Jake stared into the night at where the sun had dipped. “What if there wasn’t a show?”
“Then you’d be a nobody.”
“I was a nobody before. It didn’t bother me.” Jake looked at her. “It didn’t seem to bother you.”
“Yeah, but I figured you’d be a somebody someday. And now that I’ve been a somebody, I don’t know that I could be with a nobody. Think of the scandal.” She smiled and tucked her arm under his.
“It was just so much easier before.”
“Easier, you mean when there was no work and no money and your uncle was trying to sell the company and you had to sneak into your own apartment each night to avoid the bill collectors? You mean that kind of easier?”
“Yeah,” Jake smiled. “Those were the days. Sometimes I think it was all a mistake.” He finished his wine and set the glass down on a nearby table. “Most times I think it was all a mistake.”
“If it was, it was a mistake we all made together. I don’t think any of us could have seen how much it would change our lives. But it has. For better or worse there’s no going back to obscurity. We’re either on the show or we’re has-beens.”
“I think I’d make a pretty good has-been. It’s an option anyway. And I don’t feel like I have many of those left anymore.” He stared back out into the night with little else to say. The last year had been a blur. No sooner had his team stopped the rampage of Meagan Mouret and Project Cupcake than they had been swept into limos and private planes by Lucas and his production company. Promises were made, papers were signed and everyone woke up a star. And it had been fun. For a while.
Hailey put her hand on his face and turned him back to her. “Jake, it’s ultimately your call. And whatever you decide, I’m fine with it. I could love a has-been. But you know that if you lose the show, you’re going to lose your four best friends.”
“Yeah, but if I have enough left over I could buy new friends. Better friends.”
Hailey smiled. “If you take away the money. And you take away the so-called fame. Is there any reason at all to do this?”
“Yeah,” Jake nodded. “For everybody else.”
5
The projection took up the entire center of the table, and all those seated around it were looking back one hundred and fifty years into the past and down an American Main Street. American flags fluttered gently in each storefront while storeowners dressed in white aprons called from the entrances of an assortment of olde shoppes. Smiling families milled about the bustling street, laughing and pointing at nothing in particular, while behind them a massive tree of a thousand colors spread its branches far and wide.
“That tree is totally fake,” Savant said for the benefit of those at the table that weren’t as smart as he was.
The projection pulled back to reveal the entry of Rockwell Avenue as a merry tune came up and under the sound of the crowd on the street.
Brexbin the Bearberry Bear popped into the bottom of the frame with a most cheerful, “Hi, everyone!”
Mason jumped and nearly tipped his chair over backward. He grabbed the table and steadied himself. “I hate that damn bear.”
The bear waddled fully into the frame, turned and waved. “My name is Brexbin. What’s yours?” The bear gave a gleeful chuckle that was less heard with one’s ears and more felt with a nerve at the base of one’s neck. “Are you looking for a place filled with magic and happiness and the friendliest friends you could ever know?”
“I sure hope that’s rhetorical,” Hailey said.
“You are!” Brexbin’s smile grew inexplicably larger.
“That’s just great,” Hailey said. “It thinks it’s talking to someone.”
The Bearberry Bear waved to his audience. “Then come with me as I show you the bestest place on the whole wide planet—Fantastic Isle!”
Savant’s hackles went up. “Bestest is not a word, you dumb bear.” He shot a glare at Lucas. “What is this ignorant crap?”
Lucas rolled his eyes and directed Savant back to the promotional video.
Brexbin raced up the middle of Rockwell Avenue with a gait that came more from the butt than the legs. A young boy and girl ran into the frame and chased after him, giggling the entire time.
Through the magic of editing, the trio was soon in the giant tree from the establishing shot. Brexbin was showing the children, and the viewing audience, around. “Welcome to the Great Bearberry Tree. It’s where me and all my Bearberry friends live and play and laugh and sing and dance. It’s also where we make Bearberry juice from the Bearberry berries.”
