Broke and Famous

by Elizabeth Gannon

  Kurtz pulled away from him and spat the bread out onto the floor. “…Asshole.”

  Thraex looked down at the bread and then back at Kurtz, angry shadows falling across his already swarthy face. “Pick. That. Up.” He growled out, apparently horrified about the half-eaten cornbread on his otherwise spotless vintage tile floor.

  Kurtz flipped him off.

  Sasha rose from her chair again. “I’ll get it, it’s really no…”

  “No.” Thraex shook his head, stopping her in her tracks with one definite word. “You will sit there and enjoy your breakfast in peace, Miss Sasha, and your brother will clean up his own damn messes. For once.”

  “I’m not cleaning it up.” Kurtz shook his head, then pointed at Nash. “What the fuck do we employ Bentley for, if not to clean!?!”

  “Nash is a chauffeur, not a maid.” Sasha reminded him.

  “Fine, whatever.” Kurtz rolled his eyes over the distinction, then raised his voice. “Sparko!” He yelled, turning his head to the side to call into the other room. “Sparko! Get in here and clean this up, boy!” He waited a moment, then swore under his breath. “…Damn dog never listens to me. Granddad should’ve built a cat instead.”

  Colby looked over at Thraex. “Would you like Zoe to take care of it?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary, thank you.” Thraex crossed his arms over his chest. “Respectable young ladies don’t clean up after grown-ass men who throw temper tantrums at breakfast in front of their family.” He met Kurtz’s eyes, fists clenched and obviously ready to pummel the other man. “You don’t spit food onto the floor at this breakfast table. It’s disrespectful to your sister and it’s disrespectful to your niece and it’s disrespectful to your niece’s giraffe.”

  “I’m fine with you spitting on the floor.” Nash told no one in particular, the delicate lines of the tattoo which stretched from her lower lip to her chin, curving up at the edges in amusement. “But I’m apparently ‘the help,’ so no one cares if you disrespect me or not.”

  Kurtz looked over at Sasha for a ruling.

  “Just… just clean it up.” She waved a hand. It’d have to be cleaned up by someone, and since there weren’t any janitors in the building anymore—they’d all long since been laid off by Thraex so he could make himself all the richer—that meant that it would have to be either her or Kurtz who picked it up.

  And Thraex was right: it wouldn’t kill Kurtz to clean up his own mess.

  Thraex nodded, obviously pleased that order was once more restored around the Westgate’s breakfast table. “Now then, enough of this unpleasantness, we can get down to business.”

  “Oh!” Colby made an excited sound. “Do we have a job!?! Zoe loves jobs!” She held up the animal in question so that everyone could see her. “Look how excited she is!”

  To all outward appearances, Zoe the giraffe continued to give off the same impression of confusion and being lost as she always did.

  Thraex nodded, ignoring the tiny animal’s supposed enthusiasm for business and industry. “We do indeed have a job today.”

  This sounded like good news… But Sasha had known Thraex for twenty years now. She was very good at reading the younger man’s moods.

  This wasn’t good news. When it was good news, his eyes shone a distinctly different color. This was a muddled brownish color, which indicated apprehension.

  “What’s the problem, Thraex?” She asked seriously, bracing for something bad. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  “The job isn’t…” he paused, as if searching for the words, “…up to the high caliber of excellence which the Westgate Foundation is world-famous for.”

  Thraex liked to pepper his conversation with things like that. She assumed it was designed to humiliate them, but it never did. Sasha wasn’t embarrassed of her family. She wasn’t embarrassed of their work. Sasha was embarrassed of herself. It was entirely different. She’d be embarrassed no matter what kind of job she was on or who was mocking her. But she’d made her peace with that, long ago.

  Yes, sometimes… sometimes she woke up screaming. But that was to be expected. Her prison psychiatrist had told her that it was something she needed time to work through.

  It had been years though. And she wasn’t through it yet.

  Sasha had failed at a lot of things in her life. Even coming to terms with her own failure.

  But that was one of the problems you encountered when you were a multiple murderer.

  “Does it come with a paycheck?” She asked him simply, going straight to the bottom-line. She wanted to get enough money that her family could regain their financial independence and escape this nightmare.

  “Yes.” Thraex nodded hesitantly. “But it’s not…”

  “We’ll do it.” She agreed, cutting him off.

  Any money was better than no money.

  Sasha wanted to get out of this horrible building as soon as possible.

  Chapter 3

  “Ivan Westgate. Died 1963. Killed by the super-intelligent monkeys he created. Tried to teach them to operate a space capsule or some such nonsense.”

  - Thraex, Damn Fool Ways Westgates Ended Up Graveyard Dead: Vol. 1

  There was a time when the carpet in the lobby of the Westgate Foundation building was a brilliant blue, rather than the sun-faded and stained shade of teal it currently was.

  At one point, the paint on the walls of the hallways was smooth and unblemished, instead of being lumpy from innumerable repairs and touch-ups over the years.

