Born Hard Again: Book Three of the Future Remembered Chronicles

by Unce, Bo

  Makayla's lower lip shook and I felt she might burst into tears.

  Without a further word, I turned my back on my entombed followers and met Koochy on the other side of the door.

  "Damn, son," he chuckled. "Col' as hell, bra."

  "Bro!" I heard faintly through the door. "I coulda lifted that!"

  I smiled, feeling almost fully healed at this point. The over-powered surgipod suit was filling my body with strength and vigor. It almost felt as if my skin was alive with a mind of its own. I couldn't wait to get out of this suit. But, first I had to find TK.

  Looking around, I saw that I was surrounded by doors. There were at least a hundred.

  "Oh no..." I said, quietly.

  "Damn, dat ho coul' be any damn where. And, deese batteries is dyin'. We ain't goan be shit wit'out deese chere suits. P, we need a fresh plan, my man." Koochy slapped me on the back.

  "TK!" I thought, loudly. "TK, are you there?"

  "Of course I'm here, Preston," she said, sharply. "Where the hell are you?"

  "Where the hell am I? Where the hell are you, TK? There are like, a hundred doors."

  "I know," she smarted. "They all look alike too. I thought sure I heard you guys in here, that's why I picked this door."

  "Well, can you come back out?"

  TK laughed. "No," she thought.

  "Can you bang on the door or make some noise or something?"

  "Not likely," TK responded.

  I paused.

  "TK, what the hell is going on over there?" I demanded.

  "Oh Preston, you don't want to know. Let me spare you the details, honey," she tried to sound reassuring, yet I was not reassured.

  "Fuck!" I yelled out loud, not mentally.

  "What the fuck, P?" Koochy jumped back, visibly surprised by my outburst.

  "TK is in some kind of mess she won't tell me about. And she can't tell us anything helpful about the door she is behind," I explained.

  "How can her ass not rememba' any damn thang about da door she chose?" Koochy mocked. "Ol' dumbass ho."

  "Well, she did say she thought sure she heard us behind the door. But obviously that wasn't right," I told him.

  "Ohh, shit, P! You a dumbass too! Y'all like two dumbs in one ass! Lemme put some machine learnin' on dis shit and we goan get to some fuckin innnnnnsights, ya hear' me?" Koochy got excited.

  "What? What are you saying?" I asked.

  "I got dis bitch modeled out. Mathematically, sucka! Dis a fucked up space, so dem 'coustics be all like RRRRRR screeeee!" Koochy made elaborate gang signs with his long, gloved fingers as he paced around me. "See, we be knowin' what do' we came out from. So I can be computin' what do' she be thankin' we be in based on deese damn echo killin' fields shits, muh mane!"

  I rolled my eyes. "So, essentially..." I prodded him to summarize.

  "Damn, P! It mean I know where she is, dude!" he shook his hands in the air between us.

  "Oh," I shrugged.

  "Less go," I heard Koochy's voice emanate from his side while his vacant visage, immortalized in rigor mortis, stared blankly beyond me. Then, his corpse, stuffed inside the mechanized surgipod suit, sprinted off.

  I ran after him into the darkness that surrounded us. Running had always hurt my feet, but now I found that without feet, the act was far more enjoyable. I bounded along on my dickfeet, with the grace of a young gazelle.

  Five minutes later, our shoulders were pressed into the iron of another towering gate.

  "Fuck, P!" Marcus lamented after a few moments of exertion.

  "Why can't we lift it?" I didn't understand.

  "Shit is dense, bra," Koochy stopped trying and stepped back. "We ain't got shit on dis damn do'."

  "TK!" I thought.

  "Oh... Preston! Are you here... umph... yet?" she responded with difficulty.

  "We can't get in, TK. You have to get out. Can you see a way to open the gate from the inside?" I thought, urgently.

  She did not respond. I waited a few moments before continuing.

  "TK! Can you get out? Are you there?" I called out, mentally.

  Again, thundering silence.

  "Fuck!" I exclaimed aloud and angrily stubbed five fat cocks into the metal wall separating me from my mother.

  "Ay, P, looka hea'," Koochy grabbed me by my baby shoulders. "We gotsa look on our own, ya hear' me? We gotsa get some damn powa and some damn bitches and get fixed up and shit, man!"

  "But, what about TK?" I whined.

