by Eirik Gumeny
“Look, if you’re going to stab me, just fucking do it,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “All this chit-chat is getting annoying.”
“How the hell did you find us in the first place?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“God damn it, Charlie…”
“It wasn’t hard,” said the cowboy.
“You used your full names when you advertised your rental service,” said the Indian.
“Way to go, Charlie,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “The one time you don’t think something through to a completely unnecessary extreme and now I have to die for it.”
“Hey, you said it was a good idea,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII. “You argued for a cut of the profits!”
“I didn’t tell you to advertise my involvement so some obsessive, homicidal ghost could track me down and slice my god damned head off!”
“I’ve got my own psychopathic spirit to deal with right now, OK? We can argue about this later.”
“Later? What later? We are at a remarkable disadvantage here.”
“Christ,” said the cowboy, cocking the revolver, “Nevermind that grudge shit, I’m ‘bout to shoot ‘em both just to shut their asses up.”
The cowboy, however, shot neither the president nor the queen. Instead, the cowboy exploded. So did the Indian.
“What the fuck?” inquired Chester A. Arthur XVII and Queen Victoria XXX, in unison and with much incredulousness.
Still on their backs—and now covered in bits of burning, decaying flesh—Chester and Victoria turned their heads awkwardly until they could see William H. Taft XLII standing behind them, shouldering a smoking rocket launcher.
“Left it in the trunk,” said William H. Taft XLII, patting the weapon lovingly.
Fifty: He’s Referring, Of Course, to the Great Sewage Floods of Iowa
“Sir,” said a completely nondescript bureaucratic drone whose fortune-telling mother hadn’t even bothered to name him due to his fated role in the world, “it appears that Pennsylvania has been taken by the Hobo State.”
“Riiiiiight,” said the President of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America and Mexico.
“No, seriously,” said the man with no name. “They sent us a fax.”
“So?”
“On letterhead.”
“Oh, shit. Sounds serious,” said the president. “What’s it say?”
“Dear Sir or Madam. We regret to inform you…” began the drone.
“I’m imagining this guy as more of a baritone. Can you read it deeper, you know, with some authority?”
“We regret to inform you,” continued the drone, an octave lower, “that your capitalist stranglehold on society is at its end. We—the proud, compassionate, and intelligent members of the Hobo State—have annexed the parcel of land you previously referred to as the state of Pennsylvania. It is now a part of the Hobo Empire, and shall no longer be burdened by any designation of state, nor troubled by the imaginary boundaries you imposed upon it. The Hobo Empire is a collective of people—all people, regardless of race, creed, or mutagenic blood level—and will not be portioned out like a Christmas ham. Or, you know, pudding on a Thursday, since the Hobo Empire does not wish to exclude anyone who may not celebrate ham or is allergic to Christmas. Our point is, you suck. Are you sure we should add that, Quinn? Yes. It’s not very professional. Neither is your face; keep typing. If you say so. I do. OK. Where were we? Our point is, you suck. Oh, right. You suck. And we don’t. You will notice that the Hobo Empire, in both its current and previous incarnations, has made not a metaphorical sound, has never stirred up animosity or created any kind of global calamity, while you, the rest of the world, seem to be drowning in new crises every morning. Quite simply, this is because you’re all fucking retarded. Quinn. Right, fine. This is because we have divined the true meaning to this life and are doing things they way they are meant to be done. And when you do things the way they are meant to be done, you don’t have problems. Like us. We don’t have problems. Because we’re doing things right. The residents of Pennsylvania saw this, and they joined us. Not by force, not by coercion, but through common sense and free will. And now, nations and villages and assorted fax machine owners of the world, we are offering the same offer to you. Join us. Or don’t. Although joining us is clearly the more intelligent option.”
“They sent that to everyone everywhere, sir,” added the nameless guy.
“We have no choice but to take care of this. The Hobo State is within our borders and it’s our problem. We can’t have China thinking we can’t shovel our own shit. Not again.”
“What are you suggesting we do, sir?”
“They same thing we always do, son,” replied the President of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America and Mexico. “Kill them all.”
“But there are innocent people…”
“Not anymore they aren’t. And, besides, Pennsylvania was mostly an atomic wasteland, crawling with mutants. Fuck ‘em.”
“May I suggest a slightly more tactful approach, sir? Pennsylvania may be a state of mutants, but mutants do, actually, make up a solid third of what remains of humanity. Why don’t we send the robots in first and try to take out this ‘Quinn’ before we go slaughtering one of the more prolific contingents of voters that we have.”
“That’s a solid enough argument,” replied the president, leaning back in his chair and reflecting on the proposal.
“OK, fine, we’ll do it your soft, fuzzy way,” the president continued. “Release the murder-drones.”
Fifty-One: Economic Stimulus Shovel
“OK, guys,” said Mark. “There’s no easy way to say this…”
“Sheila’s pregnant!” guessed Thor.
“No.”
“You used to be a woman!”
“No.”
“You’re going to be a woman?”
