously. “It’s all smudged.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re a dick.”
“Don’t lie about my pancakes.”
“Fuck you.”
“What time’s your shift over?”
The waitress smacked Thor across the face with the back of her titanium-reinforced hand. Then she stomped off across the diner, fuming to herself.
“Now you’re only getting a ten percent tip!” the onetime Norse god called after her, rubbing his hand along his cheek.
CHAPTER THREE
All the President’s Ass-Kicking
Chester A. Arthur XVII sat on the front steps of his apartment building, cigarette in hand, watching the oncoming zombie horde.
“Braaaaiiiinsss,” said one of the zombies.
“Mrrroarrrgh,” said another.
They shuffled across the parking lot of the complex. Slowly.
Chester A. Arthur XVII, cigarette between his lips, continued to sit on his steps and watch the oncoming zombie horde.
“Guuuuurrrgghhh,” said a zombie.
“Murrrrrrr,” said a different one.
The closest zombie’s arm fell off.
“Buh?”
Three other zombies fell down for entirely unrelated reasons.
Two more turned to the left and lumbered toward a squirrel. Then they fell down, too.
“Moooooooorgh,” said the re-animated corpse of a cow.
“OK,” said the seventeenth clone of assorted residual genetics of the twenty-first President of the United States of America, furrowing his brow. “Screw this.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII stood up slowly and straightened his tattered blazer, cracking his neck slightly as he did so. He flicked the stub of his cigarette to the ground in front of him. Then he picked up his axe.
“Look,” said the cloned president, approaching the approaching horde. “As I’m sure you are all well aware, I am going to dismember you, with extraordinary violence and speed, and then I am going to set you on fire. However, what you may not know is that I am exceptionally tired this evening and I would prefer not to exert myself physically, if at all possible. I think it would be in everyone’s best interests if you were to simply turn around and stumble away, relocating your ungodly marionette show to some other apartment building.”
The horde quickened its pace.
Well, kind of.
“Grrraaaaaaaagghghhghh!” shouted several of the zombies.
“Blllarrgggh,” said a few others.
“Faaaaaakkkkkkk groooooo,” said one particularly contentious zombie, raising the stump of his right arm.
“That was just uncalled for,” said the reconstituted politician.
The zombie in question waggled its stump in reply.
Chester A. Arthur XVII shook his head, then looked at his watch.
“ ... and, go!”
The reconstituted politician charged into the horde, beheading the three closest zombies with a single swing of his axe. He took the legs off four more with the next two slices. The following three arcs connected with a skull, a face, and a jaw, respectively.
It went on like that for another few minutes, until the parking lot was nothing more than an unsightly heap of assorted zombie pieces.
“Moooooorrrk.”
And one very confused undead cow.
***
“New record, lady and gentleman.” Chester A. Arthur XVII walked into the kitchen and leaned against the doorjamb, as smugly as he could muster. “Three minutes and twenty-six seconds.”
“I don’t understand why you can’t just use the flamethrower like a normal person,” said William H. Taft XLII, the king-sized clone of the heaviest American president, sitting at the round wooden table in the center of the room. “I mean, that’s why we bought the damn thing.”
“Because, Billy, my boy,” replied the overly handsome, heavily sideburned clone in the doorway, “that’s simply not a very sporting endeavor.”
“They’re walking corpses, dude.”
“Hell,” added Queen Victoria XXX, the last surviving clone of the last Hanoverian ruler of England, striding in from the living room, “they’re barely even that. They’re like scarecrows made of balsa wood and phlegm. I think they’re beginning to decay more rapidly than they used to.”
“There was a cow out there with them this time,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“A cow? Why the hell was there a cow?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to be eating steak for a week.”
“Dude,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“It’s fine, Billy, I checked it out,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “The animal exhibited no discernible craving for human flesh, nor were there any gaping wounds or missing parts. It hasn’t been dead that long, either. There’s plenty of edible meat on there.”
“We don’t know how to turn a cow into steak.”
“That’s what the internet is for.”
“More importantly, guys,” said Queen Victoria XXX, staring intently into the open refrigerator, “we’re out of beer.”
“I guess you and I are going for a drive then,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII, separating himself from the door jamb and stepping fully into the kitchen.
“Now?” asked the olive-skinned fat man. “What about the whole cow thing you were just talking about?”
“You can’t have a barbeque without beer,” countered Queen Victoria XXX.
