by Eirik Gumeny
Bill raised his hand, as if to protest the point. Phil cut him off at the pass.
“You can’t… talk them to death, Bill. They’re robots, not undergrads.”
Bill protested anyway. He wasn’t about to give in to a completely logical comment delivered via a dated Western metaphor.
“But…”
“Do you want to die?”
“Well, Phil, do we ever really, truly…”
Phil raised the laser rifle and pointed it at Bill’s chest.
“Bill?”
“No.”
“Right. No one does. Stop being an ass.”
Phil kicked the robot, rolling it towards Bill.
“Grab the arm. The manual controls for the saw are in the wrist.”
Fifty-Seven: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before…
A priest, a rabbi, and a hot dog vendor… no, wait.
An Irishman, an Italian, and a black guy were walking through the desert when…
Damn it. Hold on.
Two cloned presidents, a regenerated queen, a fallen god, a cyborg, and a suddenly very self-conscious human female, sat in a bar.
No, it was a diner. Yeah. They were sitting in a diner.
Two cloned presidents, a queen, a god, a cyborg, and a suddenly self-conscious young woman were all sitting in a diner when in walked… in walked…
Shit. Wait. They had names.
OK, got it.
Chester A. Arthur XVII, William H. Taft XLII, Queen Victoria XXX, Thor, Mark, and a suddenly very self-conscious Catrina were all sitting in a diner when in walked a sentient piece of string.
The diner host got up and stopped the string before it could go any further.
“Sorry, buddy,” he said, pointing his thumb at a sign that read “No Strings Allowed.”
“What the hell,” said the string.
“Diner rules,” said the host, shrugging and ushering the string back outside. “Nothing I can do about it.”
Mark, bristling at both the obvious racism and the economic stupidity of the gesture, called out to the man from the table.
“Man, you can’t do that. He’s got just as much right…”
“Look,” said the host, putting up his hands, “it’s not my rule. The owner, he’s crazy strict about it and I need this job. I can’t do anything about it.”
It was at this point that the string walked back in.
“Buddy,” said the exasperated diner employee, “you gotta go. Please. If my boss sees you in here…”
“Look, I just want a cup of coffee,” said the piece of string. “I can take it to go.”
“Sorry, but I can’t…”
“Oh, come on, that’s bullshit,” said Mark. “You can get him a damn cup of coffee.”
“Fuck, man, would you keep it…”
The owner of the restaurant emerged loudly from the kitchen.
“What’s going on out…”
The large, balding, diner-owning bigot, spotting the string-man, stopped mid-sentence.
“You got three seconds to get out of here, string.”
“Why the hell should I?” said the string.
“Because I own this diner and I can refuse anyone or any… thing that I want.”
“Fuck you, asshole, I haven’t…”
“Fuck me? Fuck you, you…”
“Hold up, guys, hold up,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “I’ve got this.”
The cloned president got up from the table and, placing his arm around the sentient fabric cord, walked it toward the door.
“Oh, come on, Chester,” said Catrina, “you can’t seriously be…”
“I said I’ve got it, don’t worry,” continued Chester A. Arthur XVII, walking outside with the string.
“Told you he was a douchebag,” said Thor under his breath.
“I heard that,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“Oh,” said Thor. “Uh, what I meant was…”
Thor never got to explain what he actually meant. No one cared. By this point, Mark had removed himself from the table and begun verbally accosting the diner owner. All eyes in the diner—robotic, organic, or otherwise—were on them.
“That string has every right…”
“I don’t give a shit about its rights, or your opinion, or…”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Chester A. Arthur XVII, “but my friend here would like a cup of coffee.”
The sentient piece of string strode up next to Chester A. Arthur, looped and twisted around on itself, with its hair messed up and raveled out.
“Oh, you got some balls,” said the diner owner, pushing Mark aside and approaching the president and the string. “Let me spell this out for you. There are no strings allowed in the diner. And you are a string, aren’t you?”
“No,” said the string confidently. “I’m a frayed knot.”
Fifty-Eight: It’s On Now, Bitches
Bill and Phil made their way through the blood and guts and laser guns and metal fragments and severed limbs and more guts and more metal fragments until they found Quetzalcoatl.
“Quinn,” said Phil, “we…”
“One second, girls,” said Quetzalcoatl, pinned against one murder-drone by another murder-drone. “I’m a little busy.”
Quetzalcoatl was immediately, and violently, beset by three more murder-drones.
Bill and Phil waited patiently.
“Fucking… ball sacks, man,” said Quetzalcoatl, punching the metal head casing of the nearest robot repeatedly. The robot didn’t seem to notice.
A few minutes passed and two more homicidal automatons joined the fray.
Bill and Phil continued to wait.
Quetzalcoatl said some undoubtedly profane thing, but Bill and Phil couldn’t hear it over the sound of the seven mechanical assassins attempting to eviscerate, behead, stab, burn and quarter him.
A small stream of blood spurted from the fracas and landed on Bill’s loafer.
