by Eirik Gumeny
“Man, who knew battery acid would fuck someone up like that? It was like a god damned volcano in my ass.”
“Please don’t refer to it like that ever again. Ever.”
Thor began laughing again. “Did you see the ceiling?”
“Yes,” said Catrina solemnly.
“Honestly,” said Thor, still laughing, “it might just be easier to move.”
Fourteen: Bring the Shotgun
After the world ended for the third time, only a handful of corporations around the globe remained functioning in any useful capacity. Realizing just how precarious the continued existence of capitalism was, these stalwart companies banded together to pioneer the creation of a limited artificial intelligence and quickly produced a robotic workforce of startling efficiency.
With this automated army in tow, the corporations were able to pick up the pieces of a shattered society and rebuild a better world, one free from strife, economic turmoil, and workmen’s compensation claims. The rapid assimilation of smaller companies and the altogether astounding profit margins were simply a side effect of the corporations’ unceasing hope and compassion for humankind.
“Looks like there’s a rest stop up ahead,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“Please tell me there’s a coffee place,” replied Queen Victoria XXX.
“They’ve got a Starbucks.”
“Damn it.”
After the world ended for the fourth time, the United States government decided it was no longer able to sustain itself and, following China’s example, auctioned itself off in lots. Canada purchased the majority share, while Starbucks and Walmart, the two largest corporations on the planet, vied for the remainder.
The resulting bidding war turned literal, destroying the cities of Seattle and Atlanta, as well as indie rock, rednecks, Santa Claus, magicians, and the internet.
“At least they’ve got free Wi-Fi out here. You can check in with Billy.”
The internet eventually recovered.
“But it’s a fucking Starbucks!”
So did the rednecks.
“Come on, Vicky, they’re not all run by inbred, homicidal atomic mutants.”
Well, ideologically, anyway.
“You don’t know that.”
“Fine,” relented Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Bring the shotgun.”
Fifteen: Rusty Nails
“I’d like a medium coffee please,” said a fairly intimidating Queen Victoria XXX.
“We don’t have medium,” said the fairly intimidated girl behind the counter.
“How can you not have medium?”
“We have short, tall, grande, venti, and collegiate.”
“Well, give me the one in the middle.”
“Which one, ma’am?”
“Whatever it was you said, the one that means medium.”
“Short, tall, grande, venti, or collegiate?”
“You’re really going to make me say it?”
After the First Robot Uprising ended the world for the ninth time, a number of the previously “pioneering” companies—having long since freed themselves from the burdens of human rights, and spoiled by the unparalleled growth, efficiency, and employee obedience that resulted—found themselves staring down legions upon legions of pissed-off automatons. The corporations that weren’t burned to the ground or vaporized by super-lasers outright were left hurting for a workforce.
“If you don’t say it and I respond anyway, I get whipped.”
Due to the complete and utter lack of a relevant operational policy, this pain was passed on to the new employees.
“I don’t want to get whipped, ma’am.”
Some companies handled it better than others.
“The whip is three belts, taped together. Three belts with nails in them.”
Sixteen: Quetzalcoatl Also Hates Children
Quetzalcoatl stood upon the picnic table and began singing.
“Row, row, row your kayak, gently up the tree, hairily, fairily, bearily, life is but soup.”
The family situated around the picnic table stared up in disbelief.
Quetzalcoatl, garbed in a kilt and very little else, stood upon the picnic table with legs spread wide, braced against the gusting wind, and continued to sing at a significantly higher volume.
“Stow, stow, stow your crack, deeply in a nun, hairily, fairily, bearily, life is but a cup of minestrone and some oyster crackers!”
The adult members of the family situated around the picnic table—covering the eyes of the children situated around the picnic table—began ushering the younger members away from the picnic table, all the while continuing to stare up in disbelief.
Quetzalcoatl, garbed in a kilt and very little else, stepped in a bowl of potato salad.
“What the cheetahs?”
With his foot lodged firmly in the bowl of potato salad, Quetzalcoatl hopped off the picnic table and chased after the fleeing family.
“Hey! Hey, hey, hey, hay. You,” he said, pointing at the mother. “You there. Can you tell me where to buy stamps?”
The mother halted her flight just long enough to scrunch up her face and look confused.
“What?”
“Stamps,” repeated Quetzalcoatl, “I need stamps. Also, I seem to have put my foot into the squishy part of a plastic creature’s cranium. Was this your plastic creature? Have I killed your dingo?”
The mother’s face relaxed slightly. The confusion was still readily apparent, though.
“Uh, no. We don’t have a dingo. You did not kill our dingo.”
Quetzalcoatl suddenly leapt forward and grabbed the youngest child. He lifted the boy into the air and shouted, “Tell me why monkeys eat my cheese, small thing!”
The mother’s expression changed from confusion straight into horror. She resumed her fleeing, hastily ushering the remaining children across the park and into the family minivan. The father, meanwhile, charged at Quetzalcoatl, throwing around his fists and no end of unsavory language.
“Your roses smell unquestionably like donkey turds, sir,” replied Quetzalcoatl, still holding onto the boy while being punched repeatedly.
