L agreed, her grammar eroded so the primates could understand better,“Yea, most human pussy. That’s why we’re here. Our people went crazy. We left our people.”
King was intrigued, “You left your human people? Come fight Company with us?”
L was becoming the ambassador, when she spoke, King could feel her truth, “Well, we didn’t know you were here. We knew nothing about the Forest before we came.”
King replied, “You Human brave.” He smiled and looked over at Axl. “What
like other side fence?”
L went on to give the very short version of human society. She made sure to include ICs, Ads, War, crime, how bad we treat animals.
“Primate in cage on outside?” King asked.
“All of em?” Axl added.
“Not all, but very few free.” Perry chimed in.
The humans then explained to the primates that primates on that side of the wall
couldn’t talk and were not as smart as King and Axl.
“All Primate smart.” King proudly said.
“Maybe, but we’ve never heard any gorilla or chimpanzee talk before we got
here.” Perry said.
King and Axl looked at each other confused.
“We free?” Axl asked King.
King looked at the humans, “We free all Primate on other side of fence. After
will kill big machine.”
Axl smiled deviously.
Perry held out his arms and and shook his head,”That’s all fine with me. I’ll help.”
King sat, in thought for a while. Then got up and walked towards the door. “Come.”
They left the cave and walked down another long hallway. King pointed to a door they were approaching. “Smart.” He said.
They opened the door and walked into what looked like a low budget mad
scientist’s lab. Boiling liquids in test tubes above bunsen burners, but at the same time some ingredients were kept in soda bottles. There was trash everywhere. Back behind a wall of computers and web of wires hanging from the ceiling, a colorful baboon face emerged. It’s eyes behind round glasses, with attachments on the glasses that looked like magnifying glasses and other different colored lenses. Behind the baboon, a wall of computers hummed, flashing lights like a science fiction movie. Many different monitors hung from all different directions, all focused on the Baboon. It wasn’t just a science lab, it was a computer lab also.
“Ohh, hello!” The Baboon said.
“He Einstien.” King introduced. After a short pause King continued,”All computer, we steal from warstore.”
Tony walked up, carefully taking steps over the terrain of junk on the floor. He
stared at the computer monitors, trying to see something that looked familiar. Tony had spent thousands of hours on computers, he knew how to program a bit. It wasn’t Windows, Mac or Linux. “What OS is that?” “OS?” The Baboon asked.
“What kind of computer?” Tony simplified his question.
“Company.” King tried to answer.
“Company only.” The baboon continued. “I not know Human computer. But I see in notes, Company make their own computer. Prevent human hack.”
Tony looked at the monitor the Baboon was staring at. It was unique, the Elohssa Corporation logo was built into the operating system. Tony looked in amazement at Perry and L.
“Smart.” Perry said.
The baboon pushed up his glasses,”Easy to learn. I learn.”
Tony pointed to part of the screen, the Baboon looked and said something to
him, they began talking about details on the screen the other beings in the room couldn’t see.
“I show you more of our home?” King asked, mostly to L and Perry.
“Yea.” Perry said.
“Sure.” L replied.
“Where do you get those worms!?” Perry wanted to know more about those powerful hallucinogenic white worms he was treated to earlier.
King snorted a laugh and nodded to the right, like “Let’s go.”
“We’ll leave the nerds.” Perry said looking over at Tony and Einstein.
Tony was looking excited. “A simulator?” He asked Einstein. Einstein shook his head like he wasn’t sure and Tony looked up as the others were leaving the room. “I think this thing as a warstore simulator!” Tony pulled up a chair excitedly and Einstein put a headset on him, Einstein was talking, pointing at different parts of the keyboard as Tony nodded.
Axl, King, L and Perry walked. These underground hallways seemed to go for miles, connecting hollowed out trees along the way. Sometimes the hallways were so long and straight, if you looked forward or back you could seemingly see the curve of the Earth.