“The nearest functioning liquor store is four hours away.”
“Then Charlie and I’ll be back in eight hours,” said the multiracial clone of the British monarch, closing the refrigerator with her hip. “Give you time to carve that heifer up.”
“That’s the spirit,” said the cloned genetics of Chester A. Arthur.
“Come on, guys,” said William H. Taft XLII. “I don’t want to be in charge of the cow.”
“We should probably get more cigarett
es, too,” continued Chester A. Arthur XVII, ignoring his friend.
“No, uh-uh,” replied Queen Victoria XXX, shaking her head. “You said you were going to stop.”
“Well, I was, but –”
“I’m not having this discussion again, Charlie. If you buy cigarettes on this trip, I’m hitting you with the car.”
“Fine, no cigarettes,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII with a sigh.
“Good. Now let’s get going.” Queen Victoria XXX walked back into the living room. “I’ve been sober long enough to remember how much I hate this apartment.”
“Good luck with the butchering, Billy,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, patting him on the shoulder as he crossed the kitchen, following after the raven-haired queen.
“You guys are terrible friends,” the fat man called after them.
“Shotgun!” shouted Queen Victoria XXX from the other room.
“Hall closet,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII, grabbing the car keys from the wall near the refrigerator.
CHAPTER FOUR
Quetzalcoatl Hates Clocks
Quetzalcoatl stared at the clock. The digital representation of the time stared back.
Quetzalcoatl stared even harder at the clock. The time did not blink.
Quetzalcoatl stared as hard as he fucking could at the clock. The clock burst into flames.
Granted, this didn’t stem so much from the staring as it did the clock’s position on top of a lit stove, but Quetzalcoatl didn’t care. He hated that clock.
Quetzalcoatl was not well.
After mathematicians unequivocally proved that all religions everywhere were wrong all the time, sparking a number of riots and small wars and ending the world for the eighteenth time, most deities eventually came around to accepting the demise of religion, be it grudgingly or otherwise. The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, however, just kind of went insane instead. In his defense, it had been hard enough being the winged serpent god of a people that died out five hundred years prior. He didn’t need to be told he didn’t exist on top of it.
This isn’t to say that he didn’t at least try to adapt.
In fact, “can’t argue with science,” was Quetzalcoatl’s first thought upon finding out he was no longer him.
“Well, you can, but then you get murdered by robots in your sleep,” was the second.
“Fucking robots. I bet I can take ‘em,” was the third.
Quetzalcoatl single-handedly fought off six hundred platoons of science-enforcing murder-drones in a stunning battle that wiped out all of Central America and most of Mexico. Land, people, llamas, everything. Still, victory was victory. Quetzalcoatl climbed atop the mountain of broken machinery and attempted to reclaim his godhood, shouting his intentions to the heavens.
Of course, at that point, Quetzalcoatl was half a mile underwater. Lifting one’s head up and shouting from that depth is a pretty good way to drown. Which is precisely what almost happened.
The fallen Aztec god eventually made his way to the surface, his face blue and his lungs saturated with water, motor oil, and llama blood. Grabbing onto a piece of flotsam, Quetzalcoatl floated in the unnamed body of water he had created for days on end, the sun beating down on him while sharks gnashed repeatedly at his hindquarters. By the time he drifted into port beneath the floating city of New New Orleans, he wasn’t really sure what was who or why was where anymore, for no good no way.
Between the lack of oxygen, the loss of blood, and the dementia, the doctors were amazed any of his organs were still functioning. They said it was a miracle he was even alive.
The bartenders said the same thing, only they meant because of all the bourbon.
Quetzalcoatl spent the better part of the next year drinking. By the time he sobered up, he had somehow managed to secure himself a studio apartment, a car, three girlfriends, and a paternity suit. That launched another year-long bender. By the time he came out of that one, he was down to just the apartment.
“And that, my good sir,” he said to the refrigerator, “is why mustard tastes purple.”
Quetzalcoatl – the former feathered serpent god now simply a grey-haired, middle-aged Mexican man, dressed in silky silver pajamas and a fluffy pink bathrobe – bowed to the appliance and exited his residence.
CHAPTER FIVE
Baked Spit and Broken Glass
“I’m just saying,” said Thor, strolling along the brick pavement of the plaza toward the Holiday Inn.
“Saying what?” asked Catrina, strolling along next to him.
“What?”
“You were saying something about saying something?”