The tree’s interior was designed to resemble a factory floor that focused on manufacturing bright colors and cute noises. There was one special machine whose sole purpose was to produce a comic effect when one of the Bearberry bears fell into it. Brexbin took them across the floor. Pipes whistled. Bellows pumped. Machines chugged. And everywhere colorful Bearberry Bears oversaw it all.
Brexbin plucked a Bearberry the size of his head from a bushel basket, magic happened—as signified by sparkles and twinkles that called into question the need for a factory floor—and the Bearberry became a vial of Bearberry juice. Brexbin offered the vial to the children. “But there’s a lot more to see. So drink up your Bearberry juice and come with me!”
The children did as they were told and emptied their vials. Pixie dust swirled around them and they were lifted into the air by the apparent power of twinkles. Then they spun, rotating in opposite directions—slowly at first, but the magic of the Bearberry juice quickly overcame them and they twirled faster and faster until they themselves were transformed into Bearberry bears.
Savoring the final drop with a particular flair, Brexbin drank his own vial clean, put on a helmet and jumped onto a motorcycle that looked equal parts junkyard contraption and futuristic rocket ship.
“I’m finding this story very difficult to follow.” Savant said.
“It was for kids,” Jake said.
Savant’s eyes widened. “They showed this to kids!?”
Brexbin and the children sped through the branches of the Great Bearberry Tree and the world shifted around them. Light stretched, the background blurred and the three bears were soon riding through time itself. They were soon joined by several other riders on matching cycles. They each wore a distinctive racing suit and colorful helmet.
Mason leaned forward in his seat. “TraceRacers! I loved that show.”
“Tracewhatnows?” Savant asked. He was shushed before he got an answer.
“Hey,” Brexbin said as he noticed the other riders. “It’s the TraceRacers. They protect the future from the evil Dark Riders. That can only mean we’re getting close to Futopia!”
On cue, the futuristic city of Futopia came into focus. The three bears stopped their TraceRacer cycles, dismounted and looked around in awe. Rocket ships, hundreds of feet tall, loomed over the streets that pulsed with neon and laser lights. A screech brought their attention back to the ground as a monkey in a flight suit leapt into view.
The monkey removed his space helmet and spoke. “Brexbin, I need your help.”
Brexbin gasped and turned to the new bears. “It’s Commander Mike McMonkey, leader of the Monkeynauts!”
The monkey grabbed the blue bear’s hand and pulled him along the neon lit street. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Brexbin asked and grabbed the other bears by the hand.
Commander Mike led the trio of Bearberry Bears onto a rocket ship and dropped his visor. “We’re going to save the galaxy.”
"Seriously. What the hell am I watching here?" Savant asked as the Bearberry Bears and the Monkeynaut blasted off in a rocket ride through outer space.
"Those are the Monkeynauts.” Jake replied.
“And what the hell is a Monkeynaut?”
“They’re the Monkeynauts.” Glitch added.
“That doesn’t help me, Glitch.”
“They’re the cosmic defenders of freedom." Jake sang the cartoon�
�s slogan to help jog Savant’s memory.
The computer scientist shrugged. "If you say so."
“Everybody knows the Monkeynauts. They protect the galaxy from the evil Major Ursa and his Cosmomutts.” Jake explained. He received exactly two blinks in response.
"How have you never seen the Monkeynauts?” Hailey asked. “Every kid watched it.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Savant looked to the ceiling for an answer. “I guess I spent my childhood being better than everyone else.”
Back in the projection, Commander Mike McMonkey’s rocket was touching down on the cobblestone streets of colonial America. Brexbin and the children stepped out of the rocket and smiled as several former presidents stepped forward to welcome him.
It was George Washington who spoke. “As the first President of the United States it is my honor to welcome you to President Town where you, the people, are endowed with the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of fun, fun, fun!”
All of the Presidents cheered, Zachary Taylor dropped the beat and everyone began to dance. Hayes and Buchanan did a mean running man while Lincoln dropped to the ground and spun on his back to the delight of William McKinley.
