Thraex got another box of equipment from the car, then looked over his clipboard to make certain that he hadn’t forgotten any of the buildings the owner had wanted to wire with the new security systems.
This job would pay well, but angering the clients would… be a bad idea.
Kurtz absently took a can of PBR beer out of the pocket of his fringed Hippie jacket, which had innumerable patches from various terrible 60s movies and untalented rock bands sewn onto it. He coupled the look with a Howdy Doody t-shirt, and flared-leg plaid pants, done in green, brown, white, and blue. It looked like the fabric from a particularly ugly couch. Strapped around his waist was a vintage novelty belt and holster, branded for some long-forgotten Rocket Age TV show, housing what appeared to be a toy ray-gun.
Thraex wasn’t always sure what people were supposed to wear in this dimension without looking ridiculous, but he was reasonably certain that Kurtz had long since crossed that line.
The man was still living his high school years, despite them being long ago.
It was a strange choice, since as far as Thraex could remember, the boy’s younger days hadn’t been any better than the present. He’d been a drunken bully then, he was a drunken bully now. But a more depressing one.
Some people could never figure out how to be an adult. They suffered from a terminal case of adolescence.
Kurtz was one of those people.
His was a life characterized by wasteful purposelessness.
The man quickly finished off his beer, then tossed the empty can aside.
Thraex frowned at the discarded can for a moment, then refocused on his paperwork. “You’re a scientist, aren’t y’all supposed to be tryin’ to save this planet or somethin’?”
Kurtz let out a scoffing sound. “Maybe I just understand enough science to know that it matters very little to the planet whether my trash is here or ten miles from here at the dump.” He pulled another beer from his pocket. “Both are equally bad, because both are on the planet.”
“Could recycle it.”
“Water is more important to the planet than anything else and recycling uses a lot of it.”
“Okay, it looks bad.”
“Aesthetics have very little to do with science.” Kurtz frowned down at his beer, then removed a fire extinguisher from the nearby wall, and stuffed the beer into the end of the sprayer hose. He emptied the extinguisher around the can, and the carbon dioxide in the extinguisher cooled his beverage, forming a large cloud which drifted along the pavement. He tossed the emptied extinguisher aside and took a long swig of his now icy drink.
Thraex watched the extinguisher clatter across the pavement into the darkness of the alley, frowning because he knew he’d have to pay the owner to recharge it. Using the extinguisher to chill his drink was, as far as Thraex could remember, the closest thing to “science” which Kurtz Westgate had done in at least four years though, so that was something.
“Besides,” Kurtz continued, “if you really cared how things looked, you wouldn’t be stalking my family like the goddamn ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame,’ dickwad.”
“Um… Uncle Kurtz?” Colby began in warning, worried that Thraex was going to hurt him.
Thraex held up a hand to the girl to show that he wasn’t planning murder right now.
All of that would come later, obviously. But none of them needed to know that yet.
“Focus on your giraffe, honey. We’re fine.” He assured her. Age wise, Colby wasn’t that much younger than Thraex, but he always thought of her as still just a pup.
“I don’t understand why Aunt Sasha didn’t come out here to help us.” The girl thought aloud, absently playing with the pull of one of the dozens of horizontally stacked zippers which made up her vintage-style tube dress. Some of the zippers were open, some of them were closed, and the entire thing barely reached her thighs. She paired the rather bold fashion choice with psychedelic knee socks patterned with the Westgate symbol, and white platform Mary Jane shoes. “What is she doing in that office?”
Despite hating attention, the girl always dressed to get it. She was… odd. Thraex was fairly good at understanding Westgates, he’d carefully observed his population of them the way other researchers might observe the behavior of hyenas or elephants. But Colby was always a bit of a wild card. She was an endearingly spacey girl. Innocent and brilliant, sleepwalking through life because her dreams were her real reality. But she did things which made no sense to him.
He mainly just tried to give her space and make sure she didn’t hurt herself.
“Your aunt has more important things to do tonight.” He made a checkmark next to the office to indicate that they had hooked everything up in there.