“We… should probably help him,” said Phil turning to Bill.
“What the… blazes are you talking about, Phil?” replied Bill. “Maybe you’ve… found a way to channel your… inner barbarian, but the only thing I know how to do is think… and that’s nearly gotten me killed twelve times… in the last hour alone.”
“Well, we have to do… something,” countered Phil. “He’s being…”
Six of the robots surrounding Quetzalcoatl were hurled into the air with tremendous force. Some were intact. Most were not.
“… murdered?”
Phil’s question was not uncalled for. The man he had known as Quinn was now hovering above the battlefield, breathing heavily but otherwise seemingly unfazed by the fact that he had just hurled six tons of angry metal across a half mile of robot-on-human bloodshed.
He also appeared undaunted by the fact that he had grown wings and a tail.
In actuality, Quetzalcoatl was marginally surprised to have reverted to his feathered serpent form, even if he didn’t show it. Mostly, though, he was pissed. That part he made pretty evident.
Quetzalcoatl tilted his head and looked down at the lone robot still clinging to his torso.
“Error,” said the remaining, and clearly most tenacious, murder-drone. “Impossibility made manifest.”
“Not exactly, my metallic nemesis. Religion was disproved. Not faith, not philosophy.”
“Does not compute.”
“No, of course it doesn’t. You’re a robot. You can’t think. You can’t believe. You’re just numbers and programs. At the end of the day you have no idea how much power faith can give you.”
Quetzalcoatl lifted the robot with one hand.
“No, Mr. Murder-Drone, you understand about as well as a lobotomized garden gnome might. I’m not a god because the Aztecs thought I was, or because these pedantic layabouts believed in me, or because anyone else thought anything at any point.
“I am a god,” continued Quetzalcoatl, putting his fist thro
ugh the murder-drone’s face, “because I think I am.”
Fifty-Nine: Unless You Want to Get Dead, Of Course
“This was… unexpected,” said Phil.
“Huh?” inquired Quetzalcoatl, still hovering before Phil and Bill. “What are you talking about?”
“You appear to have… transformed into some type of… giant, winged snake-man, Quinn. I’m… I don’t…”
“Oh, that, right,” continued Quetzalcoatl. “I guess I forgot to tell you guys that I had a drinking problem.”
Phil and Bill tried to respond to, refute, or otherwise process the statement, but found they could only tilt their heads slightly and stare.
“Also, I almost drowned once. There was some serious head trauma involved with that.”
Again, the statement was met only with tilting and staring.
“And, before that, I destroyed Central America, made the llama extinct, and severely crippled the Department of Science’s robot military.”
Phil raised his finger as if he was going to say something, but thought better of it and retreated back to his comfort zone of slanted, wide-eyed awe. Bill, however, threw in some gaping, just to liven things up a bit.
“Which should bring us up to speed, gentlemen.”
“No,” said Phil, “not at all actually.”
“Are you sure?” asked Quetzalcoatl. “I was thinking that was a pretty solid recollection of events right there.”
“None of your preceding statements actually explain… anything,” said Bill. “How you… grew wings, for example. Or why your legs seem to have… fused together and become a giant serpent’s tail.”
“Oh, that. Right,” replied Quetzalcoatl, looking down at his new mode of ambulation. “Turns out I’m actually Quetzalcoatl, Aztec serpent god of the wind. And knowledge. And arts and crafts, too, I think. I’m the god of a bunch of things when you get right down to it.”
Bill and Phil retreated to their previously established method of discourse, although, this time, they were tilting and staring like no one’s fucking business. It was impressive.
“Seriously, though, you never figured it out? All that ‘be our leader,’ ‘believe in yourself’ horsecrap you guys kept spouting on about? I just assumed…”
“You gave… absolutely no indication that you were… a fallen deity from an advanced, ancient civilization,” said Phil. “I can say that with… utmost certainty.”
“Honestly,” said Bill, “we didn’t think you were even listening to us most of the time.”
“You talked so damn much it was kind of impossible not to pick up something. Anyway,” said the giant, feathered snake god, spreading his wings and blotting out the sky, “you still with me?”
“I… don’t think we have a choice.”
“Yeah, you really don’t.”
Sixty: Or a Monkey in People Clothes
Catrina and Queen Victoria XXX, shopping bags in hand, stepped from the elevator and began walking down the fourth floor toward their rooms.
“I can’t believe you still have malls up here,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“I can’t believe you only bought three outfits,” replied Catrina.
“I’m not used to this,” replied the queen, gesturing with her bags. “Even when me and Charlie and Billy do go out, it’s like a time trial. Grab what you can and go. I can’t even remember the last time I tried something on.”
“That’s what happens when you spend too much time with guys,” said Catrina, shaking her head.
“They’re not all bad. I mean, they’re like brothers to me.”
“Well, sure. But, I don’t know, I think Charlie’s a little too… uh… I don’t think anyone should be thinking about him like a brother is all.”