The Presidential dance party was just getting started when it was interrupted by the fearsome roar of T-Rex. The Bearberry Bears squealed in delight when they spotted a rider on the dinosaur’s back.
“The Dinosty Warriors!” they shouted and they were soon riding the T-Rex through the stone-aged land of Prehistoria.
The dinosaur strode through a jungle village filled with friendly white apes that ran alongside the visitors, grunting and cheering. In a quick series of editing cuts, the children rode a roller coaster along a dinosaur’s skeleton, swung from the trees with apes and thrilled at the real-live eruption of a simulated volcano.
Savant threw up his hands. “Okay, that bear definitely spiked the juice.”
“Shut up, Savant,” Glitch said. “I want to see how this ends.”
The final stop was the royal kingdom of Enchantasia, where Brexbin and the children danced and played with some of their favorite classic characters from nursery rhymes and fairy tales.
And then, as the sun began to set, it was all over. The magic of the Bearberry juice wore off and the children returned to their former selves. With smiles plastered across their faces, they ran off camera and left Brexbin to address the viewing audience once more. “Join me and all of my fun friends at Fantastic Isle and maybe you could be King, or Queen, for a day. I’ll see you soon.”
"I'm pretty sure that's not how royal succession works.” Savant said and turned to Hailey. “Who is this asshole bear anyway?”
“Seriously?” Hailey asked.
“Yes, seriously.”
Hailey shook her head. “Didn’t you have a childhood?”
Savant pointed to the frozen image hovering above the table. "People really went for this crap?"
Lucas gestured toward the projection as a video of a massive crowd lined up at the park’s gates appeared in the air. “Opening day attendance set records. So did the second and the third. The idea was to create a place that was even happier than the happiest place on earth. It looked as if they had succeeded. The whole world wanted to go.”
“But…” Savant goaded him.
“But things went bad. Fast.” Lucas motioned once more and the scene changed to media reports of the disaster. “Hundreds dead. Thousands injured. Millions pissed. The carnage also set records.”
Mason leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “So what the hell happened?”
“That’s a good question. One I’m sure I can’t answer.” Lucas stepped aside and turned to a gray-haired man in his mid-forties. “That’s why I asked Dr. Calvin here to join us.”
The small man waved to the team and said hello in a weak voice. He didn’t say anything else.
“Dr. Calvin was one of the programmers at the park,” Lucas continued. “He was there at the beginning, so if anyone can tell us what went wrong, it’s him.” Lucas sat.
“All right, Doc,” Mason said. “The question goes to you then. What went wrong?”
Calvin coughed and stood in front of the group at the table. He nodded to each person in turn and took a deep breath. “We don’t know.”
Savant snorted. “What do you mean you don’t know? Bad code? Firmware integration issues? A bad motherboard?”
When the doctor shrugged, it was evident that he was a frail man beneath his clothes. The points of his shoulders all but poked through the fabric. “There was actually never any indication that anything went wrong.”
“Except for all the murdering,” Hailey said.
“There was that, of course,” the doctor agreed with a heavy breath.
“So you’re saying the machines were programmed to tear apart the happy parkgoers?” Mason asked.
“Of course not. What I mean to say is that up to and during the—” he paused here and took another deep breath. “—incident, there was no indication that there were any issues with the equipment or the programming.”
Jake grabbed Lucas’s attention with a glare. “So we don’t know what’s wrong with these things—except that they kill a lot—and you expect us to roll right in and clean it up all in time for a 47-minute episode.”
“Of course not,” Lucas said and displayed a map through the projector. “It's an island, Jake.”
“You can’t roll up on an island, Jake,” Glitch added, most likely thinking he was being helpful.
“Thank you, Glitch,” Jake said and turned back to Lucas. “I know it’s an island. It’s a bunch of islands. And from what I hear, they have a history of bad ideas. Am I right, Doc?”