“Such as?” Colby asked, running a hand through her brown hair, making sure it still retained its complicated vintage flip style. The hairband she was using was covered with cartoon giraffes.
“Being a genius?” Thraex shrugged because the answer was so obvious that asking the question bordered on stupidity. “Changing the fabric of reality and bringing hope to those who live in despair and the icy shadow of fear?” He made a circle around the next warehouse on his map. “Stop asking silly questions.”
“That sounds like a lot to do in a night.” Colby said softly. “Zoe and I would take longer than a night to do that.” She looked down at her pet. “At least two, don’t you think?”
Zoe the giraffe made no attempt to settle the debate, apparently preferring to let her actions speak for themselves, rather than making predictions about her supposed skills.
“Your aunt can manage it, just focus on your own business, please.”
“Shit.” Kurtz finished his second beer and tossed it aside as well, belching loudly. “My plans for the evening involve getting drunk and putting together LEGO sets.” He told no one in particular. “Again.”
“No one cares, Kurtz.” Thraex snapped, then paused as something occurred to him. “Wait… who paid for the LEGOs?”
Kurtz was silent for a breath. “I’ll pay you back.”
Thraex made an irritated sound, then looked over at the Westgate’s driver. “There have been some reports of suspicious individuals on the east side of the lot. Can you go check it out while the Westgates and I finish up on the western warehouses?”
Nash stared at him blankly for a moment. “I am not ‘The Transporter,’ sir.” She reminded him. “I just drive the Westgates’ car.”
“We’d be able to get outta here a heck of a lot faster if you’d help, Nash.” He met the woman’s dark eyes, voice hardening. “Consider it part of your new duties with the Westgate Foundation.”
Nash didn’t seem intimidated, and instead simply pointed at Kurtz and Colby. “Miss Daisy.” She pointed at herself. “Morgan Freeman.” She shook her head. “Morgan Freeman doesn’t get involved in Miss Daisy’s business, Morgan Freeman stays by the car and reads her newspaper.” She leaned against the hood of the vehicle and made a shooing motion with one driver-gloved hand. “You kids go do science. I’ll be here with the car when you come back.” She opened her paper again. “…If you come back.”
Thraex pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to yell at people. He didn’t like scaring humans, he simply wanted them to do what he told them.
How hard was that?
Why couldn’t they just recognize the plan and fall in line with it?
If they just listened to what he told them and stayed within the safe little zones he carefully and meticulously prepared for them, everything would be fine. But no, instead they insisted on thwarting his efforts. If it were up to them, they’d scatter and all start running into traffic and randomly inventing toxic brain enhancers to drink.
Damn fool crazy Westgates.
That was the problem with being a betrayer: you had to endure all of the annoying things which happened before the betrayal, and…
His thoughts trailed off as he was distracted by Kurtz again.
According to Sasha, her brother was possi
bly the most intelligent man ever born in this galaxy, if not further. “The greatest scientific mind of all time,” she once claimed in something close to wonder. But at the moment, the man was reduced to trying to cook a Pop-Tart with a vintage lenticular cigarette lighter. Every few seconds, the hot wind blew the small butane flame too close to Kurtz’s fingers and he swore softly and moved them, only to repeat the process a moment later. So far, at least seven of the man’s fingers had been burned in that manner.
The Pop Tart stubbornly remained untoasted.
It was… almost like some kind of performance art. Thraex was hypnotized by the sheer captivating idiocy of it.
“Are you a really smart dumb person or a really dumb smart person?” Thraex asked him seriously, feeling like he needed an answer on that, once and for all. “Because, dammit son, one day I’ve got to know.” He grabbed the lapel of Kurtz’s jacket and shook it. “And why are you wearing this? You know you should dress like a normal person when we’re working. You’re supposed to be out here representing the Westgate Foundation.”
Kurtz scoffed at that. “My sister dresses like one of the goddamn Mad Men and you don’t have shit to say about that.”
“Aunt Sasha doesn’t wear business suits.” Colby corrected, looking confused. “Although Zoe looks quite dashing in them, I think.”
