The End of Everything Forever

by Eirik Gumeny

  “Why is he just standing there?” asked Thor, pointing a thumb at Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “Maybe he’s strategizing or something,” offered Catrina.

  “That’s not his strategizing face,” explained Queen Victoria XXX. “That’s his ‘I can’t believe I’m being taunted by a rodent’ face.”

  “He has a face specifically for that?”

  “Yeah,” replied the queen with a sigh. “There’s also one for particularly contentious cacti. This happens so much more than it should.”

  After a few more moments of arguing with the genetically-modified squirrel, Chester A. Arthur XVII spoke aloud again.

  “OK, there are four of us and only one of the superpowered Aztec god –”

  “That’s his strategizing face,” said Queen Victoria XXX.

  “– so if we spread out and each take a compass direction, we should be able to track him down with a relative amount of ease.”

  “That’s assuming he hasn’t just bailed entirely,” added Queen Victoria XXX.

  A trio of burning prostitutes ran past the group, screaming incoherently.

  “Shouldn’t he be holed up in a castle or something?” asked Thor.

  “I think you’re thinking of Super Mario Bros., Thor,” replied the queen.

  “No,” said Thor, “I’m pretty sure I read something somewhere about how they always made their lairs in castles or something.”

  “They?”

  “You’re thinking of a dragon,” said Catrina.

  “Right,” said the onetime thunder god, failing to see her point.

  “He’s not a dragon, Thor.”

  “Yeah, I know, but, he’s like a dragon.”

  “OK,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, “does anyone who isn’t Thor have a suggestion?”

  There was a loud bang from the next street over – specifically, from a street in a direction that did not appear to have giant robots or marauding philosophers and, in turn, probably should not have been making loud banging noises.

  Chester A. Arthur XVII, Queen Victoria XXX, Thor Odinson, and Catrina Dalisay turned toward the source of the sound simultaneously, just in time to see Quetzalcoatl No-Last-Name-Given fly through the dust of a collapsing hotel and alight on the highest turret of the Excalibur casino. A casino that just happened to be shaped like a castle.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “Not unless Satan decided he was tired of not existing, too,” replied Catrina.

  “That motherfucker just took down an entire building by himself,” said Queen Victoria XXX, shaking her head. “We are so screwed.”

  “Probably,” said Thor, flipping open the cargo hatch on the helicopter. “Let’s go find out.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Olive Branch

  “Gil,” said Phil, approaching the militant crowd of artists and stoners, “what are you doing?”

  “Honestly, I don’t even know anymore, bro,” said Gil, looking at the two-by-four he was carrying.

  “Quetzalcoatl, like, he told us to kill you, man,” added Lil.

  “Well, actually,” clarified Hil, scratching her head with the tire iron she was holding, “he told us that he already killed you and that we were supposed to kill him –” The dreadlocked white chick pointed the tire iron at William H. Taft XLII. “– and his friends.”

  “Or else he’d kill us,” added Jill.

  “It was just bad juju all around, man,” said Gil.

  The deep thinkers and vegetarians and zine publishers and assorted other descriptive nouns standing behind them nodded softly. At least the ones that could hear the conversation, that is. The rest were milling around, staring at their feet or otherwise looking confused and sad. A few had decided to sit down and stare off into space. A few others had been doing that even before the group had stopped walking and were still somewhere near the Bellagio.

  William H. Taft XLII, standing on his toes, was staring down the length of the crowd.

  “Seriously?” he said. “This was your philosopher army?”

  “This was it,” said Phil.

  “I can’t believe you guys actually took over half the country,” said the president in utter disbelief. “I’m not being sarcastic, either. How’d he get you guys out of your parents’ basements?”

  “My mom doesn’t get around so well, man,” said Gil, a downhearted look on his face.

  “She’s got real problems,” said Lil, putting an arm around Gil.

  “We were just trying to do some good,” said Jill.

  “It’s not our fault we picked a dormant Aztec god as our spiritual leader,” added Jack.

  “Actually, it kind of is,” countered William H. Taft XLII, narrowing his eyes.

