by Eirik Gumeny
“Not so bold, are we now?” boomed the loudspeaker. “Given the dearth of automobiles being launched in my direction, I can only surmise that the electromagnetic pulse had the intended effects on your tertiary motor cortex.”
Timmy furrowed his brow. He leaned out from behind the hydrant, shaking his tiny head and shrugging at the old man.
“You have lost your powers, rodent.”
The robot fired a rocket toward Timmy. It sailed over the squirrel and exploded fifteen feet behind him.
“I, however,” continued the old man, “have all kinds of newfangled artillery loaded into this mechanical exoskeleton of mine.”
He fired another rocket. Timmy jumped to the side as the fire hydrant detonated in a burst of steam and metal. The squirrel scurried underneath the nearest car.
The nearest car promptly exploded.
Timmy rolled from the fireball and ducked into the doorway of an abandoned storefront.
“I applaud your speed and agility,” said the man in the mechanical suit, bringing his robot closer and smashing an arm into the building, shattering glass and raining down bricks, “but what are you going to do when you use up all of your hiding places, squirrel?”
The squirrel, Timmy decided, was going to run.
CHAPTER THREE
The North Americans with Disabilities Act of 2026
Thor sauntered into the hotel lobby, his powerful yet poorly-defined arms full of wax paper and cold cuts. With his long, scraggly hair, ratty red t-shirt draped over an even rattier grey thermal, and jeans with giant holes for knees, the former God of Thunder looked remarkably like a homeless man who had just looted a deli.
“Here are your damn sandwiches,” he announced. “I hope you all choke.”
“Which one’s mine?” asked Catrina as she approached.
“Armpit,” Thor replied, gesturing with a shoulder.
“You’re carrying my sandwich in your armpit.”
“Technically it’s slightly under it,” he explained. “They didn’t have any bags and you made me get a lot of sandwiches.”
“Why my sandwich?” asked his tiny Filipina co-worker, freeing her turkey sandwich from Thor’s upper arm.
“Luck of the draw?”
“You are so full of crap.”
The elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and Queen Victoria XXX – the thirtieth and only surviving clone of the original, long-dead Queen Victoria, albeit taller, darker, and with shinier, wavier hair – stepped into the lobby. She was dressed for an uneventful day at home: a Kevlar corset; two wide, black pouch-belts crisscrossed over one another; a frayed, grey petticoat over slightly torn leggings; black riding boots; and surprisingly little weaponry.
She began walking toward Thor and Catrina straightaway.
“You better not be keeping my sandwich in your pants again,” ordered the reconstituted royal. “I’m never going to fall for that.”
“Left elbow,” said Thor, flapping slightly.
Catrina huffed loudly, then sank into one of the lobby’s armchairs and began eating.
“Where’s Charlie?” asked Thor, holding out a chicken parmesan sandwich.
“He was out doing ... something,” returned Queen Victoria XXX. “I don’t know.”
“Well, if you see him, tell him he’s got until I finish my sandwich to get his,” said Thor. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve apparently got more deliveries to make.”
Thor walked past the front desk and into Mark’s office. Queen Victoria XXX flopped down into the chair next to Catrina and unwrapped her lunch.
“Huh,” said the reconstituted royal. “He actually got my order right.”
“I know, right?” said Catrina. “I think we’re finally breaking him.”
After the world ended for the twenty-third time, Thor and Chester A. Arthur XVII teamed up to exploit the former Norse god’s newly rediscovered, if limited, powers for fame and profit. While this did occasionally entail the violent quelling of some kind of uprising and a nice government paycheck, the endeavor was mostly a lot of getting kittens out of trees, being the entertainment at children’s birthday parties, and proving heated theological debates.
The fame and profit likewise failed to live up to the duo’s expectations, manifesting almost entirely as infamy and lawsuits. This was in no small part due to the fact that Thor’s solution to a cat up a tree was usually to level the tree with lightning. He also really enjoyed punching theologians. And anyone they were arguing with.
There was a brief moment when it appeared that things might be turning around. William H. Taft XLII – old friend of Charlie’s and newly crowned mayor-king of Las Vegas – hired Thor as the sole bouncer for the city-state and appointed Chester A. Arthur XVII as the security director for the casino syndicate. They were let go in short order, however, as Charlie wasn’t so much looking out for card sharks as he was learning from them. It also didn’t help that Thor slept with one of William H. Taft XLII’s ex-hooker wives.
The former God of Thunder’s notoriety, meanwhile, was spreading through what was left of society faster than lice in a homeless shelter. Other erstwhile immortals were beginning to realize that they too could tell science to go fuck itself and reclaim at least some of their powers. While this should have created a significant increase in the demand for deity-on-deity fisticuffs, it ended up meaning that Thor and Chester A. Arthur XVII spent most of their time drinking and playing cards in the hotel lobby. It was proving nearly impossible to be a profitable god-for-hire when all your god did was toss around lightning and insults.
Jesus, however, was making an absolute killing.
Eventually, Chester A. Arthur XVII returned his attentions to a variety of other money-making schemes – among them his ongoing zombie rental business and a newly incorporated “no questions asked” courier service – while Thor began to brood and resent humanity on a level unseen since he first began working at the Secaucus Holiday Inn.