In an effort to end the beating, Quetzalcoatl tossed the child into the air, grabbed him by his ankles, and swung him at the father like a baseball bat. The boy’s back collided with the father’s head. The father was knocked to the ground. The boy wet himself.
Quetzalcoatl returned the boy to the ground and then knelt down, lining up his eyes with the child’s. He stared at the boy. He stared hard.
“I hate you, small thing,” he said.
The boy wet himself again.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” said the father, picking himself up off the ground and collecting his child.
“That is like a nurse murdering a rabbi,” replied Quetzalcoatl. “What you should be asking is, ‘What is wrong with me?’ How could an antelope possibly let a circus clown kill his dingo and then beat him with the stains on his sheets? You have been mauled by lions and will surely be forgotten by the etchings of cavemen everywhere.”
The father slung his urine-soaked child over his shoulder, flipped off Quetzalcoatl, and retreated to his minivan.
“You shouldn’t run with scissors!” counseled the former Aztec god, smiling and waving.
Quetzalcoatl heard a rustling sound behind him. He turned, expecting a pile of leaves and possibly some wind. Instead, he found a pudgy, unkempt man in a tattered blazer and even more tattered jeans. The man approached Quetzalcoatl.
“My name is Will,” said the man named Will. “I’d like to talk.”
Seventeen: White, Unmarked, and Idling
Will put his arm around Quetzalcoatl and led him across the park.
“I have a feeling,” said Will, “that you know more about the ways of the universe than you let on. That you have a deeper understanding of… society… of even the sky… the stars… everything!”
“I have a feeling,” said Quetzalcoatl, “that is akin to
being hungry, but in the back of my brain, and only for certain shades of red and blue. Also my toes.”
“You’re starved for knowledge! Exactly! I could see it from the way you handled yourself during the… incident prior. It permeates your very soul!”
“Kittens are nice.”
“And yet you can still appreciate the more… mundane aspects of life! The… aesthetic pleasures of our reality! Oh, I couldn’t have said it more eloquently myself…” Will paused. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”
“You can call me Roger.”
“Roger, yes. I’d like you to meet some people…”
“Now you can call me Susan.”
“Susan…”
“Call me Wilhelmina.”
“Oh, man, see,” said Will, pulling his arm away from Quetzalcoatl and clenching his fists excitedly in front of his chest in excitement, “this is what I’m talking about! This is amazing! Why settle on simply one persona? Be anyone! Be everyone! How can anyone honestly ever truly commit… to one life, one persona? Life is constantly in flux… people changing right along with it. You and I, Wilhelmina… we are different now than we were just those moments before.”
Seriously, Will’s eyes were glazed over from the excited excitement he was feeling. It was crazy. Quetzalcoatl may or may not have noticed. Regardless, he replied in the following manner:
“I would like to go by Mr. Sausage King.”
“Look, Mr. Sausage King, come with me. I’m a part of a… convocation, of sorts. A collection of dreamers, like you… fascinated by the world and trying to make sense of it… trying to see beyond, see through… the every day. I am certain that your input would be invaluable to our cause.”
“I once saw the Paris burlesque on ice…” replied Quetzalcoatl earnestly.
“Yes, I understand your doubts,” said Will, equally as earnestly. “It is a bit… abstract. But then, really, how can one ever hope to impose order on a gathering of… philosophers and artists, writers and free-thinkers? Why, there are those among us who aren’t even convinced the world exists, much less that it needs saving.”
Will continued, “Now, I’ll be the first to admit that even before the first of the apocalypses our roles in society were a bit… frivolous. But that’s the beauty of it, really. Governments toppled, corporations and organizations collapsed, but we… we remained unaffected. Our less… defined structure allowed us to… avoid the setbacks that destroyed the more… entrenched paradigms. Pragmatically, the end of the world wasn’t much of a change for us.”
“Roast beef sandwiches.”
“Well, no… We do not have much in the way of a… practical stratagem. Or a mission. Or any sort of… defined goal. We are perpetually in the process of establishing one, really. But, then, that’s why I’m… inviting you. Each new member has the chance to set that goal… each new viewpoint will be weighed fairly and without bias.”
“Hey, like Shakespeare said, it can’t be porn if it’s classy.”
“Oh, yes, absolutely! Our intentions are nothing if not noble! I knew you’d understand! Come on, my van is this way.”
Eighteen: The Other Half is Violence
Chester A. Arthur XVII paid for his bag of Slim Jims, pretzels, and soda and exited the 7-Eleven. He made it about halfway to his car before a large, malformed hand pressed against his chest—not actually stopping his forward movement, but forceful enough to imply that was the goal. The hand was attached to an outstretched arm attached to a shoulder that belonged to what was pretty clearly an atomic mutant.
“Can I help you?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“We don’ want yer kind here,” said the atomic mutant.
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Sorry?”
“Well, for starters, what do you mean by ‘kind?’ Men? Guys standing in front of you? Walking replications of the genetics of dead presidents? Or is it some kind of pent-up rage against any and all non-irradiated, non-mutated human folk? Maybe you’ve mistaken me for a robot, or a werewolf, or one of your cousins who owes you money?