Perry looked around, “This place is fucking amazing.”
“We make worm.” Axl said as they approached a door.
King opened the door,”She make worm.” Another mad scientist room. This time no computers. An orangutan that could only be described as a Janis Joplin lookalike sat behind a low table on the ground. Silently L bet that was her name also.
She looked up at the group and closed her eyes, head up with a gigantic smile.
Her mouth barely moved, “Come iiin.”
There were small pillows around the table that seemed liked seats, everyone
took one while the orangutan got up and shuffled at the table behind her. She was pouring tea. She looked back and counted the heads to make sure, then walked around the table, handing everyone a small cup.
“Hello Janis.” L said before being properly introduced.
Janis stopped in her tracks, she looked at L in amazement. “How did you know that?!” Then Janis looked to King before she could answer. “Psychics?!”
L answered,”Janis Joplin. I love her.”
Janis quickly shuffled over to L, putting the tray of tea down on the table and
hugged her. It was a long, warm hug, one of the best L had ever felt. Janis whispered in L’s ear, “You are so completely welcome here, my long lost friend. What’s mine is yours. I love you.”
The hug was so long that Axl made a face, grabbed the tea tray and handed out
the rest. Perry smelled the tea, no doubt it was mushroom tea. He silently
thought,”Damn, they just hand out shroomin tea and don’t even tell you. FUCK YEA I
LOVE THIS PLACE.”
Jimi popped out of Axl’s jacket and grabbed a sip of Axl’s tea. The humans had forgot Jimi was even here.
Janis returned her attention to all of her guests. “How’re things my friends?
Are you two ready for the show?” She asked Jimi and Axl.
“Fuck yea ready.” Axl stated.
Jimi followed, after a sip of the tea,”Ohh yea man.”
Perry and L didn’t know what they were talking about. Axl informed them,”The Winter show is in two days.”
“Yea man.” Jimi added.
Axl continued,”We know how to party.” Jimi made a metal face and banged his head. “We learned how to do good metal shows from watching human shows, videos.” L and Janis talked, leaning into each other.
King added, talking mostly to Perry since L was involved, ”It’s great, you love.”
Then he made a face like he remembered something,”Ohh, day after show, attack Company.” King smiled, “You love attack too.”
24
PRIMATE LAN PARTY
King and Axl left the humans, they would meet later for dinner. Perry and L went back to find Tony. As they approached the door to the Einstein’s room, the hallway became crowded. A bunch of primates were standing in the hall, looking into the lab. L and Pery looked at eat other and rushed to the door, not knowing if they should be scared or not. They heard some yelling and then a big cheer, which eased their nerves. They looked in the door, it was hot and crowded. There were about 20 monkeys, primates and Tony all intently staring at monitors. They were all playing a game, the same game. Explosions blasted from speakers and beings bounced in front o
f their monitors, either from dying or getting a kill. It wasn’t a game Perry or L had ever seen before. Perry stared at some of the monitors, they were all playing as warstores, in some sort of deathmatch. Tony was one of the last alive. In a hail of missiles, explosions and dodging in and out of cover, everyone in the room yelled as one warstore emerged from the smoke.
Tony shook his head, he didn’t win. It was a chimpanzee with dreads who had
won. He had a big smile and slid his head back and forth in celebration. He wore a baggy sweater with Jamaican colors. “Yeah mon!” he said, looking back and forth at his dead competitors. “Bring it!”
They started another round. Tony nodded to L and Perry and they made their way over to him through the crowd.
“What the hell man, you started a LAN party?” Perry asked.
Tony was excited, trying to tell a story and concentrate on playing this warstore
game at the same time. “This Elohssa computer shit is sweet! It’s so easy to use!” In the game Tony’s warstore moved out from in between 2 buildings and fired 2 giant tank turrets. He stopped talking for a second to concentrate on the game, his warstore went in reverse, back between the buildings and explosions went off in front of him. As soon as the explosion was almost over, he rushed forward firing where he knew an enemy was even though he couldn’t see through the smoke. Massive explosions. A baboon on the other side of the room screamed and put his ass in the air. He looked at Tony and pointed at his Baboon ass, shaking it in disbelief.
