The Search for Ball Zero

by Tony Dormanesh

  of the stairs staring in awe at the gory skull she had created. Perry was engrossed by the brains slowly seeping out of its skull bowl.

  Tony jumped over the corpse, “Ohh shit are you ok!?”

  “He shot me in the tit!” She said and fell to her knees. Tony knelt near her and

  they tried to clean and dress the wound as well as they could right then. Perry had been grazed in the neck also, but he didn’t seem to know yet. L looked up at Perry, “You got shot too?” Perry looked over his shoulder, like she was talking to someone behind him. Then he looked down and saw his shirt was covered in blood. He stumbled back, trying to wipe off the blood at first, then feeling around his chest for bullet holes.

  Tony looked up at him,”I think it was near your neck.”

  Perry felt the graze wound on his neck, “Awww shit!”

  From above them, they heard more yelling. Then gunshots. They all were looking up, waiting to hear something.

  Perry said,”Man this place has how many thousand floors?” He looked up the stairwell. “What the fuck are we gonna do?”

  Tony looked down,”We gotta find them or get outta here. Fuck.”

  L looked around,”Hey, where’d Janis and Moon go?” Tony and Perry had gotten caught up the moment, and both looked around and shrugged.

  37

  DEY NOT US

  A bunch of gorillas, chimpanzees and monkeys ran down a Elohssa Corporation

  hallway. King led the way. He pointed in front of the group at the end of the hallway, “That it.” Above the door read “Lab 9”. He didn’t even break stride and crushed the door open.

  They entered a long room that was part of the cloning laboratory. There was one scientist fiddling with some equipment. King picked him up by the face and walked towards the far wall. King looked around, cages lined the lab. Macaque monkeys in almost all the cages. The caged monkeys began noticing the situation and started screaming. King looked at all the cages and smashed the scientists head into a wall,

  One Chimp was at one of the cages, reaching in and touching the occupant. “Hello?” the Chimp asked. The monkey in the cage just screamed, jumped up and down and ran in circles. Slash was looking over his shoulder and examined closer.

  “Dey not us.” Slash announced. He looked at King.

  “Let dem out. All.” King ordered. The cages were quickly unlocked by the Tribe members. Chaos took over the lab, screaming monkeys everywhere. A few of the lab monkeys even attacked some of the Tribe. King held up a hand, his hand saying”Do not retaliate.” After a few seconds of insanity, most of the lab monkeys started flooding out of the door.

  From outside the lab, down the hall someone yelled,”Look out! Here they

  come!” and the rapid fire cracking of gunfire filled the hallway. The Tribe quickly ran towards the door. The Macaques were being mowed down by a few guards on the other side. The Tribe had no choice and charged down the hallway into the gunfire.

  A chimp with a shield led the way, ducking behind his shield and pushing forward, Slash was right behind him. They were climbing over a pile of dead macaques. The chimps shield absorbed some shots with dull thuds. He looked back at Slash and smiled. Then he got hit in the legs. He fell to the ground but Slash quickly picked him up and continued to plod forward, holding the injured chimp. A quick tapping thud hit the shield again. Slash lowered himself into the pile of dead macaques for some cover as both guards focused fire on them. Slash took a few shots in the legs and lowered himself deeper into the pile, hoping for some relief from the constant fire. He roared. Behind Slash other chimps and gorillas were attempting the same thing, leading with shields.

  There was a lull in the gunfire. Slash looked up, they were reloading. He

  wasn’t sure another he’d be alive after another hail of gunfire and looked down at the chimp holding the shield, his face said,”We’re charging.” The chimps face agreed. Slash stood up, the bullets in his legs screamed with pain, but he charged. Trying not to stumble over the pile of dead monkeys, Slash looked over the shield. They were almost done reloading, they were going to finish reloading before he could get there and rip their heads off. One guard lifted his gun and Slash lowered his head and body behind the shield as much as he could, bracing for the hot impact of bullets.

