Squinting in concentration, Tuesday tried to remember what specific hand motion he needed to do in order to access the organiser. This was tough, as Tuesday hadn't been paying attention when the Omni had played its automated tutorial. Like far too many people, Tuesday had just kept hitting NEXT and I ACCEPT until the floating screens went away.
Flicking his index finger at the wall prompted the Omni to create a full-immersion holographic display of the local news that filled the entire room. Just like the writing in the sky, the holo was covering a major story about some cutting-edge ship called The Frontier that was finally getting launched in a few hours. Even though the full-immersion program made Tuesday feel as though he was actually at the heart of the story, he wasn't really into the whole “current affairs” thing. A second identical flick of the same index finger made the program go away.
Tuesday grunted as the Omni implant vibrated for a fourth time.
Clicking his fingers in a cool way like Fonzie caused an avalanche of household robots to pour out of every wall and from beneath all fifteen lounges. Lifting his bare feet up as the bots swirled about the room, crawling over each other so they could compete to suck up every mote of dust and floating skin cell, Tuesday tried spinning his pinky in the air.
“Confirm?” a disembodied voice asked.
“Yes, confirm.” Tuesday snapped, looking about as he tried to figure out where the words had come from.
Nothing happened for precisely two seconds, but then there was a cheery beep and the voice spoke again.
“Confirmed.”
Tuesday fell off the lounge as a deafening red-alert alarm blared throughout the whole apartment like the world itself had been split in two, and Tuesday was certain his heart had seized up and stopped as two solid feet of unbreakable adamantium siege armouring slid over all of the plate glass windows with a rolling KOOM noise. Sealing the loft only made the alarm roar louder as it bounced off the impermeable metal slabs.
“THERMONUCLEAR PROTECTION ENABLED.”
“Tuesday!” Ms Humple screeched from somewhere. “You did it again! Where are you? Turn it off! Turn it off!”
Uh oh...
Knowing that his day would get a lot worse if Ms Humple caught sight of him anytime soon, Tuesday gathered his clothes, ducked and ran for the front door like a roadie. Repeating the same “spinning pinky” gesture caused the adamantium shielding to retract into its housing, and just as the front door unsealed from siege mode Tuesday skidded under it and into the plush corridor. Performing a commando roll for the elevator, Tuesday could hear Ms Humple's shriek of rage as she caught sight of him through the half-open front door.
Tuesday stabbed at the elevator buttons as she ran for him, wrapped in nothing but polyweave sheets and armed with a vase. The doors scissored shut just as the blue ceramic flower holder arced through the air and smashed to pieces against the outer layer of elevator doors with a KISH noise.
Still dressed in nothing but boxer shorts, Tuesday screwed his eyes shut and slid to the floor in relief. Opening one eye between the mesh of his fingers, Tuesday finally remembered the correct hand gesture. Feeling dumb, he jabbed the Omni with his opposite index finger and said one word.
“Organiser.”
There was a little tweet noise and a tiny purple holographic Mister Drizzle appeared on the back of Tuesday's hand. Due to his long history of making soft toys of this exact Disney character in a sweatshop, Tuesday mentally noted that he urgently needed to change the avatar of his Omni before he lost control and stabbed it. Every stupid cartoony element of the purple creature made Tuesday want to claw the implant out of his skin just to make it stop, and he struggled to remain civil.
“Good second afternoon, Mister Tuesday!” Mister Drizzle announced, dancing and carrying on like a twit as wacky music tooted in the background. “So far today you have missed six appointments classed as Very Urgent, you have ninety-five threatening messages from assorted religious organisations, three death threats from the Mayor, and more than eight hundred and fifty thousand spam messages from somebody known as BonerMaster1983.” Mister Drizzle did a ta-da motion. “You have one remaining Very Urgent appointment. Would you like me to call you a cab?”
Tuesday nodded, and Mister Drizzle mercifully vanished.
As the foyer of Tuesday's apartment building was three klicks straight down, he had a good thirty seconds to spray on a pair of socks and slip into his clothes before the descent ended. By the time the aerosol can of socks had finished psshhhhing out a neat layer of disposable material onto both his feet that would last precisely eighteen hours before dissolving into mist (Or Your Money Back!) Tuesday's ears popped from the change in air pressure and the doors slid open. Swaggering into the foyer in his designer jeans and arty tee-shirt, Tuesday did his best to pretend he didn't care that he was stumping around with only one boot. Heck, the way things had been going lately, he might just start a planet-wide trend.
*
A four minute ride in the back seat of a generic robotic cab gave Tuesday plenty of time to get lost in his thoughts. Gazing aimlessly through the eternal ivory jungle, Tuesday didn't bother making any plans for what he'd say or what he'd do when he got to wherever it was he was going. In fact, Tuesday didn't even care where today's Very Urgent appointment was, or what it was about. Without trying to sound too negative, it literally didn't matter what he said, or who he said it to, or where he said it. Tuesday had already learned that everything he did in public was extensively altered by an army of spin-doctors, holographic animators, audio tweakers and other flim-flam propaganda experts before any footage hit the news. Obviously the Mayor's office wasn't going to allow somebody as stupid and unpredictable as Tuesday to make them look bad, but the propagandists never had such a tough time making somebody look inoffensive. Several senior members of the propaganda department had already suffered nervous breakdowns, and massive overtime bonuses had been necessary to stop the remaining employees from going on strike.