“Nice!, Perry said.
“Yea these tank turret guns are the best. They’re supposed to be a backup weapon, but their pretty effective and have nearly unlimited ammo.” His warstore charged from behind a giant rock and emerged behind 2 other warstores focused on fighting each other. Tony hit both as they destroyed each other, then focused on finishing off whoever won. As he fought to finish off the wounded warstore, he continued,”The tank turrets are way better than the main gun. Everyone uses the main gun.”
From behind Tony he was hit with a flurry of missiles, then a barrage of tank
turret shots, before he could turn his store around he was dead.
“Ohh yea mon!” Bob Marley the chimpanzee yelled out again, doing his
signature back and forth head slide. He won again.
Tony conceded,”That guy’s good. He’s sneaky.” He got up and someone else
sat in his spot.
They sat in the middle of an intense LAN party of primates and monkeys, playing a super realistic warstore deathmatch game on a custom system of elite computers made by the richest corporation on Earth.
“Look” Tony pointed behind them, L and Perry looked. There was a large stack
of what looked like jet black, featureless boxes. Each individual box was about the size of a Red Bull 4 pack, almost square, a little taller than wide. They were featureless except for a little green LED light on each one. There was a stack of them, about 10 wide by 20 long. Tony snapped one off like a Lego, the green light turned red. “They’re totally interchangeable and redundant.” He stuck it on the big stack in a different spot, it connected easily and the light turned green.
Tony pointed around at each monitor the monkeys and primates were playing
on. “Each box is called a Stacker. And each one is like a processor, monitor and touch screen combined into one. Look at their monitors.” Tony pointed, then Perry and L noticed, the screens weren’t monitors, they were playing on smaller sets of connected Stackers. “They’re not monitors,”Tony explained,”It’s just the side of a bunch of these connected Stackers. It’s like computer Legos!”
Perry looked more closely at the monitor in front of them, it was a a stack of Stackers, three high by four wide. Tony grabbed four off the big stack and began attaching them to the top with strong snapping sounds. Then he snapped four on the side and when he attached the final one, the screen adjusted to the new size and filled up the empty space, now it was four high by five wide. The screen adjusted while that monkey was playing.
“The more you connect, the more powerful computer.” He touched the big
stack, “This is running the game, each of the others is connected it to wirelessly. They just know.”
Tony was excited and continued,”It all just works perfectly together. I’m guessing cuz they made it completely custom.”
Einstein interjected,”And no viruses, no else have.”
“There’s no restrictions, because these computers only exist on warstores. There are instructions in there. I was reading em. They basically think warstores are impregnable. But each box can be wiped in an emergency.” Tony seemed to learn a lot in the few hours they left him. “And if you wipe it, there is no trace of the OS. It’s just a dead black box.”
Tony snapped another box off the stack, held it up near his face so everyone
could see and touched it with one finger. The face of the jet black box lit up, Tony moved his finger which selected through a few menus. It popped up a screen that showed everyone’s screen currently playing the warstore game. He pulled his finger off and the side of the box went black. “So fucking cool. They stole these directly from a warstore.” “How?” Perry asked.
Tony answered,”I guess they broke in. I’m not sure how they did, but that’s what Einstein said.”
Einstein continued,”The guys make another run day after rock show.”
“Ohh that’s what they were talking about.” Perry put it together in his head.
It was pretty late in the night, no one knew what time, at least none of the humans knew. Tony was so excited, he was alert and in this hot LAN party of a room, he was sweating and people were yelling all around him. He was in his element. L was tired, it was a long day.
“I’m going to bed.” She yelled so Perry and Tony could hear.
Perry agreed,”I’m tired too.”