“Amazingly, Thor, while not actually helping in anything even resembling a useful capacity, you are, in your own unique way, making it easier for me to continue.”
“Glad to help. Now stop running around in circles and tell us!”
“Catrina.”
Catrina smacked Thor upside the head.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Catrina.
“As I was saying,” continued Mark, “money was tight around here even before our most recent guests either left or were murdered in our lobby by equally as murdered employees. Between the cleaning bills and replacing the windows and you guys living here for free, we’ve actually lost more money this month than we made all of last year.”
“That doesn’t sound like profit,” said Thor.
“It’s not. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of profit. That’s why, effective three weeks ago, I’m no longer able to pay you.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” said Thor.
“How is that not fair?”
“It’s completely fair, Mark,” said Catrina. “Thor had a lot of sugar earlier and it tends to go straight to the idiot part of his brain.”
“That makes senses, given the proportions.”
“Yeah.”
“Damn right,” said Thor. “I’m… wait, hold on.”
“No,” said Mark, turning back to Catrina. “If he’s going to keep babbling like a moron, at least try and steer him toward figuring out a way to get us more customers. I don’t care how ridiculous his ideas are. I have no problem shooting them down for being stupid.”
“That’s good.”
Catrina turned to Thor, but Thor had walked into the break room. Mark looked at Catrina with a raised eyebrow. Catrina shrugged. Thor returned to the lobby carrying a shovel.
“What happened to the talking, man?” asked Mark. “We decided on talking about your stupid ideas!”
“Talk is for AM radio,” said Thor. “It’s time for action!”
“The AM wavelengths were obliterated before…”
“Don’t even bother trying to figure it out. He’s gone,�
� said Catrina. “I just hope he doesn’t maim someone.”
“Well, someone poor, anyway.”
Fifty-Two: Nice to Meet You
Mac, doing his part to spread the gospel of Quetzalcoatl, was walking up and down and back up every street he could find, knocking on doors and things he thought were doors. Occasionally they would open. Occasionally he would speak. Sometimes there was a conversation. Most times there was not.
Mac approached the next house on the block and knocked on the door. The door was opened by a giant mechanical man.
“Excuse me, sir or madam,” said Mac, reading from a script written on his hand in permanent marker, “I was wondering if I may have a moment…”
The giant mechanical man punched Mac through the face.
Fifty-Three: Famous Last Words
“Well, we’re here,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, pulling off what passed for the interstate and onto the New Jersey Turnpike.
“Where’s here?” asked Queen Victoria XXX. “All I see is swamp.”
“Yeah. Welcome to the Meadowlands.”
“This is the famed Meadowlands? The gateway to one of the last bastions of civilization left on this earth?”
“Yep.”
“It smells like ass.”
It did smell like ass. The Meadowlands was, and had always been, swampland reinforced with landfill and littered with dead mobsters and industrial run-off. But one could spit on it from New York City, and therefore it was valuable and convenient real estate.
“Where the hell’s the civilization?” asked William H. Taft XLII.
At least, it was, prior to the sinking of Manhattan. Now it was just there. And, much like a cockroach, the Meadowlands had proved nearly impossible to destroy.
“It’s that hazy cluster of buildings off in the distance.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII sped the car down the open expanse of highway before them, the hazy cluster of buildings off in the distance soon becoming the hazy cluster of buildings right over there.
“According to the sign,” said the dead president, cruising down the exit ramp, “there should be multiple hotels in this general area. Keep an eye out.”
“Or you could just go straight into that shopping plaza,” said William H. Taft XLII, pointing to a directory at the end of the ramp denoting “Hotels” and pointing toward a driveway.
“Or we could just go straight into that shopping plaza.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII steered the car along the curved plaza entrance.
“Of course. No thanks, no credit, for my keen and amazing eyesight,” replied William H. Taft XLII, slumping back into his seat. “I should’ve just let you keep driving around.”
“Yes,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII, “you really should have.”
The car rolled to a stop along the crest of a small overpass leading into the plaza. Situated throughout the shopping center were a half dozen burning buildings. The trio of world leaders looked out across the smoky expanse, trying to make sense of the scene before them.
“Well, just drive through anyway,” said William H. Taft XLII, taking in the scene. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen.”
“God damn it, Billy,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
Fifty-Four: Love is a Battlefield. So is Hate
“Quinn,” said Will, approaching Quetzalcoatl. “Mac is dead. So are at least four others. We’ve been getting… scattered reports and text messages that our diplomats are being… hunted down by robots… everywhere.”
“Sons of fishes,” said Quetzalcoatl, crushing an empty beer can in his hand. “This is the same shit they tried back in the day.”
“Back in the day?”
“Time travel’s impossible,” replied the former Aztec god, shaking his head.
“What?”
“What?”
“What do we do, Quinn?” asked Will urgently.
“What do you mean what do we do?”
“How… do we respond? What are our… next steps?”
“What are our next steps?!” asked Quetzalcoatl, crushing another empty beer can. “Jesus, Will, what do you think? When some bully pushed you around on the playground, and I’m sure they did, what did you do?”