“One of their wives, Colby. Jesus.” Kurtz rolled his eyes dramatically, taking a bite of his untoasted S’More Pop Tart, finally admitting culinary defeat. “Are you sure you’re not ‘special needs’ or something? It’s like you can’t…”
Thraex glared at him and the man instantly stopped that line of thought.
“All I’m saying is that Sash is like if fucking Jackie O was a scientist.” Kurtz continued, trying a different line of attack. “And a blonde. She’s… sad. Completely out of style.” He snorted, causing the fringe of his vintage brown Hippie jacket to sway. “Looks stupid. Like that fucking ghost house we live in. If it were up to me, I’d gut the whole thing and go ultra-modern and hip. Fully functional babe lair, you know? Lava lamps, tie-dye, black lights… Something more ‘today.’ Buy all new shit, rather than the flea market junk we got now.”
“Thankfully, nothing in this world is ‘up to you,’ Kurtz.” Thraex didn’t even try to hide the contempt in his voice. The idea of redecorating the Westgate Foundation building was the stupidest idea any Westgate had ever come up with, rivaling Professor Westgate’s “Hey, I think I’ll start drinking brain poison tonight!” plan and Baxter’s “What if I switched brains with a damn dinosaur?” scheme.
As long as there was breath in his body, no one would change anything about that building except the occasional lightbulb.
It was perfect the way it was.
“I would go with ‘Maternal.’” Nash suggested, still reading her paper. “Sasha is ‘gentle.’ ‘Wholesome.’ ‘Pure.’”
“Press ‘X’ to doubt.” Kurtz retorted in the inane video game verbiage he sometimes used, rolling his eyes like he was the last same man in his family tree. “That’s not how an adventurer scientist should dress.”
“Well, we can’t all dress like we’re Jimi Hendrix’s washed-up douchebag little brother.” Thraex shot back, once again shaking the man’s hippie jacket. “Sasha Westgate prefers conservative and timeless attire, because Sasha Westgate has dignity, pride, and class. She can wear whatever she wants and she lets her actions and mind speak, rather than her body. Her clothes are perfect the way they are.”
Kurtz started laughing at that, for some reason. “Half the time, Sasha Westgate looks like the mother from an old sitcom. The perfect smiling housewife who greets her husband at the door in a pristine housedress, handing him his martini and telling him the pot roast is almost done.”
Thraex squinted at him in confusion. “I don’t watch human sitcoms, but I’m at a loss why adopting this look would be a bad thing?”
“Zoe likes sitcoms.” Colby interjected. “As a species, giraffes are fans of the scripted comedy format.”
“Shut up, Colby!” Kurtz made an aggravated sound. “I should have gone out and gotten laid.”
“I can’t imagine any woman wanting to sleep with you, Uncle Kurtz.” Colby shook her head, wrinkling her face in disgust. “Even Zoe thinks you’re horrible, and giraffes are…”
“Stop telling me what giraffes like! It’s a fucking giraffe!” Kurtz pointed at the tiny animal in question. “Fucking giraffes don’t do anything but clip-clop around on little giraffe hooves, doing fucking giraffe things!”
“Do NOT yell at your niece OR your niece’s giraffe.” Thraex stepped between them, pushing Kurtz back. “Right now, Zoe is more important to this business than you are, son, ‘cause Zoe pulls her own weight and doesn’t complain!”
“Giraffes are very stoic.” Colby agreed seriously.
Nash turned another page in her newspaper. “I’ve always thought Sasha looked just like a blonde Gene Tierney.”
Kurtz frowned at her in confusion. “The cowboy?”
Nash rolled her eyes. “That’s Gene Autry, moron.”
“You can’t talk to me like that!” Kurtz cried indignantly, turning to Thraex like he expected him to put a stop to that and immediately jump to Kurtz’s defense. “Thraex, tell her she can’t talk to me like that!”
“Nash can talk to you however she wants, because she does her job and doesn’t whine at me about it either.”
“She does have a giraffe-like sense of duty, yes.” Colby agreed.
“Damn right, sir.” Nash nodded sharply, ignoring the girl. “And I can’t believe that a man who is wearing pink plastic crocs with white dress socks is lecturing someone on fashion.” She gestured to Kurtz. “This is a first.”
