by Eirik Gumeny
The clone of the eighth president turned toward that of the twenty-first with his brow knit. Chester A. Arthur XVII shrugged in reply.
“I don’t even have my own clothes right now,” he said, lightly lifting his leather jacket from his abdomen. “You didn’t exactly catch us at our best moment.”
Martin Van Buren XCIX stood there, staring at them, a look of bemusement on his face. After a minute he said, “Billy always goes on and on about how good you guys are at this stuff.”
“We are,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII indignantly.
“Just not always on purpose,” added Queen Victoria XXX.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Blood, Sweat, and Tears
William H. Taft XLII rushed into the primary control room, a left-handed spork-head screwdriver in his outstretched hand. Dr. Lee Arahami and Bio-Evocative Technologist X1211MR, sitting on the floor in a tangle of wires, turned from the diagnostic program running on the roboticist’s tablet to look at the president. Queen Victoria XXX, sitting in a chair nearby, glanced up from the ten-year-old copy of Wired she had found in the bathroom.
“We got the screwdriver,” gasped the fat man, promptly doubling over and placing his hands on his knees.
The cloned president had been followed into the room by Boudica IX, the Celtic queen smiling and wearing a lion fur as a cloak. She also had the top half of a lion’s skull on her head.
“They made me their queen,” she said giddily.
The scientists and the other cloned queen looked at Boudica IX with concern in their eyebrows.
“We’ll explain later,” huffed William H. Taft XLII, finally almost catching his breath. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Charlie and Marty are installing the trivection cooling unit,” answered Bex. “Tanner and Thor are out replacing the substation macro-transformers damaged by the old ladies wearing the giant sloths.”
The reconstituted politician looked at the robot scientist with his eyebrow raised.
“We’ll explain later,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“The screwdriver, Billy?” said Bex, holding out her hand. “We’ve still got work to do on the regulators.”
“Do you want me to give you a hand with that?” asked Dr. Arahami.
“I’m sure I can handle it by myself.”
“Well, yeah, but ...”
“But?”
“I came all this way ...”
The HEART inside the lady robot analyzed the scientist’s tone of voice, performed several thousand analyses, and then dinged, all in the span of a microsecond.
“OK, fine,” she said, standing and brushing off wire. “You can help.”
Bex sashayed out the rear door of the primary control room, onto the electrical grid. Dr. Arahami, after a moment, unplugged his tablet with unprecedented gusto and raced after the technologist.
“I don’t get why everyone’s in such a rush to get this done,” mumbled Queen Victoria XXX, turning back to her magazine.
“Well, let’s see ...” said William H. Taft XLII with considerably serrated sarcasm. “Communications are still down, food is going bad left and right, businesses are failing, most of the dinosaurs broke out of Cretaceous Park, poor people are looting, rich people are devolving into darkness-fearing asshats, and there’s no Two and a Half Men repeats to placate the dumb ones and keep them from procreating.
“Seriously, Vicky,” he continued, “every second the blackout continues, Las Vegas – hell, everyone everywhere – moves one step closer to scratching off their own skin like a detoxing meth addict dropped in a vat of chile peppers. I didn’t see it until recently, but a lot of those people out there, the ones who aren’t us, the ones who weren’t genetically bred to fix this, the ones who’ve put up with this shit for decades, they are fucked up and it takes every nicety and distraction ever invented to just barely keep them civil.”
“Oh, right, yeah,” said the queen, nodding complacently. “Other people. That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
“You ever miss just goofing off with us?”
“Not really, no,” said the mayor-king of Las Vegas. “When you and Charlie weren’t fucking on the couch I wanted to watch TV on, you were making fun of me.”
“We did do that a lot, didn’t we?”
“You guys are kind of buttholes sometimes,” said Boudica IX.
“I don’t think buttholes is the word you’re looking for.”
“No, she means buttholes,” replied William H. Taft XLII.
***
Some time later, Thor Odinson and Tanner the silverback gorilla returned to the primary control room, drenched in sweat and covered in grease. The scientists were sitting in the only two chairs in the room making idle chit chat, while Chester A. Arthur XVII and Martin Van Buren XCIX were slumped in the corner and still covered in perspiration, having just returned themselves. Queen Victoria XXX and William H. Taft XLII were standing nearby, looking bored and anxious, respectively.
Boudica IX, meanwhile, was curled up in her lion fur, sleeping a few feet outside the control room door. She had farted and was forcefully removed from the room after everyone regained consciousness.
The thunder god walked over to where Dr. Arahami was sitting, picked up the scientist, placed him on the ground, and then slumped into his chair with such tremendous exhaustion that the floor shook slightly. The gorilla did the same, only she moved Bex.
Leaning his head back against the top of the chair, Thor exhaled deeply. Then he said, “Well, that’s done.”
“That part of it, yes,” agreed Dr. Arahami.
“What do you mean, ‘that part of it?’” Thor leaned forward in the chair.
“We still have to restart the perpetual motion engine,” explained Chester A. Arthur XVII from the corner. “And by we, I mean you. It’s going to require an inordinate amount of electrical energy. Enough to kill the rest of us if we even get within a few miles.”