  One shot went off and then Slash heard a grunt, not a gorilla grunt though, it was a Human grunt. He leaned over the shield to look. The guard that was shooting was now falling over like a statue. A sword stuck out from his chest, a red line from the base of his neck went down his chest about a foot and met the sword. Blood spilled out from the red line. The guard dropped dead, revealing Moon behind him. Moon bared his Baboon teeth and jumped at the 2nd guard. The guard turned his gun and fired.

  Slash and King were already sprinting down the hallway, dead macaque monkeys flying up in their wake. They pounded the life out of the guard, as Moon fell back limping. Moon fell against the wall, holding his bullet riddled chest piece, blood spilled out around his fingers and through bullet holes and Moon fell over.

  38

  WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T THEY TELL US

  The Humans scrambled up a few floors, but with Perry and L both shot, they weren’t making good progress. They still weren’t sure where they were going either. But they kept following the trail of bodies and smashed open doors. Finally they had to stop.

  “I can’t make it.”Perry said like an old man.

  L was in pain, “Yea, lets rest a second.”

  “Fuck, we can’t wait here.” Tony said impatiently.”Where the fuck are they going anyways?” Tony stumbled up a set of stairs, the next door said “Manufacturing” He opened it into what looked like a garage office with no windows, there were tools lining the walls and the smell of oil in the air. He heard the sound of loud machinery working on the other side.

  He walked through the office and looked out the door. It opened into a massive,

  long construction facility that stretched as far he could see. It looked like too big of a space to be inside the building. The colossal skeleton of a warstore hung in front of him.

  Hundreds of robotic arms worked on the skeleton, welding and attaching pieces to it. Pieces of the tank treads lay on the ground all around it. Tony looked beyond the warstore in front of him and saw a line of warstores in the distance. “A fucking warstore assembly line!” He thought. Then he quickly ran back down to where Perry and L were.

  Janis was there. She was attending to both of them.

  “We gotta go.” Perry said and looked at Janis.

  Janis looked at all of them,”They’re not coming out. They’re on a one way mission.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t the tell us that?!” Tony yelled in anger.

  39

  PREMATURE

  The ragtag Tribe was hurt. There were only less than 10 of them now. Slash and King were the only Gorillas. Slash was injured badly.

  King bashed open the next door. It looked like another long lab room. King saw two Humans standing on the other side of the room. One was wearing a white coat like in the other room, one was wearing a suit like the Humans in the warstore wore. King ran over, they were both unarmed. They turned, looking surprised at King, which in turn surprised King because he thought for a second he was seeing double. They both had the same face of a Human he had killed twice already, the Captain.

  King turned and looked down the long lab, there were tubes with Humans inside lining the walls. The two Humans tried to run, but the remaining members of the Tribe chopped them down with pleasure. King wandered down the isle of tubes, slightly mesmerized. He looked closer at one, it was the Captain also. And the next one, and the next. They were all the Captain. Rage filled King and he smashed open a tube with both fists. The Human inside woke up, gasping for air. He tried climbing out of the jagged glass hole, cutting himself badly over and over as he tried to escape. He was sitting up, head and shoulders stuck out of the hole in the top of the tube. He would try to stand straight up and the glass would ri
p into his belly, he would yell in pain and then sit back down. He began screaming like a baby and crying. Fruitlessly, he attempted to stand up over and over, each time the jagged glass cutting deeper into his body. Blood poured from his belly. He looked around, crying, looking for his mommy or something. Chunks slid out of his belly, he reached down and pulled a part of his intestines out from the gore. He stared at it like an idiot for a second and then fell limp.

  King jumped up on another tube, kicked down and smashed open the glass. The Captain inside jumped up gasping for breath, just like the previous one. King took off down the line, smashing a hole in each tube. There were dozens, if not hundreds. A line of Captains behind King woke up as he ran along the tubes, smashing each one. A hundred unfinished clones, unable to survive on their own, like fully grown premature babies. They all gasped for breath and gored themselves on broken glass, trying to escape their mechanical wombs. They all flailed, cried and mindlessly ripped their own bodies to death in a chorus line of red torturous screaming.