  "Fucka sucka, den we get some damn TK! How we goan he'p her ass now? Look at us! We like some kinda fucked up circus freak shit! Mane, any movie we go to is rated R! We be puttin' da scene in obscene, ya fee' me?" he moved his rotting arms about like a drunken puppet as he monologued.

  "Argh!" I shuddered.

  "TK!" I thought, fiercely. "Oh, TK, are you there?"

  She did not respond. I looked at Koochy, skeptically.

  "How the hell do you think we get out of here?" I asked him, genuinely curious. Looking up, I couldn't see any light above us.

  "Chill, homey," Koochy admonished. "I can hack the shit outta dis."

  "You can hack what, exactly?" I was confused.

  "Dis wall, you dipshit," he chided me.

  "Ha! You couldn't hack the door to get to TK but you can hack this wall, that's what, hundreds of feet tall? I can't even see the sky up there," I laughed at him.

  "P, I done tol' you, leave da thankin' ta me, a'ight?" Koochy walked up next to me. "That do' was too heavy for deese suits, ya dig? But, check it, we ain't dat heavy. Yo ass heavy fo' a baby, but together, we ain't shit! Here, break yo ass over hea' nexta dis damn wall."

  "What? Uh... ok," I let him roughly pull me over against the cold wall, beside the iron door we had failed to raise.

  "Now, don't get all 'cited, P!" he warned. "I'm fixin' ta get up on ya!"

  And with that, he wrapped his suited arms around me in a bear hug.

  "Marcus, what the fuck, man?!" I protested but he held me tight.

  "We out, P!" he shouted and leaned back against the wall, grasping me tightly.

  Without a sound, we began to smoothly move up; off of the ground, into the air, and toward the surface.

  "Whoa! What the hell is happening?" I yelped in surprise.

  "Damn, P. You always bitchin' 'bout somethin'," he laughed. "It's all good, son! Unnnghhh! Dis here suit got dat sweet ass 'lectro-magnetic reconfigurable mo-lec-u-lar sub'tomic structras, sucka! I jes put my fuckin' shit up on dat and den BAM! It be doin' my will, ya hear' me?"

  "Yeah, I know," I frowned at my "feet". "But how does that lead to us floating?"

  "Lookit muh back," Marcus encouraged me and I did so.

  Thousands of tiny pseudopods protruded from the back of his suit, like little caterpillar legs. They were steadily surging backwards and forwards, moving us ever upward.

  "Right on!" I exclaimed, happily. "Damn, it's good to have you back, Koochy."

  "My ass don't feel like it's back, yo. My cold ass, dead ass body be all stankin' up dis hea suit, ya know what I'm sayin'? And my brain ain't even 'ho' yet."

  "Do you think you can save your body?" I asked.

  "Fuck yeah, I can save my ass," Koochy spat, confidently. "Jes need ta get some damn bandwidt' and serious power, fo' rea' doh."

  I was silent for a few minutes after that. We were hundreds of feet in the air now and I could see light above.

  "It's night time," I murmured as we neared the surface.

  We reached the top of the shaft and climbed out. It felt good to be back above ground. The moon was full and bright in the otherwise inky black sky. Shuddering, I felt the wind, brisk and stiff on my face and beard. I was reminded of when I lay betrayed and dying on the great ice sheet of Erie.

  "You think we go back to Russia or on to Old Detroit?" I quizzed Koochy.

  "Ay, P, ya know what's closer, dog?"

  I shrugged.

  "Old Cleveland, my homie."

  For a moment I was stunned into sil
ence by my friend's insight. Of course! How could I have not seen the answer in front of me this whole time? I felt a sense of renewed optimism that I would soon understand my true destiny.

  Right now though we needed to get some extra power for our suits. Then, we could open doors, get TK, find bandwidth and get the rest of Marcus downloaded. I mentally moved the "Get power!" post-it note in my head to the front of my task-board.

  I looked around for some sign of what to do next. After our journey through the underground network of chambers and tunnels and doors, we'd ended up emerging on the shores of the lake. I looked over at the expanse of ice. Damn, why am I so short? I couldn't see much from my vantage point.

  An idea occurred to me. I started shuffling around on the ground, dragging my lower limbs back and forth.

  "Whafuck you doin', P?" Koochy queried. "Yo' ass tryin to get some static 'lectricity up in hea'? Gonna zap me when I'm not lookin? I see yo' ass doh, ain't nobody creepin' up on big Kooch, unngh! But thanks for tryin to get some extra juice, I feel ya homie."