Tony wasn’t done yet,”I’m gonna stay.” Einstein and a small group of other monkeys were looking over his shoulder. He was showing them the video pinball game he had downloaded on his phone. They were enthralled. “See ya.” Tony said.
Perry and L went back to the room and met with clone Perry, Perry’s girlfriend
and Fozzie. They had been here a few days now. Perry, his clone and girlfriend all shared a bed. Tony and L shared a bed. Fozzie got a bed and the other bed was for storage. Perry took off his clones and jumped into bed naked with his clone and woman. They greeted him with open arms and laughter and went under the sheets giggling. L laid down, Fozzie jumped up in bed with L. They slept.
A few hours later, Tony crept in quietly and laid down next to L and Fozzie. He closed his eyes moments before the sun came up.
25
G6
Inside the slick cockpit of an Elohssa warstore. It was quiet, except for the humming of computers and muffled monotone voices in headsets. It kind of sounded like the ambient sound effects in the line at Space Mountain in Disneyland, if you were alone.
A door slid open quietly, three men walked into the cockpit. Their hard shoes clicking on the hard shiny floor in unison. The man walking in the middle was the captain, he stopped as the other two hurried off, quickly getting reports from the supervisors.
One of the supervisors started, “Sir, the President is about to live tweet #AddressTheNation in 10, 9..”
The captain interrupted calmy,”Yes, yes. I know, just turn it on. No need for the countdown.” The captain gestured to a guard and the guard hurried over to the supervisor, grabbed him violently by the shoulder and dragged him out of the cockpit.
“Wait! Wait!” The supervisor yelled. He tried grabbing the door frame as the guard pulled him through.
The captain sat down in a chair, probably that supervisors, reached into his
pocket and pulled out a gelatinous grey cube and popped it into his mouth. With his mouth closed, his jaws moved as he sucked on the cube. He calmly and slowly put his feet up on the desk in front of him. He put his hands on his chest, finge
rs interwoven. His full attention turned to the main screen as it flicked on.
The screen faded in. The camera was pointing down at the floor, the camera began panning up.
A loud bass line starts up, a few seconds later an amatuer sounding rapper
comes in over it, almost every word is a reference to drugs, hos or being rich and having guns. Anyone not from this era would hardly understand a word of what he was saying because it was all slang. Slang is a fast evolving creature. Every year it gets faster and faster. When ICs got big some words would only be cool for a day. Someone somewhere misspells a word in a funny way and the whole world sees it on social media milliseconds after it happens, the guy who tries to misspell that word on purpose the next day is the biggest bozo alive. And if you’re one of the top rappers in the world you have to be on top of that shit man!
The camera pans up enough and the first thing you can see is two shoes badly
boppin to the beat. The shoes are completely different, but they’re on the same person, one is gold and one is platinum and they both have extravagantly designed carvings in them. Looking closely the carvings looks like a drive by shooting scene, each shoe shooting at each other. The camera keeps panning up and you finally see that he is wearing pants that only have one leg. It pans up the old white hairy leg more and you see that he has just rolled up one leg of his pant legs. His pants are covered in logos, slogans and unreadable tags.
The slow pan up continues, so the does the bad rapping and dancing. Next, his belly is exposed and you can make out the word “Fuck” tattooed across it, mixed in with some nasty looking scars. Above that he is wearing a bulletproof vest with no undershirt, with the words “Abortion Rules! Use BayBBgone!” on the bullet proof vest. Finally the camera pulls out and you can see, this is the Oval Office and that’s G6, the President of the United States as the music fades enough to hear him speak.
“Dat’s mah new single “Hot Infant Slut”. Holla ach yo pre-si-dent!! See I got
tha uuk ups, nigga! Infant slut, it’s hawt! Oh shit that is AIDS my whores, AIDS! G6 here.” He gets a little serious here, leaning up against his desk.
The Search for Ball Zero Page 16
