Born Hard Again: Book Three of the Future Remembered Chronicles

by Unce, Bo

  I felt terrible. How could I have allowed TK to suffer even a moment longer than she absolutely must? Why had I made her wait while Alphonso surgically enhanced himself?

  "We're here, TK! Marcus is all fixed up. Alphonso is... well, different. We have guns and a spaceship!" I thought to her, excitedly.

  "Why... why are you telling me this? Why don't I see you?" TK quizzed me. "Where... are you?"

  "We, uh... we can't find you," I admitted sheepishly.

  "What?!" TK shot back. "Preston Chesticles!"

  Suddenly, inspiration struck. "I have an idea," I thought to her.

  "Alphonso," I enlisted the help of the Vice-Admiral. "Shoot the ice."

  "Huh? Why?" Alphonso asked. "Where should I shoot it?"

  "Just shoot anywhere. So I can ask TK if she can hear it. If we're close, she should be able to hear the blast," I smugly explained my logic.

  "Wow, Preston. That's pretty smart!" Alphonso was clearly impressed. "Okay, here, I'll do it!"

  Unceremoniously, Alphonso grasped at a small joystick by his right leg and fired off a missile towards the surface of the ice. A single, long plume of white smoke spoke to the trajectory of the projectile as it zipped into the thick ice shelf. While the rocket itself was small, the explosion it created was very large.

  "Ahhhhh!" TK mentally screamed.

  "What? What happened? Are you okay?" I thought back.

  "The whole room just blew up, Preston! It's caving in down here! Help!" she cried out to me.

  "Fuck," I thought to myself. So much for my brilliant idea.

  "Are we close?" Alphonso asked me. "Did she hear it?"

  "Uh, yeah," I nodded. "We're close."

  From the window of the cockpit, I could see the surface of the ice was fracturing and collapsing. Deep fissures opened up and spider-webbed out from the small crater that the missile had created upon impact. Big chunks of ice fell from sight, leaving dark pockmarks in the otherwise flawless surface of the great white sheet. I knew TK was somewhere down there.

  "Take us down," I instructed the shapely Vice-Admiral.

  "Where? The whole ground is disappearing," Alphonso correctly pointed out. I had to admit, I didn't see anywhere safe to land.

  "Ahhhhh! Preston! Help me!" TK screeched in my brain.

  "Fuck this," I plainly stated.

  I threw open the door to the ship and flung myself towards the quaking tundra. Sure, it was a thousand feet or so to the ground, but I figured, what the hell. I had survived worse. Plus, with the power of the future remembered, I had a pretty good chance of escaping whatever horrible fate might possibly lie in store for me.

  Much to my surprise, no vision occurred to me. The ground grew closer and closer at an increasing rate.

  "Oh shit, ohshitoshit!" I became more desperate as my impact became more imminent. I failed to think of anything useful. In fact, I did nothing of note and continued to practice my oh-shits.

  Abruptly, I came to a halt in mid air. Only thirty feet remained between my feet and the ground. I remained there, levitating, while I scanned around seeking some clue to explain my sudden arrest. In retrospect, I wondered why I didn't think to call upon my holy name.

  "Ay, son," Koochy's voice blared out from the ship, which was closer to me than I had expected. "Slow yo' ass down! You lookin' ta die again already?"

  "How did you stop me?" I asked with no idea whether he could hear me or not. Of course, he could.

  "Ooh, I know. I know! Hey, let me talk to him," I could hear Alphonso attempting to interrupt our conversation. "Hey Preston, it's me. You know, Alphonso?" he asked rhetorically, then waited for an answer. When none came, he continued. "It's a gravity ray! It's standard issue on these little dingys. Its uses are: freight loading and unloading, light brush clearing for, you know, landing and stuff, anchorin-"

  "Mane, you fo' rea' right now?" Koochy's voice overpowered Alphonso's. "Sit yo' ass down! You scraight foolish!"

  "Preston! Eeeeeee! I'm crushed! Gasp!" TK's telepathic tone reeked of despair. "The ceiling fell in and killed everyone! My legs are broken and trapped beneath heavy rocks! It hurts... so... much, Preston!"

  "I'm coming, TK!" I reassured her mentally. Then, turning my head back to Koochy and Alphonso in the ship, I shouted, "Put me the fuck down! Now!"

  "Oh, right! Sure thing, Preston!" Alphonso acknowledged my request.