  “Well, yeah, OK,” said Hil. “But he seemed less evil earlier.”

  “In our defense,” added Phil, “he was a pretty good liar.”

  “All right, well,” said William H. Taft XLII, raising his voice, “if you promise to drop your weapons and not kill me and my friends, I will apologize.”

  The liberal arts majors looked at one another, then, in a smelly wave, the philosopher army began dropping its weapons, clanks and thuds and sighs of relief rippling back to the casino line.

  Also, they did not kill William H. Taft XLII or his friends.

  “OK then,” said the president, on his toes again, watching the disarmament. “I’m sorry. I guess.”

  “It’s all right, man,” said Gil.

  “Yeah, it’s OK, man,” said Lil. “We forgive you.” The woman in the bandana and overalls took a step closer to the president, opening her arms. “C’mon, let’s hug it out.”

  “Do we have to?” said William H. Taft XLII.

  Lil, in reply, hugged him ferociously.

  “See,” she said, squeezing the fat man, “doesn’t that feel good?”

  “You’re high, aren’t you?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  A Tiny, Steaming Load

  Timmy was a squirrel. An atypical, extraordinary, preternaturally intelligent, telepathic, telekinetic, cape-wearing squirrel. Gifted with artificial sentience and a superpowered mind, he swore an oath to make the world a better place.

  The Horsemen – engines of pure destruction born from the folly of mankind – marched down the crumbling avenue of hotels and 24-hour wedding chapels in four rows of three, firing missiles and lasers and large rocks indiscriminately. Flames spouted from their metallic nostrils. Death followed the Horsemen like a fine, dark mist.

  OK, to be fair, Timmy never really swore anything. He just kind of found himself in the hero-ing business and then leaned in. There was certainly no oath. Although he did tell the reconstituted genetics of a former president that he was going to stop the Horsemen single-handedly. And that is a promise that simply cannot be broken.

  Seriously, death followed the Horsemen like a fine, dark mist. Everything behind them was trampled, pulverized, superheated, vaporized, and then reduced to subatomic dust.

  Well, OK, a promise could totally be broken, but that still didn’t mean it was the right thing to do. If nothing else, Timmy was a squirrel of his word.

  Everything in front of the Horsemen, on the other hand, was exploding. Even the air. Individual molecules were screaming in agony, praying in vain for the sweet release of nonexistence.

  But what are words, really ...?

  No. No. He was doing this. Timmy was doing this.

  A cockroach scuttled in front of the Horsemen’s path. The lead Horseman whinnied – an awful, terrible sound – and reared up on its back two legs, before bringing its full weight down on the cockroach.

  Then the other eleven horsemen did the same thing.

  Then they all fired lasers at the insect, not stopping until the pavement beneath what used to be the cockroach was boiling itself away into the ether.

  Timmy was a squirrel. An atypical, extraordinary, preternaturally intelligent, telepathic, telekinetic, cape-wearing squirrel.
>
  And he just dropped a load in the middle of the street.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Boss Fight

  Thor Odinson, Catrina Dalisay, Chester A. Arthur XVII, and Queen Victoria XXX, armed with everything they could find in the Department of Science’s helicopter and more or less determined, marched down a side street flanked by crippled tourist attractions, stepping over the occasional dead gambler or twitching brochure-hawker, and made their way to the sidewalk running in front of the Excalibur.

  Quetzalcoatl saw them standing there and waved from his perch.

  “He seems nice,” said Queen Victoria XXX.

  “What, uh, what do we do now?” asked Catrina confusedly. “Call him out? Throw a rock?”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, shouldering a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The president aimed at the Aztec god and pulled the trigger. The projectile hit Quetzalcoatl squarely in the face and exploded.

  “Aren’t you supposed to add some kind of witty taunt to that?” asked Thor.

  “I thought I did.”

  “Well, all right, but that was kind of lame, you know? I was thinking something more direct, like, ‘knock, knock, bitch.’”

  “That doesn’t really seem like something I would say, though.”

  “I don’t know. I think you could pull it off.”

  “You sure? I’m really more of a speech guy.”