  If you had walked into the building in its heyday, you would have been taken aback by its splendor and design. You would have thought of it as the most futuristic building in the world. It was said that old man Beardsly Westgate, always up for foolhardy and whimsical endeavors, had spent upwards of two million dollars to decorate his father’s historic building, which was a tidy sum at the time. The newspapers had advertised it as “The world’s most fantastic office building!” and it was.

  It truly was.

  Since that time nothing had really been done to the space though, so the design went from cutting edge, to outdated, to hilariously outdated, to what Thraex thought of as “classic.”

  Perfect things didn’t need to change.

  That’s why they were perfect.

  As Thraex looked around the lobby, he could still see it as it was meant to be seen. He liked to stand in awe of it, amazed that something so beautiful could exist in the world. He basked in the fact that he had the privilege of looking upon it and standing where so many great minds had stood before him.

  And, obviously, he also took note of the many, many repairs which still needed to be financed and completed. Not that he was by any means embarrassed about that. The doors of the Westgate Foundation had remained open long after most of its contemporaries had closed theirs for good.

  The Westgate Foundation’s sputnik-style chandeliers might be missing a few sparkling beads and chrome orbs, but the original headquarters of the Lovers of Liberty team had gone the way of its owners; dead and forgotten. A coffee shop now stood on the site and no one remembered what their first building even looked like.

  The 1960s era mod furnishings which lined the Westgate Foundation’s lobby might be over a half-century old at this point, but most of the furniture inside the Freedom Squad’s headquarters had been burned in the riot after that team turned against the city.

  There might be mice living in the Westgate’s old transistor-powered quantum isolator, but the former headquarters of Acme Atomics Corp had been bought out and gutted to make way for a parking lot.

  This entire neighborhood might be crumbling down around it, but the Westgate Foundation building only looked more impressive as its neighbors fell to rot and ruin.

  This building was a survivor. Generations of great men and women had walked through its doors, and many more would surely follow them. …Even if the hinges still squeaked, no matter how many times Thraex oiled them.

  There was a sense of consi
stency there; a bright line of excellence, which passed through the different generations and reminded all of them that they were continuing a mission started by their ancestors.

  Standing in the past, bettering the present, looking towards the future.

  He took pride in this building. It was one of those old deco structures which had been so tall upon its completion, that people had lined the streets to look up at it, just because they were waiting for it to fall over. Thirty-seven stories. It had seemed impossible that something could reach that fantastic height and yet be so strong. You could spot it in many vintage photos and postcards of the city, standing proud and tall and resolute.

  These days, the geometric tile mural which covered the building’s steeply domed roof and spire, was chipped and constantly in shadow because of the much taller skyscrapers built around it, but there had been a time when its mirrors and gems gleamed in the sunlight like a beacon. The unquestioned scientific master of this island and its people, acting as their teacher and protector. A symbol of knowledge and freedom, shining the light of reason on the darkest corners of fear and superstition.

  The building had been largely forgotten by the world in the last twenty years or so.

  But not by Thraex.

  Not even once.

  This building was his. The only place in this entire dimension of humans which he cared about.

  To Thraex, this building was the epicenter of the multiverse. All realities revolved around this one fixed point in space-time, the holiest of grounds.

  Gods lived here.

  And if anyone came to these offices looking to harm so much as a single inch of the vintage imported silk wallpaper in the washrooms, Thraex would mount their feeble human skulls on pikes next to the recently restored midcentury stained-glass revolving doors in the lobby.

  He absently stared at the large emblem of the Westgate Foundation, which was attached to the wood paneled wall above the “Doomsday Button,” that the city had entrusted them with, back in the day.

  Thraex remembered the first time he’d seen the familiar and outrageously early 1960s Westgate logo.

  It had been a long time…

  Both the emblem decoration and Thraex had changed a lot since then, neither for the better.

  The large blue W was chipped in several spots now, and three of the aluminum crackle circles in the background were missing.

  But to Thraex… it always seemed like it was the first time he was seeing it. And it was utterly perfect in his mind. Like it was a holy signal from the gods that he was protected and safe. Like it was a magic sigil which would keep back the monsters which filled his dreams.

  Thraex had been born in The Unseen Realm, a dimension parallel to the dimension of the humans. His homeland was a harsh world of darkness and chains.

  He’d been born there.

  Enslaved there.

  He’d died there. Several times.

  Sasha was right: it would forever be part of him. …All of him.

  Which made his current work here all the tougher. But it only got easier, the more you did it. When you first started out, sure, there were some worries. Some soul-searching. But once you stopped caring about being a gentleman… well, everything else was a piece of cake.

  He’d gone far enough down that road now that he’d lost sight of where he’d even started.

  Because Thraex was a betrayer. He was disloyal, ungrateful, and was planning murder.

  And he was fine with that.

  Just so long as they didn’t bleed on his vintage terrazzo tile floor as they died.

  He tore his gaze away from the Westgate’s emblem and returned to making his daily survey of the building. He liked to stay on top of things, to ensure that trouble spots didn’t grow bigger. That was one of the responsibilities of overseeing such an important and historic structure. The key to proper maintenance was catching small problems while they were still small.