  "No, it's not that," I answered. Yes! It was working! My dickfeet were responding to the friction stimulation and started to harden and enlarge. Soon I was standing on dick-stilts! Now viewing from a higher elevation, I surveyed my surroundings.

  In the dim moonlight I saw an orange and red glimmer off in the distance, flickering softly.

  "Marcus, do you see that?" I asked. "Do you think that could be Clarabelle69's mechsuit still burning?"

  "You know damn well I cain't see shit! D'ya see any muffuckin' optical zoom on dis here camera? Fuck you, P!"

  "Sorry, sorry, Koochy." I took him by the hand and directed him to the north, out over the ghostly white expanse. "We have to walk a little ways. Shit, this ice is cold!"

  "Fo' rea'? You juss figgered that out?" Koochy mocked. "When e'erybody be like, 'Big Kooch, he col' as ice', you din't thank like oh shit, ice be chillin'? Damn P, you a dumb ass little jeezy baby."

  "No, I meant like I need some dickshoes for my dickfeet," I continued. "Ah! Brrr!"

  "You cain't put shoes on yo' dick, foo'. You put a hat on yo' dick! But I don't fuck wit' dat neither, haaaaah!"

  "You never wear a condom?" I said. "That's not safe, Marcus. Sometimes I worry about you."

  "Ay, you do you, I juss do me. You da' one wit' the baby momma. Ain't no pussy hot 'nuff to burn muh. I do dat burnin'!"

  I looked at him, puzzled. Whatever. "You're right, I agree," I replied. Koochy nodded in acknowledgement, his dead jaw dangling with the motion.

  We finally reached the scene of our most recent disastrous battle; at least the most recent disastrous one that was above ground. Enormous severed penises were strewn over the ice, now frozen into strange glittery stalagmites. I scratched idly at my suit where something was uncomfortable under the chest plate. Clarabelle69's mechsuit was a smoking ruin, a hulk of mangled metal with various wires, gears and flesh tubes spilling out of gaping holes all over its surface. I recalled that it was powered by the strange energies behind Rule 34, so I stayed clear.

  "Ay, don't want none o' dat," Koochy agreed. "I want dat juice, not dat jizz!"

  I saw a shapely, sexy heap of chunks of blue flesh and averted my eyes, hoping that TK wouldn't overhear any stray thoughts about my former mistress. Shit! Now I had to try to quiet my thoughts about me thinking about thinking about it. I was getting a headache. At least it shifted the pain away from my freezing dickfeet.

  We'd reached the spot where I'd been bleeding out on the ice. A short distance away from the dark pool of congealed and frozen blood, I saw a mutant-brain-sized divot in the thin snow. The shallow dent was adjacent to a large slug-like trail cut through the accumulated powder. The single thick groove went on for a few dozen meters and then separated into footprints, the evidence in the snowfall showing a slow, depressed shuffle off towards the horizon. We'll meet again, Ralph my son, I thought to myself.

  I looked in the opposite direction. "There!" I cried out. "The chariot! Maybe it has an extra power source we could use!"

  We reached the once-sleek vehicle. It had been made for extended explorations and expedient travel across the ice sheets; it was not built for battle, and had suffered dearly in the fracas. I noticed Putin's sigil on the side, matching the one on the suit that Koochy was wearing.

  "Yeah! Look, some lights are on inside!" I observed.

  Some movement came from within, followed by a cheery and unfortunately familiar voice.

  "Hey, guys!" Alphonso greeted us. "You're alive! That's great! I'm alive too! Hooray!"

  "Shut the fuck up!" Koochy shot back. "Nobody cares about yo' shit!"

  "So there was an extra surgipod in the chariot, did you guys know that?" Alphonso continued. "Pretty helpful huh? When that big robot thing knocked us around I got my knee hurt really bad, it was even bleeding a bit, I mean it was a pretty close call for me." He looked at a body on the floor of the crew compartment. "Since I outranked Shitbarf, I figured I should be in the surgipod and get myself back to 100% combat effectiveness so I could remain in reserve for the battle. Tactically speaking. So how'd the little fight go for you guys? Koochy you don't look too good."

  "Din't I tol' you arrready? Nobody cares about yo' shit! Shut yo' mouf!"

  "No really, I think maybe you should see a doctor or something," Alphonso went on, oblivious. "But boy am I glad to see you, even if you look kinda scary. Speaking of scary, it was dark out here and cold on this lake. And... eerie! Get it? Erie? Ha--"

  Without saying a word, Marcus reached down and grabbed me by the shoulders. Before I could even yelp in surprise, he whirled me around and my dickfeet smacked Alphonso directly in the face. Ten penises in a row bruised his cheeks and left a row of mushroom stamps rising on his skin. Stunned, Alphonso fell down.