  “Uh, guys,” said Catrina, pointing toward a swooping and pissed off Quetzalcoatl, “shut up and do something.”

  “Fuck,” said the Norseman and the cloned president.

  Quetzalcoatl slammed into the ground with tremendous force, shattering the walkway beneath him. The shockwave knocked the two women to the ground, while it was the reborn god’s whipping tail catching Thor at the knee that spun him face-first into the pavement. Chester A. Arthur XVII, however, managed to remain standing. He raised his RPG, only to remember it was unloaded.

  “Damn it.”

  Quetzalcoatl sprang forward and slammed his fist into the president’s face, breaking his nose and sending him sprawling across the sidewalk. The grenade launcher clattered away in the other direction.

  “Knock, knock, bitches,” said Quetzalcoatl.

  “Oh, come on,” said Thor, picking himself up from the ground. “That was ours! It doesn’t even fit what you’re doing.”

  “I was knocking you guys on your asses, it totally fit.”

  “That’s stretching it, man,” explained Thor, pointing the igniter of his flamethrower at Quetzalcoatl and pulling the trigger. “See, right now, I’m setting you on fire. So what I’m going to do is make some kind of crack about the heat. Or grilling. Something like, ‘I hope you like your gods well done.’ Or maybe, ‘I don’t know where I’m going to find a tortilla big enough for this,’ since you’re Mexican and all. Although that might be a little too racially insensitive, I’m not really sure.”

  “I’m cool with it,” said the Aztec god with a shrug, all the while being doused in flames.

  “Oh, good,” said Thor. “I kind of like that one.”

  “You mind terribly if I tried again?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “OK,” said Quetzalcoatl, still being bathed in a jet of flame. “How about, ‘Tell the electricians I said hi.’”

  “Well, no, see, that’s actually worse. There’re no electricians here, it makes even less sense.”

  Quetzalcoatl pointed toward the convention hall on the far side of the casino’s property, specifically the marquee stating West Coast Construction Workers Conference in tall, bright, easy-to-read letters.

  “Crap,” said Thor, extinguishing the flamethrower. “Nice one.”

  “I thought so.”

  In a single, astoundingly quick motion, Quetzalcoatl slid his way to Thor’s side, grabbed him by the throat, and pushed, sending Thor sailing over the Excalibur’s entranceway and through the window of the neighboring convention hall.

  “So, with that out of the way,” said Quetzalcoatl, slithering back toward Catrina and Queen Victoria XXX, “who wants to get eaten first?”

  “Oh my god, you eat people?” asked Queen Victoria XXX.

  “I don’t want to get eaten,” said Catrina.

  Quetzalcoatl laughed. “I don’t eat people, it’s OK.” He grabbed a chunk of broken cement from the ground before clarifying, “I am going to kill you, though. Probably with this piece of sidewalk. Please don’t be mistaken about that.”

  “Well,” said Catrina, pulling two .44 Magnums from behind her back, “you can certainly try.”

  She unloaded twelve rounds directly into Quetzalcoatl’s face. Quetzalcoatl’s head snapped back. Then it snapped forward. The he blinked a few times.

  “Really? A handgun?”

  “No,” said Queen Victoria XXX, also pulling two .44s from behind her back, “a bunch of handguns.”

  She likewise unloaded twelve rounds directly into Quetzalcoatl’s face. Once again, Quetzalcoatl’s head snapped back, then forward, and then he blinked. The snake-man stretched his jaw slightly.

  “What is wrong with you people?”

  A rocket-propelled grenade exploded in Quetzalcoatl’s face.

  “Clearly not our aim,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.

  “Seriously, fucking stop,” replied the Aztec god. “You guys are not Bruce Willis.”

  Quetzalcoatl’s lip was bleeding slightly. He put his finger on the cut, pulled it away, and then looked at it so he could verify this fact for himself.

  “And now I bit my lip. Great.”

  “If it bleeds,” said Queen Victoria XXX, pulling a sawed-off shotgun from a holster on her thigh, “we can kill it.”

  “No. No, no, no, no. You seriously did not just say that, did you?”