“I have to go back out there?” whined Thor, pointing a thumb toward the door. “You do remember this thing is a giant fucking state, right? We were out there for, like, days.”
“The engine isn’t that far,” said Martin Van Buren XCIX. “Comparatively.”
“Comparatively to what?”
“It’s not like you have to walk it,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“There’s a Segway in the closet,” continued William H. Taft XLII.
“A fucking scooter?” muttered Thor.
“The sooner you do it, the sooner we can all leave,” added Dr. Arahami.
“This is bullshit.”
Slowly, begrudgingly, exhaustedly, the thunder god peeled himself from the chair and shuffled to the closet. He pulled the Segway free and held it in his hands.
“Is this because of what I did to your truck?” Thor asked the roboticist. “We can totally get that stain out.”
The roboticist walked over to the Segway and started pushing buttons on the mounted directional pad.
“There,” he said, after a moment. “It’s programmed to take you there automatically. All you have to do is stand on it.”
“Staaaand?” whined the thunder god.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
One Baby Aspirin and He’ll Be Out for Days
After dismantling the generator for the WANG Electric corporate campus, as well as much of the WANG Electric campus itself, Mark Hughes and Timmy the super-squirrel were forced to flee with great abandon. Neither of them had counted on the company having a fleet of battery-operated drones at its disposal, nor did they expect the drones to have a seemingly infinite supply of small, projectile explosives. With Timmy too exhausted to think and Mark without a pie tin, the duo was forced to engage in a much more time-tested option of not getting shot in the face by flying killer robots.
They hopped in their RV and drove the fuck out of Atlanta.
“So what do we do now?”
“What do you mean, ‘what do we do now?’ We keep driving the hell away
from there,” said Timmy. “Maybe get some more pie.”
“We should probably tell Thor and Charlie about what went down,” said Mark, flooring the RV north on the ruined pavement of I-95. “Right? That’s generally the next step?”
“The only thing I’m wearing is a cape. Where would I keep a phone? Besides, we’re done. WANG is ruined, a tiny, shriveled, useless nub of what it used to be. I think this’ll keep until we see them again.”
“Yeah ... about that, Timmy ... When we were fleeing, I, uh, I saw a sign. Turns out WANG Electric is a subsidiary of the Walt Sidney Company.”
“The Walt Sidney Company?” Timmy repeated. “The largest, most beloved, most vengeful corporation on Earth? That’s ... that’s great, Mark.” The tiny squirrel slumped back into the passenger seat.
“All in the name of being a hero, right? Helping the less fortunate with no regard for our own person well-being? The Hollow Men are certainly –”
“Holy shit, man, can we talk about this later?” snapped the psychic rodent. “I just committed an act of domestic terrorism with my brain. My head is killing me.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
“‘Sorry.’ Frigging normals,” thought Timmy quietly. “‘Thinking doesn’t take any effort, let’s talk!’ Yeah, well, you try lifting ten tons of metal with your mind.”
“I said sorry.”
Timmy the super-squirrel pulled his cape over his head and began drifting off to sleep, grumbling the entire way.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Ctrl+Alt+Delete
A few hours later, Thor, having found an extremely uncomfortable position in which he could sleep on the scooter, woke with a start as the Segway stopped and threw him to the ground. He was on the edge of a rectangular depression, white concrete sloping downward to a hulking electric motor the size of an office building. Enormous industrial fans were situated in the ground and angled walls surrounding the machine. A number of trailer home-sized generators were lined along the opposite lip of the depression.
“I guess this is it,” said Thor. He looked around for a sign confirming his suspicion, then quickly stopped giving a crap.
Taking a few slow, deep breaths, the thunder god raised his hands to the sky. This in and of itself didn’t do anything, but he thought it would look cool.
The blinding sunlight was quickly drowned out as black clouds rolled in from one end of the horizon to the other. Thunder rumbled tremendously – above, below, everywhere – shaking the concrete surrounding Thor and sending shivers through every piece of industrial machinery within two miles. Hundreds of bolts of lightning began to light up the air, crisscrossing the sky and weaving tighter and tighter together. Within moments, the crosshatched lightning closed and converged, and a single titanic thunderbolt seared through the ether and into the perpetual motion engine.
As the lightning dissipated and the clouds began to part, Thor could hear the dull whirring mechanics of the motor and the generators kicking back to life. Beyond them, lines of lampposts and the LEDs of machines flickered and flashed back on.
“Holy crap,” said the thunder god, “it actually worked.”
Thor marveled at the machinery for only a moment, as his keen sense of when other people were eating without him kicked in. He felt a sudden need to get back to the primary control room as quickly as inhumanly possible.
The Norseman undid his belt and tied it around the Segway. Having slept through most of the trip out to the engine, Thor wasn’t entirely sure which way the control room was – not that this was going to stop him. The thunder god searched the horizon, picked a direction on a hunch, and shrugged. He cocked his arm back.