  The next moment, I was free falling again. Thirty feet later, I smacked into the mountain of rock, ice slabs and debris that had caved in and filled the underground chambers we had been looking for. It hurt, sure; but I would be able to walk it off.

  "TK!" I called out as I surveyed the vast amount of rubble surrounding me. "TKaaaaayyyyyy!"

  "Preston! I can hear you!" TK thought to me. "You sound so far away, though, baby. You sound, like, a million miles away!"

  "Arrghh," I was frustrated.

  "'Sup, kid." Marcus was now standing beside me. I had been so absorbed in my frustration that I had not heard Alphonso land nearby.

  "She's under there, somewhere," I gestured widely, implicating all of the crumbled terrain before us. "I wish we could just zap this rock out of here!"

  "Damn, son! Shit ain't hard!" Koochy grinned. He whipped out his compute-pad and began working on it. "Hey, Alphonso! Let's put dat skinny bitch back in da sky, son! C'mon, P!"

  "What?" I didn't understand his plan. Getting back into the ship didn't seem to be the most direct route to TK.

  "Mane, trust me. It's me, Big Kooch! We been down since like wha'," Koochy attempted to convince me with fingers contorted into convivial gang signs.

  Sighing, I followed my friend back into the ship I had just leaped out of so dramatically. Had that whole episode been unnecessary? I recalled my mother's scathingly maternal chastisement: "You always have to do everything the hard way, Preston!" Well, at least I hadn't been run over by a car yet.

  "A'ight, take us up," he instructed Alphonso after we all packed into the cockpit. "See, I done reprogrammed dis hea' grav'ty ray shizz. Dat shit fuckin O.P. son, fo' rea'! All you gotsta do is turn dat bitch on and rocks goan be flyin'! Ain't no mufu'n joke, boy! Droppin' science on yo head, you be like 'whaaaaa?'"

  I smiled. Marcus had come through for me once again.

  "Come on, Alphonso!" I smacked him on the misplaced gluteus muscle on the back of his head. "TK's crushed down there! Let's do this!"

  "Hey, stop! Geez, Preston! You don't have to hit me," he complained. "Okay, here we go."

  Alphonso kept the war craft low and engaged the gravity ray he had so recently used to save my ass. The effect was astonishing. A beam of high intensity gravity waves emanated from the underside of our ship and tore a wide swath through the debris beneath us. No matter how large the rock or ice block, as our gravity ray touched it, it was wrenched from its place of rest and chucked into the air. We hummed along slowly, giving the beam time to dig deep and wide. I saw that occasionally people, or at least bodies, were mixed in with the rubble we were so recklessly flinging.

  "TK! Can you hear or see anything? We should be getting closer to you!" I thought to her from within the GMS-KJH86.

  "I... I see light!" TK rejoiced. "I see light, oh my god! It's getting brighter!"

  "Hey guys, hey guys!" I waved at Alphonso and Marcus. "Slow down, we're getting really close to her now."

  "Preston! It's right on top of me!" TK shrieked in my head. "It's so bright! Ahhahhahhhheheee-eeeeeheeeeeeEEEEE!"

  I watched in horror was TK's body was sucked up from beneath us and tossed hundreds of feet into the distance.

  "TK!" I shouted. "I'm going to get her!"

  I threw open the ship's hatch and fearlessly jumped out. This time I was less than one hundred feet in the air. The impact with the unforgiving ice was painful and I felt stress fractures creak in my ankles and shins. Overall, it did not slow me down one bit. I beat a path to TK's crumpled form, which was lying flat and lifeless on the cold ground.

  Alphonso landed the ship seconds late
r and he and Marcus ran over to join me.

  "Man, P, why you always jumpin' out a air planes?" Koochy grilled me.

  Ignoring him, I begged. "Help me get her back to the ship."

  Between the three of us, we managed to muscle her shattered body back into our stolen warship. Her physique had lost most of its natural shape; it was a fleshy sack of fragmented osseous matter and bruised organs. No signs of life were shown as we pulled her in and dropped her dead weight in the soldiers' seating area in the ship.

  "Hey!" I called out as Koochy let go of his hold a little too carelessly.

  "Droppin' bitches like da temper-ture, what?!" Koochy justified his actions. "Ho, shit, P! What da fuck is dat?"