“Then, of course, there’s the issue of ‘here,’” continued Chester A. Arthur XVII. “Are you referring to the convenience store I’ve just vacated? The parking spot the two of us are currently standing in? Or something more general, like the state of Pennsylvania? Perhaps you are referring only to this particular stretch of nuclear wasteland? Am I somehow on your lawn? You’re going to need to make your meaning more apparent if you expect to elicit some kind of response from me, whether it be the one you intended or otherwise.”
“Hold up, hold up… what’re mah options ‘gain?”
“Well, they were really more akin to suggestions than options. There could be myriad other reasons you’re impeding my exit beyond the ones I mentioned.”
“Well, sure, son. And ah’m sure the heart ah the matter, tah reason ah’m in yer way to ‘gin wit’ is somethin’ else ‘tirely, if’n we’re bein’ honest. Can’t live in the middle ‘a miles an’ miles ‘a ‘radiated badlands ‘t’out some kinda life-alterin’ trauma, tha’s fer damn sure. Here and now, tho’, I ‘as jus’ tryin’ to reply in kind, makin’ sure I ‘dressed all yer listed concerns ‘fore we continue this little altercation.”
“Oh, well, that’s not really necessary. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the effort, truly, but what I said previously was more of a hastily assembled collection of hypothetical guesses than any grouping of actual concerns.”
“That so?”
“That’s so.”
“Well, a’right, then. Yah want ah should start from the threatenin’ shove ag’in? Er yah good to jus’ go from here, pickin’ up where’n we left off?”
Chester A. Arthur XVII bit the side his lower lip, considering his options.
“I think it would be fair to say that, regardless of how we choose to proceed, your aim is for this to end in fisticuffs or some other kind of physical harm?”
“Wouldn’ say ‘aim’ so much as a’ ‘nevitability. Mah goal ‘volves more ‘round robbin’ yah than it does beatin’ yah, ta be truthful. Tho’ the two does go hand in hand, mos’ often.”
“And understandably so. The difference this time, however, is that you will not be getting my wallet. Even should this interaction of ours come to blows.”
The atomic mutant raised his gigantic eyebrow incredulously.
“An’ how ‘xactly you figger that?”
“You remember about a half dozen Armageddons ago, when the gorillas hijacked all those satellites and Washington, D.C., was evaporated? How there was a mad scramble to reinstate the government?”
“Course.”
“Well, one of the possibilities floated about was to fill the seats of the United States government with clones of assorted previous leaders. The greatest political minds working together for the greater good and all that. Now, while that particular plan ultimately wasn’t implemented, there were still several football stadiums full of presidents and kings created in preparation. Clearly, there was no way they could let that many clones out into the world—it would cause far too much confusion. But killing us all, well, that would be genocide, which, as we all know, is an ethical no-no. The geneticists in charge, in their infinite and heartless wisdom, figured one of each clone would be more than generous. So they had each leader fight himself to the death.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII rolled his shoulders and stood up at his full height.
“I killed sixty-two other Chester A. Arthurs that day. With only a tire iron,” he continued. “You’re not getting my wallet.”
“Ah was not ‘ware ah that,” said the atomic mutant, spreading his open hands in a show of submission. “Please ‘cept my ‘pologies for this inconvenience then, and you go on an’ have yerself a fine day.”
“And you as well,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, raising his plastic bag. “Slim Jim?”
Nineteen: He’s Pretty Well-Spoken for the Guy Who Founded Kentucky
“With
utmost sincerity, Mr. Taft, I am not above possessing you in order to obtain your silence.”
“Man, look, I’m sorry, but, this… this is disgusting,” said William H. Taft XLII.
“Disgusting?” asked the ghost of Daniel Boone. “How exactly did you think steakhouse meats were obtained?”
“I honestly did not give it much thought. But I was fairly confident that it didn’t involve covering my kitchen in blood and chunks of cow.”
“I put forth the request that you throw down a tarp. I also suggested you actually kill or otherwise restrain the cow. Many times.”
“I tried, dude, I tried! But it’s a fucking zombie! It doesn’t die!”
“Yes, yes. I am well aware. And while I do agree that the cow’s continued existence certainly makes our task more difficult, it does not make it an impossibility. The meat is still on the cow, the knife is still in your hand. The process is entirely the same.”
“It keeps moving!”
“Mooooooorrr,” said the bovine.
“And that. It keeps doing that. My dinner should not be talking to me.”
William H. Taft XLII began hyperventilating. He dropped into his chair with tremendous force.
“Oh man oh man oh man this is so weird.”
“Mr. Taft,” said the ghost of Daniel Boone, “I have numerous other appointments today, and your continued whinging and general girlishness is becoming increasingly trying. If you are, as I suspect, of the belief that I am going to complete this task for you, I am going to need the use of your appendages…”
“Please! Yes! Go ahead!”
“Right then.”
And with that, the ghost of Daniel Boone—summoned at an hourly rate via an online grilling site—possessed the last remaining clone of William H. Taft, with the sole purpose of converting an undead cow into a pile of flank, chuck, and other assorted cuts of steak.
