AFRO PUFFS ARE THE ANTENNAE OF THE UNIVERSE
ZIG ZAG CLAYBOURNE
Contents
Soundtrack Accompaniment
1. Stealing the Bilomatic Entrance
2. The Long Game
3. Make It Go Away
4. Miscellaneous Opportunities
5. Suit Up
6. Fucking Chads
7. What’s in A Name?
8. All That You Can Be
Intermission
PART TWO: IT AIN’T SHEEP THEY DREAM ABOUT
9. What Does the Universe Want?
10. Villainy
10.5 Heroes
11. Chapter Fucking Eleven, Also Known as Bobo the Mag
12. Zoned
13. Quiet, Please
14. ’80s Slow Jams
An Evening Interim
15. The Particulars
16. Burn Notice
17. The Hornet
18. Flash Bang
19. Aileen Broke Out the Liquor
20. Rights and Privileges
21. Once in a Lifetime
22. Bilo
23. The Very Last Thing Before We Go
STAY AFTER THE CREDITS FOR DELETED SCENES
This Book
About the Author
Deleted Scenes!!!
Afterword
AFRO PUFFS ARE THE ANTENNAE OF THE UNIVERSE
Copyright 2020 by Clarence Young
* * *
All rights reserved.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Characters, events, and organizations portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
* * *
Obsidian Sky Books
Detroit, MI
* * *
www.obsidianskybooks.com
* * *
First Edition: December 2020
* * *
Cover art, interior design and promotional materials by Jesse Hayes, www.anansihayes.com
Created with Vellum
Soundtrack Accompaniment
The Unexpected (Liv Warfield)
Maggot Brain (Funkadelic)
Modern Love (David Bowie)
Slave to the Rhythm (Grace Jones)
Computer Blue (Prince)
Purple Rain (Prince)
Just Like You (Brides of Funkenstein)
River (Ibeyi)
This Woman’s Work (Kate Bush)
Fame (David Bowie)
Computer Love (Zapp & Roger)
Try Again (Champaign)
No Room for Doubt (Lianne La Havas)
Reasons (Earth Wind & Fire)
Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)
Why Wait for Heaven (Wendy & Lisa)
Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads)
My Humps (Black Eyed Peas)
Get Out of My House (Kate Bush)
About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All (Dan Mangan)
Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Parliament)
Living for the City (Stevie Wonder)
Les Fleur (Minnie Riperton)
Prayers for Rain (The Cure)
Time Has Come Today (The Chambers Brothers)
Control (Janet Jackson)
So, now I find myself asking questions, going back to the basics, because I see my daughter smiling at the same things that bring pleasure to my son.
~ Faraz Ali, father, comedian, chronicler
* * *
If I wake up and this is the first thing I see, I know that whatever happened, no matter whose blood I’m covered in, everything’s going to be all right.
~ Desiree Quicho, fictional character, whispered to the Universe while gazing at those she loves
* * *
What you call fiction I call my life. What you call the future I claim as my home. Where does that leave us?
~ People Everywhere
1
Stealing the Bilomatic Entrance
One day you’ll be interviewed, her subconscious riffed, about what it’s like being Desiree Quicho, and you’ll try to be this massively erudite Guatemalan Queen of philosophy and measured evaluation, except that won’t feel right. Por ejemplo, you’ve successfully infiltrated a moon base under disguise, stolen top-secret machinery, went back to retrieve an errant crew member who provided the needed distraction for you to load said equipment on board your shuttle, and now find yourself wholly unable to wax philosophical about one person’s role in assuring a decent, just world for all, because, in reality, saving the world involves a shitload of footwork.
As in running.
Desiree Quicho shouted, “Move your ass!” once and only once. Anyone unclear on the concept got the receding view of her backside. She whipped hell to get to the shuttle’s quickly descending ramp. Two others followed her inside: Yvonne, who’d said there was no way she was letting Desiree go back out there alone, and Neon, who’d improvised a daring distraction requiring Desiree to come back for her.