  Following the direction of his raised index finger, I looked out the cockpit window of our ship and saw what he had seen. Emerging from one of the numerous caverns which had been excavated by our enhanced gravity ray was a small cabal of sinister-looking robed figures. There were six of them, tall and completely shrouded in their black vestments. They were surrounding and equidistant from a larger, mechanized unit of some sort. I couldn't tell what it was from this distance.

  "What the hell is that?" I asked no one, as I laid TK's dented skull to rest gently on a makeshift pillow I had pulled together from surplus uniforms lying about within the ship's cabin.

  "Mothafuckin' sarcophagus, son! Ain't you be knowin' sheit, P?" Koochy was a few steps ahead of me, as usual. "Da rea' Q be: who inside dat thang, playa? Mothafuckin' big wig, fo' sho! Unnnghhh!"

  The mysterious group were clearly making their way straight to us. Other survivors were starting to extract themselves from the wreckage and stagger around, dazed. I saw such a diversity of denizens. There were the beautiful and rhythmic sorority girls that had witnessed me face Limbozer. There were several chubby, unassuming middle-aged white guys walking around naked and looking confused. I assumed these were the remnants of TK's captors.

  "What happened to you in there?" I asked no one about TK, while still taking in the cast of characters popping out of the ground for miles around us.

  There were people of all different colors and creeds. Some appeared tribal, with bright markings all over their faces and bodies. These emerged from the demolished ice sheet and quickly sought out each other. They were speedily becoming the largest recognizable group of survivors.

  However, they weren't the only cluster developing. As minutes ticked by, I watched several small bunches of staggering individuals swell in number until there were twelve or so very large congregations of like-looking people standing in array around the GMS-KJH86.

  The shrouded-in-black group which had first caught Marcus' eye was closest to our ship and stood separately from the rest of the large assemblies.

  "Are they seriously coming at us?" Alphonso asked me.

  He touched a few controls on the pilot's dashboard and I heard the ship's front guns whirr into position. Alphonso flipped on the external intercom.

  "This is Vice-Admiral Alphonso Roy speaking," he introduced himself before continuing. "Stop where you are or we shall be forced to use force!"

  "Damn, 'phonso," Koochy derided. "Yo' ass suck at threatenin' people. You had ta live on dat grind, bet yo' ass be starvin' an' shit!"

  "I'll show them I mean business!" Alphonso resolutely announced.

  Another few button depresses and a sharp, constrained explosion sounded as large caliber rounds left the barrel of the ship's cannon in what I assumed was a warning shot. Instead of striking the ground harmlessly, one of the robed figures on the right lost a substantial chunk of its midsection. Blood, innards and shreds of black garment blew out of the figure's backside and stained the snow behind it.

  The rest of the group did not flinch.

  "You didn't have to kill them!" I slapped the glute on the back of Alphonso's head.

  "Who fuckin' cares?" Koochy posed the question. "Jes get us tha fuck outta here, mane!"

  "No, wait!" I protested. "They clearly want something from us." I had a weird feeling about this. There was something in that mechanized sarcophagus that I felt I was supposed to witness.

  "Yeah, mane, dey want our motha fuckin' ride, son! What the hell you thank dey be wantin'?"

  "I'm with Koochy on this one, Preston. I didn't mean to kill that guy, but I really think we should be getting out of here," Alphonso weighed in as if his opinion was significant in my decision.

  Instead of arguing with them, I tossed open the door to GMS-KJH86 and hopped out.

  "Dammit, son!" Koochy cursed to my back as I fearlessly strode forward towards my mysterious rendezvous.

  ***

  As I neared the five remaining robed figures, I could tell they were male. And Russian. All five men were similar in height and stature. They were all very tall, lean and gaunt. They looked straight ahead without blinking, but their eyes were so heavily covered in cataracts that their irises and pupils were muted white and not visible. They looked wrinkled and old, but also ageless and strong.

  The large machine they were flanking was indeed some kind of human preservation chamber. It was fancifully decorated with lavish and ornate carvings covering its polished obsidian frame. Various blinking lights spotted the entirety of the machine.

  There was a very old man in the contraption. I could see his weathered face, tiny and shrunken looking, right at the nexus of the ominous device. He had long white hair and a beard, both of which were thinning and unsightly. His face was far more elderly than those of his companions and his body was completely concealed in the depth of the device in which he rode.