Tuesday was a public relations disaster in human form.
Once he'd been awarded the Binary Star in front of the whole planet, Tuesday was respectfully informed by his handlers that he'd be doing a full circuit of all the talk shows on Seven Suns. Over the span of five straight days Tuesday had been shuttled from station to station in limousines and interviewed by so many big names that he couldn't remember nine tenths of them. It was beyond words...it was beyond his most grandiose dreams...
But then he'd found out the truth.
Perhaps the total lack of live audiences should have tipped him off, but Tuesday didn't discover the reality of the editing arrangement until after he'd watched the delayed telecasts. Not only had the propaganda department deleted every single word he'd said, but they'd used vast teams of animators to shape the useless footage into a totally synthetic Bob Tuesday. This Bob Tuesday was charming, well-spoken, humble, encouraged his fellow citizens to work hard at their civic duty, and had a gleaming smile that was whiter than an albino eating a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a spoon carved out of ivory.
The real Tuesday had almost vomited at the sheer scale of the falsehood.
The worst part was realising that the people who lived in this endless afternoon didn't really like him at all: they liked this pseudo-Tuesday, this anti-Bob. Sure, the luxury apartment was awesome, and the frequent requests for his (always illegible) autographs were always a buzz, but Tuesday couldn’t help but feel that he was less a hero, and more of a…well, some kind of mascot. After all, Tuesday hadn’t done anything of note since escaping the clutches of Prince Charming, and he certainly didn’t consider himself as valuable as the government thought him to be.
It didn't matter. It really didn't. Nothing did.
*
Tuesday disembarked from the cab after tapping his SpendPlus card on a reader. Automatically selecting the “No Tip” option on the little screen, Tuesday was almost positive that the robotic driver called him a spug-brained clot just as the vehicle slammed its au
tomated doors shut. There was no time for a snappy comeback before the yellowcab had disappeared, though.
Grumbling at the insult, Tuesday turned away from the taxi rank to see he was standing outside what could only be a MacDeath franchise. It was unmistakable: the massive restaurant was composed of a chaotic swirl of yellow and golden angles that would be more at home in a Ren & Stimpy cartoon, broken up by enormous neon-white screens covered with videos of sizzling meat patties and melting cheese. It was enough to make a vegetarian barf. A holographic marquee proudly declared MacDeaths: No Longer The Third-Highest Cause of Preventable Death Among Humans!
Tuesday cussed under his breath and hit the Omni implanted in his hand meat.
“Organiser,” Tuesday snapped. Mister Drizzle immediately reappeared on the back of Tuesday's hand in a burst of glittering holographic confetti, but before the cartoon character could say a single irritating word Tuesday flicked him right in the side of his stupid purple head. “I'm not in the mood for your crap, Drizzle. Just tell me one thing: why in the Green Hades am I standing outside a MacDeath restaurant? Did you get the address wrong?”
Mister Drizzle blinked in surprise. His comical purple face glitched for a second as the underlying software quadruple-checked its log for any errors.
“This is the correct address, Bob. You're standing in front of the ten-thousandth MacDeath franchise that has opened on Seven Suns since the High Court ban was officially repealed last week, and you've been booked to eat a complementary third lunch here to welcome the MacDeath Combine to the planet.”
“Third lunch? You mean dinner, right?” Tuesday waved for Mister Drizzle to shut up. He didn't care. “Doesn't matter. So I'm just here to eat? That's all? Nothing else?”
Mister Drizzle nodded.
“Yup!”
Tuesday tapped the Omni implant, and Mister Drizzle instantly vanished. Looking up from his hand, Tuesday startled a bit at the sight of an ordained Reaper from the Morbid Cult who was silently standing outside the restaurant. Tuesday's surprise was understandable, as the Children of Death dressed up like their patron: flowing midnight cloaks with grinning white skull masks buried deeply within shadowed hoods. Just to complete the look, they wielded long, two-handed scythes. While it may sound like a terrifying prospect to come across such a figure, you have to keep in mind that most people saw the Reapers as a harmless pack of deluded nerds who were best politely avoided. It didn't help that any new converts who decided to become Children of Death had to craft their own Reaper outfits (which coincidentally kept down costs for the notoriously stingy Morbid Cult), as many of their handmade efforts were just terrible. This particular example of sadness had obviously tried to dye an old tablecloth black in order to use it as a cloak, but Tuesday could clearly see little yellow ducks here and there that had simply refused to disappear into the darkness. To make matters worse, the Reaper's skull mask was made from shiny plastic and held in place by a rubber band, and the ceremonial scythe was moulded rubber. After all, even on a world of religious freedom like Seven Suns, allowing people in badly-fitting masks to carry around giant ear-height blades was just asking for trouble.