“Was I? What was I talking about?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“So what makes you think I would know?”
“Are you OK, Thor?” asked Catrina, knitting her brow.
“No? Maybe? No. I think there might have been something in the pancakes.”
“I wasn’t aware seething hatred had a physical form.”
“I think it has a lot of the same attributes as spit and flecks of broken glass.”
“Shouldn’t you have noticed that?”
“How was I supposed to see baked spit?”
“I meant the glass.”
“Oh. Yeah. It was crunchy.”
“And yet you ate all four pancakes anyway.”
“I thought ... I’m not really sure what I thought.”
“It is utterly amazing that you’ve survived this long on your own.”
“Verily.”
“Well, I’m not carrying you. Think you can make it the hundred feet back to the hotel?”
“As long as it’s not the building that’s on fire behind you.”
Catrina turned around, looking across the brick walkways and empty planters, toward the wall of stores lining the commercial plaza.
“Uh, no,” she answered slowly. “No, that’s the Dunkin Donuts. And it’s not on fire. The guy who works there is waving at us.”
“Is he on fire?”
“No, he is not on fire.”
“Then, yes, I think I can make it back to the hotel.”
***
Thor Odinson staggered across the tiled lobby of the Holiday Inn and collapsed onto the faded green- and brown-striped couch. The plastic plant on the nearby end table wobbled slightly.
“When did we repaint the ceiling with bats?” asked the former thunder god.
“I’m pretty sure eating broken glass doesn’t make you hallucinate,” said Catrina, kneeling on the floor next to him and placing her hand on his forehead. “What the hell is wrong with you, Thor?”
“He was poisoned,” answered Mark, stepping from his office. “He’s got a mix of PCP and battery acid coursing through his veins.”
“Dude,” said Thor, lifting his head slightly, “I told you not to x-ray me without asking. It’s weird, I don’t like it, and, as my boss, I’m pretty sure I signed something saying you’re not allowed to.”
“You think my eye can detect poison? It’s an ocular implant, not magic, jackass,” scoffed Mark, crossing the lobby. “I was a medic in the war. I saw this kind of thing all the time.”
“The Hybrid War?” asked Catrina. “I thought all the cyborgs that fought in that were turned into calculators and belts.”
“Robot War.”
“Which one? There were, like, seven.”
“Oh, right,” said the cybernetic hotel owner. He began counting on his fingers. “The ... fifth.”
“Are you sure? I thought the hybrids sat that one out.”
“They did,” replied Mark, arriving at his employees and sitting on the coffee table. “I was still human then.”
“Oh,” said Catrina sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“You should be. I’m not one of those Mark I cyborgs that volunteered to have their skin grafted onto a robotic skeleton because they were too chicken-shit to keep fighting. I’m a good, old-fashioned human, forcibly joined with an x-ray eye and a pneumatic penis because I was too st
upid to stop fighting.”
“Not the damn penis again ...” said Thor groggily, writhing on the couch.
“What? I’m proud of it, Thor. I can lift a god damned Volkswagen.”
“Great, Mark, now I’m picturing it. And there’s a midget watching you for some reason.”
“That sounds all kinds of unpleasant,” said Catrina.
“It is, Catrina. It is! But I can’t stop! There’re two midgets now and they’re ... they’re dancing!”
“Wow, OK,” she said. “I was actually talking to Mark.”
“It’s not so bad,” said the cyborg with a shrug. “You get used to it. And besides, now I can sex up a vending machine if I get bored.”
“What? Vending ...? Is that why there’s a hole ...” Catrina trailed off. “Oh, god.”
“Yeah ...” said Mark. “Don’t use the vending machine on this floor if you can help it.”
“I don’t really feel so bad about disliking you anymore,” replied the dark-haired young woman.
“I call her Sheila.”
CHAPTER SIX
Bananabilism
“Are we there yet?”
“Does it look like we’re there yet?”
“I honestly can’t tell,” said Queen Victoria XXX, squinting through the windshield. “Between the bleached wasteland and the engorged, white-hot sun, I’m not really sure what I’m looking at anymore. I think I may have gone blind.”
“You’re not blind,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII, never removing his eyes from what passed for a road.
“OK, well, I think I may have become bored. Like, catastrophically.”
“That is a distinct possibility. We’ve been driving for a while. A question, though: Have you tried not being bored?”
“Yes. It didn’t work.”
“Maybe you were doing it wrong.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