Thor exited Mark’s office and trudged across the lobby to the elevator, mumbling softly the entire time. By the time the doors closed, he appeared to be having an entire conversation with himself, complete with hand gestures.
“Or maybe we just broke him,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“As long as he keeps getting us sandwiches,” responded Catrina, her mouth full of turkey, “I’m counting it as a win.”
***
Thor was sitting on the floor, between the armchairs of Queen Victoria XXX and Catrina, when Chester A. Arthur XVII – the well-built, square-jawed, impressively sideburned, roguishly crooked-nosed clone of the twenty-first president of the United States of America – walked into the hotel lobby, arm-in-arm with a pretty blonde woman wearing sunglasses. They were both covered head-to-toe in mud and what appeared to be various parts of various frogs.
“Yo, Charlie,” said Thor, lifting a wrapped chicken parmesan sandwich above his head. “Sandwi–”
“Who the hell is that?” asked Queen Victoria XXX, emphatically setting down her eggplant and mozzarella panini.
“This is Heather,” began Chester A. Arthur XVII, guiding the girl toward his friends. “I found her on the other side of the plaza, lost in the swamp behind that abandoned supermarket all those itinerant theater actors live in.”
“He saved me from a pack of undead frogs,” said Heather, smiling and squeezing Chester’s arm.
“We have zombie frogs now?” asked Thor.
“What is she doing here?” asked Queen Victoria XXX, standing suddenly.
“I figured she could stay here,” Chester A. Arthur XVII answered with a shrug. “I didn’t see why she couldn’t grab a shower and spend a couple nights in one of the beds. We’ve got enough. Have you seen what those English majors have done to the swamp? It’s disgus–”
“Whose bed?”
“What?”
“Whose bed? Yours?”
“No. I’m not going to sleep with her.”
“What?! Why the hell not?” cried Heather. �
��Is it because I’m blind? ‘cause if it is and you don’t sleep with me, it’s discrimination.”
“I don’t think that’s how discrimination works.”
“I’m pretty sure it is.”
Queen Victoria XXX growled slightly.
“Yeah, whatever, lady. You’re seriously mad at me for trying to hit this?” posited the vision-impaired girl, sliding her hand down the arm of Chester A. Arthur XVII and then over to and up his thigh. She dropped her voice. “I am going to do so many, many things to this body.”
“You are aware that we are all, like, right here, right?” asked Catrina, her mouth again full of turkey.
“Like you haven’t thought that yourself. I mean, Jesus, have you felt these biceps? Guys like this are in sho–” Heather didn’t finish, however, as Queen Victoria XXX stormed over and punched her in the face. The blind girl dropped to the floor like a sack of wet steaks.
“Vicky?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII, raising an eyebrow.
“She wasn’t good enough,” Queen Victoria XXX stated flatly, before tilting her head and looking at the unconscious girl. “I mean, she can’t even take a punch. She was bringing the whole team down.”
“She was blind, Vicky.”
“Then I guess my point was already proven,” said Queen Victoria XXX with a shrug. “You know our rules, Charlie. I was simply expressing my veto in the form of a right cross.”
“I honestly had no intention of sleeping with her.”
“You say that now.”
“No, I’m serious, Vicky, I –”
“You know, I’ve been punched by Vicky,” said Thor. “That girl might be dead.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII tapped her with his foot. The blind woman didn’t move.
“That’s ... that’s actually a very real possibility.”
“I’ll go get Mark,” Catrina said with a sigh.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Tiny Shampoo Should Last Him a Month
A squirrel in a cape ran into the lobby of the Secaucus Holiday Inn, his claws clacking against the tiled floor.
“Timmy!” squealed Catrina from behind the front desk.
“Where’s Thor?” the squirrel asked telepathically. Then he spotted the unconscious girl in the middle of the floor. “Am I ignoring this? Or do you need help burying her?”
“Mark said she was fine,” replied Catrina, with a half-hearted wave of her hand. “Just needs to sleep it off.”
“OK, sure,” said the squirrel, shrugging his tiny furry shoulders. “Is Thor around? I need his help.”
“Thor’s help?”
“Yes.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“You sure you don’t mean Charlie?”
“I’m sure,” replied Timmy. “There is a very large and very dangerous robot robbing a bank.”
“Charlie could probably handle that.”
“Yeah, no. This thing’s got rockets and purple lightning and shit.”
“Hold on,” said Catrina. “It’s robbing a bank? Nobody’s bothered to rob a bank in years. Physical money’s useful in, like, three states. And this isn’t one of them.”
“If you say so,” responded the squirrel. “But that’s what it’s doing. It’s also murdering people.”
“Oh, well, yeah, that’s a problem,” she said, nodding solemnly. “Shouldn’t you have been able to just, y’know, stop him yourself?”
“He hit me with a wall of electromagnetic energy or something, I didn’t really understand what he was saying. It reversed whatever the scientists did to me and took away my telekinesis.”
“But you can still talk with your brain?”
“Yes.”
“How does that work?”
“I don’t know, Catrina.”
“How did you even find us?”