Queen Victoria XXX smiled and began to speak, but was interrupted by Chester A. Arthur XVII and William H. Taft XLII barreling down the hallway, rushing past the girls and toward the elevators.
Chester A. Arthur XVII stopped just long enough to grab Victoria by the elbow and say, “The Dunkin Donuts guy is giving away free donuts!” before running off again.
“Alright,” said Catrina, “maybe you can think about him like a brother.”
Queen Victoria XXX laughed and said, “Well, it’s gotta be the same with you and Thor, right?”
“Thor’s more… Thor’s something else.”
Thor came running out of his room in only a towel, shampoo still in his hair, chanting, “Donuts! Donuts! Donuts!”
“Like a cousin who used to eat paint chips,” she clarified.
Sixty-One: It Is, In Fact, His Third
“Sir,” said the 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 Kansas and Wyoming have been taken by the Hobo Empire.”
“So?” said the President of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America and Mexico.
“I really don’t see how that’s even close to being the appropriate response, sir. It seems kind of callous and unprofessional, especially given your title and responsibilities.”
“It was Kansas and Wyoming.”
“Today, yes. But those are the nineteenth and twentieth states to fall since Pennsylvania last week.”
“I’m not following.”
“The Hobo Empire has now annexed the entire Midwest and, as of this morning, set the west coast on fire.”
“I’m not familiar with that term, son. Are you trying to say they’re forcibly taking the western states? That they’ve laid siege to California?”
“No, sir, I mean, quite literally, that the full length of the western coastline is aflame. I’m not really sure how, but even the ocean is burning.”
“That doesn’t seem right.”
“There are also reports that the one calling himself Quinn is, in actuality, the Aztec god of creation and knowledge.”
“Quetzalcoatl?!”
“One and the same, sir.”
“I thought we killed that son of a bitch years ago! I’ll never understand why he couldn’t just accept that he was no longer deific and become human or kill himself like all the others. Instead, that motherfucker destroyed half of Mexico and made me look like a fool.”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure that was entirely his doing, sir.”
“We’re just going to have to kill him all over again then,” said the president, his eyes growing wide and glazing over. “We’ve no other choice.”
“How exactly do you plan on doing that, sir? There are still far, far too many civilians for a nuclear strike. And we can’t even be sure that would get rid of him anyway. Quetzalcoatl’s destroyed wave after wave of murder-drones all on his own, and his philosopher army is proving fairly proficient at surviving now as well.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, boy,” replied the president. “We’re calling in a specialist.”
Sixty-Two: This One Goes Out to All the English Majors
“So,” said Thor, leaning back, his elbows against the concierge desk of the Secaucus Holiday Inn, “you’re not with Victoria.”
“I’m not,” said Chester A. Arthur XVII, standing next to Thor in a similar fashion. “You with Catrina?”
“Nope.”
“Meaning there shouldn’t be a problem with my taking her out to dinner then.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So there would be a problem.”
“More than likely.”
“And that problem would be…?”
“You, mainly. And my inherent distrust of you, specifically.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII nodded slightly, conceding the point.
“That’s understandable, actually,” he said. “I’m assuming then that this is the juncture of our conversation wherein you ask me if there’s a problem with you courting Victoria?”
“Uh, no, actually,” said Thor. “I was just going to do it.”
“You are aware you’re nowhere near good enough for her, ri
ght?”
“What? I’m a fucking god, dude.”
“You were a god. Now you’re just some chump working at a hotel in the middle of a swamp. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re a little out of touch, Thor. Not to mention confused and kind of angry, like a flightless bird stuck on a tree branch.”
“Yeah, no. You misunderstood what I meant.”
Chester A. Arthur XVII thought about that for a second before saying, “Oh.”
“Yep,” replied Thor.
“You do realize that you’ve pretty much just proved my point, though, right?”
“What are you talking about? That was the greatest double entendre in the history of history.”
“She could do so much better than you, man.”
“Yeah, I don’t know about that.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
From the couch on the other side of the lobby Catrina asked, “What are they getting all worked up about now?”
“Not a clue,” said Queen Victoria.
“Whatever it is,” said William H. Taft XLII, situated between the two women, his arms stretched out along the back of the couch, “I’m not getting in the middle of it.”
Sixty-Three: Hippie Hippie Shake
Gil and Lil sat on the beach and watched the ocean burn.
“Man,” said Gil. “I don’t know why Quetzalcoatl had to go and do that. I mean, Mother Earth is going to be pissed.”
“Oh, no doubt, no doubt,” said Lil.
“I mean, seriously, we are in for some bad karma, just for being associated with him, you know? For letting him have his way with nature like that. And for what, man? Just so we can be there when he… when he… wait… Why are we helping him again?”
“No clue, man, no clue.”
“Right, right.”
The flames began rising, just as the sun began setting. The entire shoreline was bathed in a spectacular crimson glow. Gil and Lil couldn’t help but reflect on how beautiful it was.