  The tribe enjoyed watching this show.

  40

  OUR BALL ZERO

  Back in the stairwell the Humans talked with Janis.

  “Shh! Shhh!” Perry said,”Someone’s coming.” And he looked down. They all

  listened. They all heard something. It sounded like one person. Tony got up and pulled out a gun, pointing it down the stairwell. Suddenly, Bob Marley turned the corner running at full speed up the stairs. Tony was pulling the trigger before he saw who it was and had to pull his aim, a bullet whizzed past Bob’s head.

  “Shit! Sorry!” Tony yelled. Bob had his hands up.

  “Damn mon!” Bob said.

  Tony put the gun away,”What the fuck man!?”

  Bob was dead tired,”Sorry mon.” He took a couple deep breaths. “Humans go.” “Why what’s going on?” Perry asked.

  “We’re on your side man?! We’re here to help, tell us what the fuck is going on?!” Tony pleaded.

  “Self destruct da store mon.” Bob said looking down.

  “What?” They all looked at each other.

  “I be settin da self destruct mon.” He looked at all the Humans. “I set for 2 minutes. 1 minute ago mon.”

  “Holy fuck!” Perry yelled and jumped to his feet.

  Tony was already helping L to her feet. “Fuck Bob!” L had her arm over

  Tony’s shoulder and they started down the stairs. “Come on!” He yelled back at Bob. Perry jumped in front of them bounding over dead bodies like he wasn’t shot or tired at all.

  Bob shook his head. Then motioned for them to leave. “Good games mon. You be good at Art of War. Da Tribe need to do dis mon. Dis Company created us, torture us, kill us. Blow up company, dis is our Ball Zero mon.” Bob smiled. Tony looked at him for a long time considering the circumstances. “You be having less dan a minute mon.” Bob said. Tony turned and took off.

  They raced down the stairs, Perry a few floors ahead of L and Tony. L would

  run for a few floors, one hand holding her shot breast. Tony stayed behind her, helping when she needed. Perry hit the bottom like a mad man and ran through the lobby. Tony and L heard his shotgun go off multiple times. They got to the lobby and saw fresh, newly dead Humans.

  They ran out front. Perry was standing there, looking around. They were in a

  war zone. Craters, fire, smoke, like the end of a movie. The warstore they drove in on was bent over, completely wasted, an almost unrecognizable smoking mess. Bob’s warstore had red flashing lights all up and down it, obviously some sort of warning.

  Perry looked panicked, “Maybe we can turn it off?” He took a step towards the

  warstore. “No.” He thought out loud. He looked back and forth again,”Let’s run for it.”

  L, being held up by Tony, pointed weakly. Tony immediately took off in that

  direction.

  Perry looked over and saw Lemmy’s Jeep sitting there, Lemmy was no where to

  be found. “Ohh shit yea L! Good idea!” Perry yelled and took off with them.

  L labored to get in the passenger seat and Perry jumped in the back. Tony

  jumped in the driver seat, turned on the Jeep and hit the gas in one motion. The Jeep threw dirt back in a rooster tail that Lemmy would be proud of. They sped off as fast as they Jeep would go.

  Perry was looking backwards at the tower.“If Bob wasn’t lying to us it should

  go off any..”

  Perry was interrupted by a deep, short humming sound, it went from deep to deeper, almost like when the Death Star cannon blew up Alderaan. Tony covered his face with an arm and pressed the gas even harder, L curled up into a ball in the passenger seat and Perry stood on the back of the Jeep facing the warstore. For a millisecond, Perry thought he saw the warstore expand, deep orange and red filling in the gaps of the expanding pieces. It contracted a bit, and then the warstore’s nuclear power source exploded.