  “I didn’t not say it, jerkface.”

  “You turkeys might as well be juggling Jell-O for all you’ve accomplished,” said Quetzalcoatl, putting down the sidewalk he had been brandishing. “Go ahead, shoot me again.”

  “I’m sorry?” asked Queen Victoria XXX, raising an eyebrow.

  “Shoot me again.”

  “Which one of us?”

  “All of you,” said Quetzalcoatl, “at once.”

  “Seriously?” asked Catrina, trying to reload her handguns.

  “Sure.”

  “Uh, OK,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII with a shrug. “Your funeral.”

  “Yeah,” said Quetzalcoatl, smiling, “I kind of doubt that.”

  Taking a few steps back, the clones and the hotel employee took a few breaths, raised their weapons, and drew a bead on Quetzalcoatl’s face. The snake god continued smiling sweetly at them. A flaming magician ran screaming in between them, fell over, got up, and continued running down the street. Everyone looked at everyone else, shrugged, and then resumed the standoff.

  “On the count of three, ladies,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “One ...”

  “Two ...” added Quetzalcoatl.

  “Three.”

  Catrina Dalisay, Queen Victoria XXX, and Chester A. Arthur XVII fired directly into the Aztec god’s face. The exploding grenade caused them to shield their faces, singing some arm hair and throwing small chunks of shrapnel across the sidewalk in the process.

  Quetzalcoatl, however, never stopped smiling. He didn’t even bother snapping his head back for dramatic effect this time around.

  “Now, as you can quite plainly see,” he said, his sweet, taunting grin becoming sinister and menacing, “I ain’t got time to bleed.” He spread his monstrous wings and raised himself from the ground, hovering over the trio and blocking out the sunlight for the better part of a block.“I think our little play date is over.”

  “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!”

  “OK, which of you said that?” asked Quetzalcoatl, looking from person to person. “You’re dying first.”

  “Who said what?” asked Catrina, furrowing her brow.

  “I told you douchehorses no more action-hero
quipping.”

  “We ... didn’t say anything,” said Queen Victoria XXX slowly.

  “Don’t you –”

  Quetzalcoatl never finished his sentence. Or question. Or whatever it was. Instead, he was punched in the back of the head by a gargantuan robot. A gargantuan robot made up of other robots. More specifically, a gargantuan robot cobbled together from the broken pieces of a dozen defeated Horsemen and maneuvered by a telekinetic squirrel in a cape. Quetzalcoatl was punched in the back of the head, by a robot made of other robots and piloted by a squirrel, with such tremendous force that not only his head, but his shoulders as well, busted through the busted-up pavement and were now located in the packed dirt a handful of feet under the surface of West Reno Avenue.

  “Timmy!” squealed Catrina.

  “Ma’am,” replied the squirrel telepathically, manipulating his giant frankenrobot to tip an invisible hat toward the Filipina woman.

  “You just saved our asses,” said Queen Victoria XXX.

  “Yeah,” said Timmy, turning the head-area of the robot to look at Chester A. Arthur XVII, “funny how that works.”

  “We would have figured it out eventually,” scoffed the president.

  “Sure you would’ve.”

  Before Chester A. Arthur XVII could even glare at the squirrel disapprovingly, Quetzalcoatl removed himself from the ground with great exuberance, spraying soil and gravel and coffee-cup-sized chunks of cement everywhere. He immediately resumed his earlier towering, menacing pose, albeit with significantly more emphasis on the menace this time around.

  “OK, seriously,” said the Aztec god, stretching his neck and back, “fuck all y’all.”

  Quetzalcoatl grabbed Timmy’s robot contraption with his tail, slammed it into the street, then into a pile of rubble that used to be a wall, then into a wall that was still a wall, and then flung Timmy and his machine into the stratosphere.

  “Timmy!” cried Catrina.

  In a single motion, Quetzalcoatl backhanded all three of his remaining assailants as they tried to reload their weapons, simultaneously disarming the attackers and sending the weapons sailing across the street. The snake god darted forward, pinning them all to the ground with his remarkably heavy tail.