  The lobby of the Westgate Foundation building was decorated with a variety of relics from the Westgates’ adventures all over the multiverse, from giant robot heads to a large stuffed monster from some dimension or another. A century of keepsakes, mementoes, and crazy knickknacks. They were arranged around the area in no real order, as if the Westgates had dropped them as they arrived home from the trip and then never bothered to move them. When Thraex had inherited the building, he chose to keep all of those relics exactly where they were. He thought they looked real nice.

  The space consisted of a two-story lobby and welcome area filled with mod furniture, a gift shop, and a lunch counter which had specialized in “atomic” sandwiches and “space age” ice cream.

  The lunch counter and soda fountain had long since been shuttered and blocked off by a metal roll-up door grate, he’d never even seen it in operation. Now the old counter and multicolored cushioned stools stood as a relic of a by-gone era, before vending machines and fast-food places had made them obsolete. He still polished the chrome fixtures every other week though, making sure they gleamed… even if they would probably never be used again.

  The gift shop’s shelves were mostly bare, with the exception of a wire rack of faded postcards which showed shots of the building, a dusty stack of calendars from 1999 which featured images of some of the amazing dimensions the Westgates had visited in their travels, and several mugs which displayed the Westgate Foundation’s emblem.

  Thraex had always liked the little gift shop area. On one of his first days in the building, Sasha had given him one of the mugs as a present. It was, as far as he could remember, the only thing which had been bought at the shop in the last 20 years. At the time, he hadn’t been entirely sure what a “mug” even was, why he would need one, or what the strange human woman would demand of him in return for it, but he had cherished it. He’d slept with it clutched in his hands, like it was a sacred treasure of this dimension.

  Professor Westgate had thrown the mug at Thraex before he died, and it had shattered against his head. It had hurt, but losing the mug had hurt him more.

  Thraex didn’t blame Richard Westgate for that though. Given Thraex’s relationship with his birth father, getting hit in the head with a ceramic mug tossed by his step-father was of little consequence. The man had had a… difficult time in the end. There were easy deaths and there were hard deaths, and Professor Westgate’s had not been pleasant. But legend had it that it rarely was, when this family was involved.

  Depending on who you asked, the Westgates were either disturbed or brilliant, always dying to leave their mark on the world. Often very literally.

  In its heyday, the building was filled with two dozen Westgates, sometimes more, each creating their own miracles, in their own way and in their own field. Minds the likes of which humanity had never before produced. Artists and explorers, engineers and mathematicians. It was like the Renaissance was reborn, only this time it was localized in one spot and within one kooky family of dreamers.

  But the real world was hard on unique things.

  As a rule, Westgates had a short shelf life. Thraex had only been living among them for a relatively brief time and even he could see that.

  They strove too hard and reached too far. They were the victims of their own brilliance, their love of doomed adventures, the fools they tended to surround themselves with, and their own frailty. They couldn’t protect themselves because they had not been gifted by nature with the teeth and claws of predators.

  They weren’t monsters like Thraex.

  They were gentle gods. Not cruel demons bent on betrayal.

  So, they all fell away, one after the next, from failed experiments, foolhardy dreams, or as an unforeseen consequence of fantastic scientific discovery.

  The Westgate name filled textbooks and graveyards.

  Generation after generation.

  They built the future… but none of them would live to see it. That was their destiny.

  You could count the whole Westgate clan on one hand now. Only three of the laboratorie
s in the building were still occupied, and even then only seldom. The rest of them stood empty, probably never to be filled again.

  The Westgates were a dying breed.

  Which was why Thraex dedicated himself to preserving that endangered species. He’d spent years collecting them in the wild, and now he’d carved out a little habitat for them here, and he’d be damned if anything was going to threaten his surviving population. If it were up to him, he’d string up barbwire and landmines along Kirby St., and ensure that no one got within fifty feet of the Westgates and the borders of their preserve.

  Sadly, that was not to be. The very nature of being a Westgate meant that they would rebel against all barriers and rules. No matter how justified or reasonable. They allowed nothing to limit their minds or hold them back.

  It was a constant source of frustration for him. Why couldn’t they just sit quietly somewhere, safe and not getting into any trouble, and create genius things? Bring wonder and imagination to the world! Was that so hard? Why did they constantly need to complicate Thraex’s life?

  Sit still and be smart, dammit!

  One of these days, he was just going to remove all the sharp objects from the building, pad the walls, and then lock all the doors. Maybe then they’d show some damn sense and stay safe.

  His jaw ticked in silent frustration over the matter, and he made a checkmark on his clipboard next to the “gift shop” box. The area needed attention, but he didn’t have the time today. He would need to add it to his list of cosmetic fixes which weren’t an immediate danger to the structure of the building or its many treasures. Sadly, that particular list of issues was getting longer by the day, because he had so many other projects which were a higher priority.

  He absently straightened one of the framed pictures of the Westgate clan, which showed them standing in front of old Stanley Westgate’s “Ghost Car” in the garage area of the building. The photo was mounted next to the entrance of the gift shop and showed them celebrating some achievement they’d made with the help of Mrs. Magnolia Lafayette-Dupree and her husband, who were also in the photo.