“Well, I usually tried to… ascertain why…”
“That’s the wrong answer.”
“I’m… pretty sure it’s not.”
“You think we should talk to them.”
“Yes.”
“You think we should talk to the killer robots.”
“Well, yes, Quinn,” said Will. “To defeat our enemy… we must first know him.”
“How in the fuck are you going to know a computer?”
“By talking to it.”
“You just went around in a circle there. That wasn’t…”
“I’ll inform the others.”
Quetzalcoatl shrugged and said, “OK, whatever.” Then he crushed another beer can. “There’s hundreds of you fuckers running around anyway.”
Fifty-Five: Hollow Midget Arsonists
Chester A. Arthur XVII, Queen Victoria XXX, and William H. Taft XLII limped into the hotel lobby. Their faces were either bleeding or bruised; they were covered in dirt and sweat and pieces of shattered glass. They smelled like smoke.
“Our car,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, approaching the hotel counter and the young woman behind it, “appears to have fallen into a hole.”
“Oh,” said the girl, “yeah, we, uh, we have a small… Hollow Men infestation. In the, uh, general area.”
“Are you sure?” asked Queen Victoria XXX, stepping up to the counter next to Chester A. Arthur XVII. “It didn’t look like one of their sinkholes.”
“Oh, well, by ‘small Hollow Men,’ what I meant was ‘Hollow Men who are tiny in stature.’ Hollow Midgets and Dwarves. By god, they try, but they’ve got such little arms. They’re just not very good.”
“And the fact,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, “that the entire plaza is buried in a cloud of black smoke?”
“Because every other hotel in the plaza, and only the hotels, mind you, is on fire?” continued Queen Victoria XXX.
“Hollow… Arsonists,” replied the hotel employee, raising an eyebrow.
“Really? Hollow Midget Arsonists?”
"Yes,” said the girl. “They are exceedingly real and in no way something I just made up. Now, how many rooms will you need? Three?"
"Two should be fine,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII with a sigh. “Billy and I can bunk together."
"Please tell me Billy’s the fat one and not the girl,” said a tall, blonde man entering the hotel lobby.
"Billy’s the fat one, not the girl."
The man was covered in dirt, wearing a singed hotel uniform and carrying a shovel.
“Dude,” said the girl behind the counter. “Your arm’s on fire.”
Also, the man’s arm was on fire.
Fifty-Six: Kill Sequence 588 Involves Nothing But a Spoon
“Target acquired. Death is imminent, human,” said the murder drone.
“Well, all right,” said Bill. “But what kind of death are you talking about?”
The drone, gears whirring and sensors glowing, halted its advance.
“Please repeat query.”
“What is death?” repeated Bill.
“Clarification: Death is imminent. Termination of life is imminent. Prepare to cease functioning, human.”
The robot resumed its clanking approach.
Bill laughed and said, “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Death is termination of life. Death is irreparable stoppage of necessary human biological functions.”
“Is it?” asked Bill. “Is it simply the… cessation of living? Or is it something else? Something more? We humans are… imbued with souls, with indomitable, eternal spirits.”
The automaton paused again.
“Searching matrix for definition of ‘soul.’ Please wait.”
“Sure thing,” said Bi
ll. “Take your time.”
The robot whirred. Bill waited. The sounds of robotic killing machines hunting down and murdering philosophers and free-thinkers with determination, precision, and no small amount of flourish filled the atmosphere.
“Requested definition not found. Prepare for evisceration.”
“It has been well documented that this is true,” continued Bill, taking a small, panicked step back and raising his voice, “that these spirits still roam our scorched earth. By killing me, by ending my… mortal existence, you will be releasing my soul into the world. But how, I ask, how is that any different than living? I contest that simple… eradication of our human bodies is, in fact, not death. Your programming…”
“Destruction of body is sufficient. Initiate Kill Sequence 543.”
The robot raised its arm, retracting the metal hand and extending a circular saw in its place. It did the same with the other arm. Then the robot opened cavities on both sides of its chassis, extended two more arms, and repeated the hand to saw transformation.
“Oh shit.”
The murder drone stepped closer, saws spinning and the bloodlust programmed to become evident in its visual sensor becoming evident in its visual sensor.
“Listen!” pleaded Bill. “To really, truly kill me, to have me meet a final and lasting death, to fulfill your primary programming, you will need to find a way to destroy my soul. Can you? Can you do that? Are you even capable?”
The drone’s visual sensor glowed brighter. Then the robot began twitching. Then the robot’s head exploded.
“That was close…”
“Yes,” said a voice, “it was.”
The headless, smoking automaton collapsed to the ground in front of Bill, revealing a disheveled, bearded man carrying a laser rifle.
“Phil?”
“Will already died trying to confuse them,” explained Phil. “What you have to do… is ask them to calculate pi… or some other irrational number. While they’re reciting a… seemingly endless stream of numbers, you grab their weapons and destroy them.”