Thraex put his face in his hands. “Kurtz, where are your shoes? Didn’t I just buy you very expensive vintage boots for when we’re working?”
The man was silent for a beat. “I… lost them.”
“How can you ‘lose’ your shoes?” Thraex pinched the bridge of his nose again, trying not to yell. Trying really, really hard not to yell, because it scared people, and there was nothing in the multiverse more problematic than a frightened Westgate. That was like begging for your surviving population to suddenly halve overnight. “You’re a grown-ass man, for pity’s sake!”
“Alright, fine! I sold them, okay!?!” Kurtz threw his arms wide, voice going up an octave. “I needed money to buy a loot box in the Adventure Academy game, and Sasha wouldn’t give me any, because you wouldn’t give us the money we earned!” He jabbed a finger into Thraex’s chest. “So it’s your fault I don’t have shoes!”
“One of his floozies stole his boots, sir.” Nash corrected.
“She did not!” Kurtz shook his head furiously. “She just borrowed them. But she’ll return them soon!” He crossed his arms over his chest in certainty. “And then ooooooh, I’ll laugh at you all for ever doubting her!”
“I paid for those boots! Those were my boots!” Thraex advanced on the man, temper snapping. “You will tell me this woman’s name. Now. I aim to retrieve my property.”
“Who would buy used shoes from Uncle Kurtz?” Colby wondered aloud, apparently directing the question to her pet.
And, unsurprisingly, Zoe the giraffe was found without answers to another one of life’s deepest mysteries.
“I’m sure there’s someone who would.” Thraex answered instead, letting Zoe off the hook. “It’s astonishing how stupid people are, Colby. Your uncle is by no means special in that regard.” He held up a finger to draw the girl’s attention to this valuable teaching moment. “This is a cautionary tale for you and Zoe: apply yourselves or one day, it will be your shoes which are stolen by prostitutes, Pichouette.”
Colby immediately nodded, like she’d remember that life lesson forever.
“I do plenty of stuff for this company,” Kurtz defended, “I’m sick of people saying otherwise.”
“You’re basically graveyard dead already.” Thraex told him flatly. “You d
on’t do anything. You don’t even try.”
“I do plenty of stuff!”
“Video games don’t count.”
Kurtz snorted at that idea. “In the cosmic scheme of things, my video game success and the survival of the entire earth both amount to exactly shit, Thraex.” He gestured to their surroundings. “You think any of this matters? Do you have any idea how many dimensions have this exact building? What makes this one so goddamned special!?!” He threw the remains of his untoasted Pop Tart at the wall of the building, his final revenge on the food for its refusal to properly cook over a Zippo. “Do you know how many different versions of us there are, having this same conversation right now?”
Thraex rolled his eyes, still trying not to yell. He was already feeling on edge, the taste of Sasha Westgate’s mouth still wet on his lips, and he didn’t want to jeopardize that by wringing her brother’s neck. “And I pity each and every me, which is forced to listen to all of those annoying, stupid, drunken yous.” He shook his head in condemnation of the man’s choices and where they had led. “You’re in the dust right now, son, in case it’s escaped your attention. In the damn dust.”
Kurtz gestured to their surroundings again. “All of this has already happened, man! It’s all inside fucking pi!” Kurtz’s last beer was beginning to take hold, his voice now sounding slurred and far away. “Pi is a mathematical constant… an infinite string. And since it’s infinite, every possible combination of numbers exists somewhere inside it.” He used a marker to start writing out the numbers of pi on the large billboard for Triumph Industries which was mounted on the wall next to him, before Thraex’s hand shot out to stop him. He yanked the marker away from him and tucked it inside his pocket.
They were already security guards, he didn’t want to spend the rest of the night cleaning that idiot’s drunken graffiti off the side of their client’s building, particularly if the graffiti was made up of numbers which would literally go on forever.
At this point, it really would be cheaper and easier to simply hire actors to pretend to be the Westgates when they were out in public. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t seriously considered it before. He remained fairly certain that he could cast a more convincing and less depressing Kurtz Westgate on any street corner in the city.
Broke and Famous Page 12