  We stood there for a moment, without speaking. Staring into each other as the winter winds howled and whipped up ice dust into my eyes.

  "Who... are you?" I finally broke the silence.

  "Я Aoas Nhark, хранитель двенадцати колен Boojina. Я жду возвращения Кливленд Иисуса и собрались свою паству в подготовке его пришествия. Я твой верный раб, Aoas," the oldest of them spoke softly in Russian. His voice had a soothing, melodic quality.

  "Oh, for Chris'sake," I groaned. Nothing was ever easy. "Koochy!" I called back over my shoulder. "I need you and your compute-pad to translate!"

  "Man, yo' ass always needin' somthin'," Koochy joked as he jumped out of the ship to join me on the ice. In a moment, he was by my side. "'Sup den. Big Kooch, clockin' in. Unnnghh!"

  "They're speaking some kind of Russian," I told him. "Can you translate?"

  "Ain't no thang but a chicken wang on a strang!" Koochy responded confidently. He fiddled with his compute-pad and then held it aloft. "Go 'head."

  I locked eyes with the patriarch.

  "I am Cleveland Jesus," I told him, flatly. Might as well get right to it, I figured.

  That phrase definitely provoked a response. His eyes got big and he looked as if he might weep with joy. He began speaking again, but this time, much faster and in a more excited manner. Thanks to the power of technology, I understood him this time.

  "I am Aoas Nhark, keeper of the twelve tribes of Boojina. I await the return of Cleveland Jesus and have gathered his flock in preparation of his coming. I am your faithful servant, Aoas," he repeated. "Are you really... the Cleveland Jesus?"

  I smiled, confidently.

  "Yes," I told him. As I talked, Koochy's compute-pad translated for me in real-time. "I am Cleveland Jesus."

  "You... you have returned, my lord!" His face was pale and sweaty. I realized this must be a religious experience for him.

  "Yes," I told him. "I am Cleveland Jesus and I have returned."

  "Where... where have you been this whole time, my lord?" he questioned. I hadn't been prepared for this one.

  "Uh... I was... around," I adumbrated. "Here, there, everywhere. Doing Jesus stuff. You know."

  He looked confused. He didn't know.

  "Look, I'm here now. I work in mysterious ways. Don't question me," I warned him, severely. That work
ed. His face regained its composure.

  "Y-yes, my lord," he lowered his eyes, respectfully. When he raised them again, they were filled with a youthful exuberance that stood in contrast to the heavy lines pressed into his aged visage. "I am your faithful servant, my lord. I have kept watch over the twelve tribes, just as you commanded."

  I looked beyond him at the hundreds, maybe thousands of people, that were congregating on the vast expanse of frozen ground.

  I knew that now was my time to make my mark as a leader. I took hold of Bronson and used my engorged penis as a makeshift podium, nay, a pulpit.

  "My followers!" I announced. "You have long known that this day would come. The twelve tribes together, each entrusted with the protection of their piece of the holy artifact." I was just guessing at this, but it sounded about right. "Come forth, and proclaim your devotion."

  Koochy held his compute-pad aloft and it chirped out some Russian-sounding noises.

  Immediately the crowd started murmuring. Some members looked aghast, and some of the women fainted.

  "What? What did I say wrong?" I asked nobody.

  Aoas Nhark spoke again, rapidly and with suppressed anger. I looked to Koochy's compute-pad for an explanation.

  "You smell not popsicle!" the compute-pad translated. "You SMELL NOT POPSICLE!" Aoas emphasized again through the machine.

  "Koochy, what the fuck?" I complained. "That doesn't even make sense! What kind of translation app are you using anyway?"

  "Sheeit, I dunno mane! Cain't see... oh ain't dat some shit, dis hurr trial period expired," Koochy explained. "Is aiight tho son, the free version translates e'ery other word. Chill den!"

  "I can't work with this," I told him. "Every other word isn't good enough when you're a god. Can't you buy the full version?"

  "Fuck that! I ain't buyin' this shit!" Koochy yelled back too loudly. The crowd was growing restless.

  "We're CEOs of Taco Bell! We ball like that! Just connect to the store and buy the app!" I practically begged him.

  "I took a little Russian in fourth grade," Alphonso chimed in helpfully. "The guy over there said you're an evil spirit, or false divine something, uh. I dunno. If you guys need to go to the bathroom, I can ask them where it is though!"