  "Wha... wha... wha?" he stammered. His face was turning red with the sting of embarrassment and dicks.

  I was reminded of why we were here. "Guys, quit it," I ordered. "Let's work together to get TK!"

  "TK!" Alphonso yelped louder than I had expected. "Is she okay too?"

  Yes, was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it back in hesitation. Just what was going on in that underground chamber with all of those hairy, middle-aged dudes?

  "Uh... we need to get our shit fixed and then go rescue her," I told him, decisively.

  "Is Sienna with her?" Alphonso astonished me with his attention to continuity. Also, I was astonished by my own lack of concern for my daughter.

  "Uh... I don't know where baby Sienna is," I explained. Quickly, my dysfunctional familial learnings came back to me and I masterfully shifted my guilt to him. "Don't you know where she is, since you are the only one of us who didn't die here?"

  "Ah, no, sorry, Preston. I hurt my knee pretty bad, remember? Here, do you want to see it?" Alphonso didn't have the brains to realize the inappropriateness of his response.

  "Mane, hell no we don't wanna see yo' lil' knee-ass boo-boo, you damn whiny ass bitch!" dead Koochy stepped in on my behalf. "Now, first thangs first, I gotsa reclaim whas mine!" Koochy's decomposing cadaver, stuffed into the animated suit with the compute-pad jutting out from the side, walked over to some of the electronics and paneling that was hanging agape inside of the sled's cockpit and began removing whole handfuls of wires and integrated circuitry.

  Assuming Koochy was working on reanimating his corporeal form before it rotted away entirely, I put my mind to a downstream task: saving TK.

  "Come on, Alphonso," I invited him. "What kind of weapons do we have left?" I looked around the wrecked interior of the Russian sled. There was nothing of value to be seen.

  Alphonso shrugged. "I used everything we had killing that gigantic cartoon bear thing, Preston. What the heck was that thing anyway? It looked very familiar to me, but I couldn't place it."

  "Dammit, Alphonso, focus!" I was quickly recalling how frustrating he could be. "Shit, so if there's no weapons... " I mentally skipped ahead to my next task. "Do we have any compute-pads or nav
systems still functional in this thing?"

  Alphonso stared at me, vapidly.

  "Dammit, Alphonso! Be useful!" I encouraged him. "We've got to find some weapons or some way to open that huge metal door and then we've got to get TK before we go to Old Cleveland on our way to Old Detroit!"

  Sensing my frustration with him, Alphonso was quiet for a moment, trying hard to look thoughtful. His face lit up.

  "Preston! I know what to do!" he exclaimed to my surprise.

  "You do?" I asked with uncertainty.

  "Yes!" he ran to the back of the sled and began rooting around for something behind one of the upturned couches.

  Glancing over to Koochy, I saw that he was beset by wires, electronic components and dimly lit little energy cells. I grinned at my assumption that my friend's mortal form was soon to rejoin our little posse.

  "Here!" Alphonso returned, carrying a large board with a few small yellow sticky notes stuck to it.

  "What?" I asked, bewildered.

  "Preston, I did like you said and used my listening and thinking powers to contribute!" he boasted proudly.

  As the board grew closer to me, I could read the poor handwriting on the two sticky notes on the board. One said "KNEE? FIX." and had a big green checkmark on it. The other said "???" and I noticed it was missing its green checkmark. I shook my head and covered my face with my palm.

  "See, Preston, I could tell by listening to you that we had a lot to do. So much to do that probably the best thing to do first, and to do really well, is to make sure you don't forget all the things? See, because, what if you forgot TK and just went to Old Cleveland? Wait, why do you want to go to Old Cleveland? I thought we were going to Old Detroit?" he became distracted and trailed off.

  I began to answer but stopped short. Why did we want to go to Old Cleveland? That plan was made before we had discovered Alphonso in the wreckage of Putin's snow chariot. Marcus seemed to be finding what he needed in the remains of the cockpit. After he was finished, would he have enough power to open the door that held my lover? I would have felt a lot better with a big gun in my mitts, but I supposed we had faced fiercer foes with less firepower.

  "Actually, I'm not sure we do need to go to Old Cleveland," I told him and realized that I was a bit disappointed to not see my namesake.