“I hope I don’t land on anything important.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Spite. It’s What’s for Dinner
Catrina Dalisay and Ali Şahin stumbled into the control room, struggling for both air and the ability to stand up straight. The clones, the scientists, the god, and the gorilla, huddled around two chairs and a plank of plywood serving as a makeshift dining table, turned to the returning couple with looks more of mild curiosity than any kind of actual concern.
“We ... we got ...” gasped Ali, his face somewhere around his knees, “the isotonium.” The messenger bag hanging from his shoulder glowed slightly.
“We ran ... all the way here,” added Catrina, before leaning back out of the doorway and vomiting daintily.
“Oh, good for you,” said Dr. Arahami from behind a mouthful of cheeseburger. “We’ll put the ore in the storage shed with the rest of it, in case we need it later.”
“What?” asked Catrina groggily, leaning her back against the doorframe and wiping her mouth. Ali sat at her feet staring at the roboticist.
“We’re done, guys,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII. “We’ve repaired everything and the continental electrical grid is back online. Society is well on its way back to forgetting any of this ever happened.” He held out a greasy bag. “Burger?”
“Fuck all of you,” said Catrina exhaustedly, raising both middle fingers, although not far and not at anyone in particular.
“We’re not helping you anymore,” added Ali. He removed the messenger bag containing the isotonium and slid it towards the scientists. “But we will eat your food.”
The brown-skinned man climbed to his knees, reached up, and snatched the bag from the cloned president. He immediately slumped back down to the ground and leaned his back against the wall. Catrina stumbled over, falling to her knees, and then her ass, miraculously ending up in a sitting position next to her boyfriend. The two tore into the burgers with a ferocity usually reserved for caged zoo animals and children lost for weeks in the wilderness.
“Wait, where’s my car?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Happy Endings
Chester A. Arthur XVII and Martin Van Buren XCIX shook heartily, gripping each other’s hands forcefully and for maybe a moment or two too long.
“It was good seeing you again, Marty,” said the dead president.
“You too, Charlie,” said the other dead president. They were standing, still clasping hands, on the large lot of cracked asphalt outside the primary control room of Montana. The rest of their friends were likewise milling around the parking lot, saying their goodbyes, packing their scant possessions up, and trying to figure out seating arrangements for the long rides home.
“You sure you don’t want to come back to Las Vegas with us?” continued Martin Van Buren XCIX. “I’m sure Billy can get you a lucrative position in City-State Hall. I think Viceroy of Lounge Acts is open.”
“Thanks, but we tried that once[xxx]. I think we’re all better off if I stay in Secaucus.”
“You sure you guys don’t want to fuck in the bathroom?” asked Queen Victoria XXX, barging over and placing her hands on theirs. “You know, for old times’ sake?”
“I think we’re all right,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“We don’t want to ruin that magic moment,” added Martin Van Buren XCIX.
“Fine,” replied the former British monarch with an eye roll and a flamboyant sigh. She let go of the men’s hands, and they finally did the same.
Turning on her heel, the cloned queen saw William H. Taft XLII exiting down the cargo bay ramp of his enormous, multi-engine long-range helicopter, having pulled his glorified dune buggy into the hold.
“You riding as co-pilot, Bex?” the large man called into the crowd. He slid a pair of modified welding goggles over his head.
“Actually, yes,” replied the robot, “but not with you.”
“What?”
“I’m going back to Lee’s volcano lair for a while,” she continued. “To ... help. With things.”
“Sex things,” clarified Thor, still not wearing pants, having once again lost his jeans while attempting to “fly.”
“If you’re going to get technical, sure.”
“I’ll ride with you, Billy!” chirped Boudica IX, raising her h
and, her sweater sliding down her arm.
It was now Thor’s turn to ask, “What?”
“I thought we should start seeing other people,” the redheaded clone explained, grabbing her bag from the ground. “A couple days ago, actually. This seemed like a good time to tell you about it.”
“But, pumpkinhead –”
“Sorry, sugarpubes,” she said, stepping over and lightly kissing him on the cheek, “but you’re not as heavy as you used to be and I don’t like it.”
“I could eat more.”
“There’s also our mutual lack of actual concern for one another.”
“But mutual is good,” said the crestfallen Norseman.
“I’m sorry, Thor.” The queen placed a hand on his shoulder. “But I’m just not that into you.”
Thor nodded slightly, a look of rueful acceptance set on his face. Then he leaned in gently and whispered, “Speaking of ‘into you,’ is your vajajay working right now?”
Boudica IX reached a hand under her skirt and said, “Think so.”
“Quickie in the bathroom before you go? You know, for the road?”
“Yeah, all right.”
The two immediately raced back into the primary control room, pulling their clothes off as they went. Catrina, watching with her face scrunched in vague confusion and mild distaste, turned to look at William H. Taft XLII. The mayor-king shrugged nonchalantly.
“See?” barked Queen Victoria XXX, looking toward the cloned presidents and pointing toward the god and the redhead. “They know how to say goodbye!”
“We’re not having sex again, Vicky,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII sternly.
“Come on, one more time. Do him for me.”
“Tyrone’s sending us all a copy of the movie,” said Martin Van Buren XCIX. “You’ll probably have it in your email as soon as you get home.”