“I got a whiff of your thoughts while I was fleeing from the killer robot. I can’t seem to find Thor, though. He is here, right? Maybe being a god messes with his brain waves.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s it,” replied the hotel clerk. “When did you come back down from space? We figured you were dead.”
“Where’s Thor, Catrina?”
Catrina glowered at the squirrel. “It was nice seeing you again, too,” she pouted, picking up the phone.
***
“And it’s robbing a bank?” asked Thor, kneeling beside the cape-wearing squirrel.
“Yes,” replied Timmy.
“Couldn’t you have just, y’know, stopped him yourself?”
“No, damn it. The crazy-ass black electricity took away my telekinesis.”
“But you can still talk to us?”
“You people are dense.”
“Where’s the old man in the robot, Timmy?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII, showered, wearing a freshly-ironed bullet-proof vest, and likewise kneeling next to the cape-wearing squirrel.
“About an hour west of here. But I’ve got very tiny legs and I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going. It might not be that far.”
“All right. I doubt it’ll be too hard to find a giant rampaging mechanical man.”
“Unless the Ultimate Robot Kickboxing League is holding another tournament at the stadium,” added Catrina, also kneeling near the cape-wearing squirrel.
“Oh, right,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Are they?”
“Not for another couple months,” said Thor. “I already got us tickets.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Two hundred. You can add it to what you still owe me for that thing.”
“Oh, right, when we ...”
“Yeah, and then the walrus ...”
“That was one difficult buffet.”
“Verily.”
“Guys,” scolded the super-squirrel.
“Right, right, killer robot. We’re on it,” said Thor.
“We should probably get Vicky,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, standing and pulling his mobile phone from the pocket of his jeans. “She gets mad if there’s an opportunity to use violence in a productive way and she’s not invited.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII and Thor began walking toward the hotel doors. Timmy scurried up onto the arm of the unconscious girl still sprawled sideways on the lobby floor.
“Have fun,” said Timmy, waving a tiny paw. “Try not to die.”
“You’re not coming?” asked Thor.
“Fuck no,” said Timmy. “Last time I helped you guys I was hurled into outer space. Took me over a year to figure out how to get back and then, almost immediately, I was electrocuted by a crazy old man in a robot and lost my powers.
“I’m tired, I’m cranky, and, quite frankly, I’m no good in a fight anymore. I’ve got a family I’ve got to find and apologize to, and, I mean, I’m almost four. I’m getting too old for this shit. So, no. I’m not going with you. The only place I’m going is upstairs to take a nap.”
“But, the cape ...” began Catrina.
“It’s time to hang it up.”
“Will – will we ever see you again?” she sniffled.
“Well, yeah,” said the squirrel. “I’m going upstairs. To take a nap. And then I’ll probably use your internet, maybe get something to eat ...”
“Oh, right, yeah,” said Catrina, running her hand under her nose. “Let me get you a room.”
CHAPTER FIVE
It’s Complicated
“I can’t believe you brought her back to the hotel,” muttered Queen Victoria XXX, sitting with arms crossed in the passenger seat of Chester A. Arthur XVII’s armor-plated, radiation-resistant Volkswagen Beetle. “You do realize that when you do something stupid I look stupid as a result, right?”
“What are you talking about?” returned Chester A. Arthur XVII, driving his armor-plated, radiation-resistant Volkswagen Beetle along the broken highway. “I wasn’t –”
“Wasn’t my ass. I know exactly how that was going to play out.”
“I don’t get up in your business every time you bring
home some new underwear model,” countered Chester A. Arthur XVII. “An underwear model? That’s the profession he chose? That’s basically admitting you have no actual qualifications to offer the world.”
“There was only one underwear model and he was smoking hot. Plus he knew how to cook!”
“He tried to boil water and detonated the kitchen instead.”
“That wasn’t his fault.”
“Because lighting six matches in a room filling with strongly-scented gas is an accident.”
“It could’ve happened to –”
“He was making toast.”
“Do you want me to bring up that forty-year-old ‘freelance stripper?’ ‘cause there was a winner.”
“Now you’re just being mean.”
“You’ve never been able to say no to a pretty girl in your life, Charlie.”
After the world ended for the twenty-third time – but before the populace of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America, and Mexico voted to abolish government forever – relationships were, quite literally, a competition.
Through means no one was proud of, a team of reality show producers took control of the North American government after the previous administration just up and exploded. The Reality Regime, as they branded themselves, amended the various constitutions and legally-significant cereal boxes of the land to reflect a new method of electing a leader: the office of the president would be determined by a nationally televised sex-off. Whoever could bed the most members of any sex of their choosing would be the new, undisputed leader of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America, and Mexico.
Within days, cameras, and people, were mounted, in every room and on every corner, and the race began.
Chester A. Arthur XVII, harboring some political, and considerably more personal, ambition, and not opposed to nailing a bevy of beautiful women, entered the presidential race with significant gusto. Queen Victoria XXX – close, personal friend with benefits of Charlie’s – wasn’t about to let him have the legally-obligated upper hand in their relationship and cowgirled her way through an increasingly questionable assortment of gentlemen and ladyfolk.