Dr. Calvin straightened a tie that he wasn’t wearing and cleared his throat. “The islands do have a history, that’s true. They were built in the Gulf as a kind of haven for the super wealthy and, well, that turned out badly. We thought, well, the thinking was, that we could use them for good and help people forget about that whole incident.”
“And you could get them cheap,” Mason added.
“Very cheap,” agreed Dr. Calvin. “Relatively speaking.”
“So, even if we take a boat to Bad Idea Island, we still—”
Lucas coughed.
Jake looked back at the producer. “What?”
“We can’t boat in,” Lucas said. “The island is quarantined.”
“Which means…” Jake prompted.
“Well, in this case it means mines.” Lucas waved a finger around the perimeter of the map. “A whole bunch of them surround the island. So we’ll drop you in?”
“I beg your pardon?” Glitch asked.
“It’s our only option,” Lucas stated. “The government wanted to make sure nothing got off the island. So there’s a no-go zone and a ton of mines in the waters around it.”
“But they’re going to let us in?” Hailey asked.
“Who?” Lucas asked.
“The government,” Hailey said slowly to help him remember what he just said.
“Oh, yes. I told you. We have been granted special permission to fly over the island and deliver you to the destination.”
There was a brief moment of silence before Glitch broke it with the obvious. “You never mentioned an airdrop.”
“It will be exciting!” Lucas grew more animated. He was back in full producer mode now. “Just think of the opening to the show. I see a black screen, dramatic music, and then a sliver of light as the cargo ramp opens. Then,” he slapped his hands together, “fanfare as you all pour out the back and plummet toward the earth. The uncertainty! The action!”
“How do we get back?” Mason asked. “We can’t airdrop up.”
"We've been granted clearance to land once. Briefly. The rendezvous will be here exactly 24 hours after you hit the ground.” Lucas zoomed in on Enchantasia, the fairytale portion of Fantastic Island.
Savant waved his finger in the air as if he was rewinding time. �
��You briefly said ‘briefly’ like you didn’t really want us to hear it.”
“We can’t risk anything else getting on board,” Dr. Calvin said with a panic growing in his voice. “Landing once is dangerous in itself.”
“It doesn’t sound like you think this is a good idea, Doctor.” Jake said.
“It’s a terrible idea,” he agreed.
Mason looked at the frail doctor. Had worry made him so thin? Regret? Or just malnutrition? “So why are you here?”
“Money.” The doctor pointed to Lucas. “He gave me a lot of it.”
"So, if things go bad,” Jake cocked his head, “we’ll just radio for an early pickup?”
"Um. You see… One year after the incident, one of the machines lured a passing boat to the island with a phony distress call. Since then, all communications have been jammed.”
“Perfect,” Savant muttered.
Mason raised his hand. “I have an obvious question. Why hasn’t this place just been bombed off the map?”
Lucas had no idea. “Politics maybe? It looks bad bombing your own islands, right? And the parent company, DamAnimation Inc., went bankrupt after the incident. There was no money left to decommission the place. It was cheaper to isolate and ignore it."
“So what's the situation there now?" Hailey asked.
The doctor’s bony shoulders rose once more. “It’s been quarantined for a decade. No one’s been on or off the island since then. Most people have forgotten about the place.”
"And you think this is a good idea, Lucas?"
"It's been ten years, Jake.” Lucas smiled. “You'll probably find nothing but a bunch of rusting Animatomatons. A few broken bears.”
"And if we don't? And the danger is still alive and well?"
Lucas got excited. “Then the ratings will be huge.”
“You’re all heart,” Mason said.
“I am that, Mason. It’s only because I think so much of all of you that I would even suggest it. You all are amazing together. You have chemistry. You have the skills. You’re an unstoppable team. This will be nothing for you.”
Mason ignored the false flattery and turned back to the rest of the team. "Look, I for one am willing to go through the should-we-or-shouldn’t-we bullshit again. We all have our reasons to go and I want money. So let's just focus on how to stop it."
Junkers Season Two Page 4