Rather than harvesting souls for the empty abyss, this particular Reaper must have drawn the short straw, as he (she?) was attempting to hand out Morbid Cult pamphlets to the wobbling mounds of self-hating cellulite who frequented MacDeaths. The pamphlets appeared to have the “Death” Tarot card badly Photoshopped as a low-resolution cover. Nobody wanted one.
Like most people who saw a Reaper, Tuesday put his head down and walked faster. Unfortunately, Tuesday's fame backfired yet again when the Reaper immediately recognised him, and the cloaked sadsack moved to intercept Tuesday before he could take shelter in the fast food joint.
“The Mortal known as Robert Tuesday!” the Reaper boomed, raising his rubber scythe in an intimidating manner. He juggled the pamphlets deep within his cloak so he could wield the novelty weapon with both hands. “Robert Tuesday! The Eternal Void calls to you! A question: did you know that when Life inevitably ends, Death begins?”
“You don't say?” Tuesday grunted non-committally, trying to dodge the Reaper. The cloaked nerd blocked him again.
“Death is inevitable, Mortal!” the Reaper proclaimed, waving his scythe. Its rubber blade wobbled pathetically. “Are you wasting your time on Life? Life is a worthless thing destined to end but one way, and to dwell on it is foolish! Focus on Death, which does not end! Death, which never ceases!” The Reaper opened his arms wide like he was about to attempt a star jump. “Death needs you to share His Dark Message to the other Mortals of this doomed world, Robert Tuesday! You have been summoned, and you must answer! You must tell this world that you choose Death as your patron!”
Tuesday tried to dodge the cultist, but he was denied yet again.
“Death will never leave you, Mortal! Death is the Dark Overlord of all, and He will always be here for you in all His majesty! Embrace the Darkness, Mortal! Embrace it! He is nearly here! Embrace Him!”
Glancing around for witnesses, Tuesday took a long step towards the Reaper and viciously sank a bony kneecap into the nerd's groin. The Child of Death yelped like a lonely puppy, dropped his scythe, gripped his punished genitals with both hands, and slumped miserably to the ground.
“Embrace that, you meat-parcel,” Tuesday muttered.
Finally stomping through the automated neon yellow doors, Tuesday was instantly struck by the sheer largeness of the hundreds of consumers who had almost filled the restaurant to capacity. None of them seemed to be able to sit on the thousand or so ultra-wide steel chairs without sagging over the edges, and many of the patrons were somehow wider than they were tall. It was highly likely that many of these head-cases had dutifully followed the controversial MacDeath Combine across the known galaxy as it was banned one planet at a time, temporarily settling wherever their beloved dispensers of food-like carnage wound up. Nothing could stop these extreme grease-junkies from continuing to swallow life one bite at a time to the sweet and salty end, and that end would probably involve one of those special spherical coffins that (coincidentally) were only fabricated by the MacDeath Combine.
Tuesday liked what he saw. Next to these guys, he looked attractive.
Sidling up to one of the fifty sweeping yellow ordering counters, Tuesday approached a cashier that had a face like a cheesy-crust pepperoni pizza with extra pepperoni. He tried not to look at a cluster of facial acne that bordered on a supernatural curse from Baal himself as the cashier gave the biggest smile a human face could manage without mechanical assistance.
“Welcome to MacDeaths, where we guarantee that you'll have your meal within fifteen seconds of ordering, or everybody in the store gets fired! What can I get you today, sir?”
Tuesday drew a blank. He shrugged.
“Dunno. What have you got?”
The cashier's smile remained bolted firmly in place. She rattled off her answer as though she'd said it a million times.
“Never been to MacDeath's before, sir? Our most popular meal is the quadruple crusty-skinned bacon slab with sugar-fried cheesy mash sticks and a jumbo glug on the side! All our products are guaranteed to have a double-dose kick of the finest ultrasweet, or your money back!”
Tuesday raised an eyebrow.
“A glug?”
“A glug is MacDeath's signature pig-fat shake! We have double-choc, mega-choc, and ultra-choc!”
“Is there a difference?”
The smile faltered. Her eyelid twitched.
“I...no. Not really.”
Tuesday did a double-take as his brain replayed what he'd just been told.
“Wait, did you say that your food has ultrasweet in it? I thought that stuff was banned after all those toddlers had strokes!”
The cashier's smile returned and she immediately placed a tiny syringe on the counter. The capped needle was a bright, fake golden colour, and its swirling liquid contents were all the colours of the rainbow. The mysterious dose shimmered like
a black opal next to a campfire.
“Due to the powerful intensity of our mouthwatering ingredients, every MacDeath meal comes with a complementary dessert shot! One painless jab in the abdomen is guaranteed to instantly return your organ functioning to optimal levels! The MacDeath Combine wishes to advise, however, that refusing your complementary dessert shot will indemnify the Combine from any complications – up to and including death - that is likely to occur from eating your meal.”
Tuesday looked at the needle in an unimpressed way. The stabbing part was so fine that it was hard to make it out with the naked eye, but that wasn't the point (so to speak).
Scum of the Universe Page 25