Desiree hit the comm on her shoulder despite being certain their engineer had watched for them: “Keita, we’re in.”
The soft rumble of engines would kick, they’d ascend and spin, and the Aerie, commanded by Captain Desiree Quicho, would be off this bedamned moon base for good. Didn’t matter that there were ten enraged merc troopers training weapons on the ship who, if lucky, might get maybe three or four ineffectual shots off before the ship’s pulse engine flashed and ten enraged merc troopers were all left, hopefully, with mercticular cancer.
Unless—and granted—the ship sat long enough for enraged mercs to wheel out a weapon large enough to do damage.
Which both the ship and mercs did.
“Keita? We’re in.”
“I know” came back. Bit of attitude. Shade frantic. “In engineering.”
Sons of— Captain Quicho turned to Yvonne DeCarlo Paul, Jill of all trades, former military, and second elder statesperson of the team. “Might need you to—”
“On it.” Yvonne grabbed a large rifle-ish gun and palmed a port open. Neon ran to the pilot room. Two shots took out a gunner and his weapon, then Yvonne picked equipment targets she hoped would explode in the huge bay. Felt apropos to the moment.
Desiree hoofed it to engineering.
“Keita, what— Oh.”
Body on the floor, relatively new recruit. “Another one?” said Desiree. “Jesus! Thoom?”
“Thoom,” said Keita “Flowerpot” LaFleur, not really knowing but comfortable in her bet that the miscreant organization that was an annoying thorn in so many’s hides was behind yet another sleeper agent in their midst. Her frazzled hair, pulled into two puffs, matched her bad mood. Even the prematurely-yet-entirely-natural grey streak that crinolined from right temple to crown stood exasperatedly from her head in wispy locks. She tossed a very heavy hex wrench to Desiree. “He misaligned a coupling just enough for a misfire. Finish tightening that cover plate.” Pieces of a vibrant, colorful headscarf peeked very much out of place from beneath the massive hex bolt needing tightening. The captain had learned not to ask regarding such things. She tightened while Keita managed controls, her long, brown engineer fingers seeming to have minds of their own.
“Who’s in the pilot room?” Keita asked Quicho.
“Neon.”
Neon liked quick takeoffs. Keita hit the comm. “Power gradually till we clear these tunnels.” The shuttle jerked upward. Into the comm: “Bit more gradually, gorgeous.” The clank of the wrench signaled Desiree’s departure.
Neon liked Keita. In the thousands of unimaginative catcalls she’d gotten in her life, not one had ever tried “Gorgeous” with the inflection Keita shi
ned on it. She throttled back as advised and guided the hovering shuttle expertly through the egress tunnel. Ahead, the exit door remained closed. Behind, a huge pressure door dropped stealthily from the ceiling to the floor.
Desiree sprinted onto the bridge.
“They want us to blast it,” Neon said as the two exchanged positions. Neon was a good pilot, but very few people had the piloting skills of the springy-haired, frowning woman whose fingers flashed over controls.
“Hey, their money. Hit it four corners then dead center.”
“Got it.”
Four impact points quickly mangled the exit door’s integrity. The shot dead center blew it outward; the shitty gravity of the moon did the rest, yoinking the battered metal past the ship lurking for them on the other side just as the Aerie shot out of the egress tube and over the dry skin of Earth’s lonely satellite.
Quicho put the shuttle into a screaming parabola around the enemy vessel. “Fire everything!”
The Aerie unleashed focused-energy and metal-projectile hell at the little ship, coming around fully to face, upon completion, a ship that had not one scratch on it. Captain Quicho broadcast to it: “Next volley might not be so precisely aimed.”
Thrusters fired on the smaller ship, forcing it surfaceward.
“Lovely,” said the captain.
The Aerie zipped Earthward. The artificial gravity gave out moments later. “Keita,” commed the captain.
“Shit, fuck, and damn” came back from the harried woman. There were times to wonder how Keita LaFleur, former NASA aerospace engineer and unapologetically amazing woman with sweet afro puffs, found herself on a hijacking mission to a secret moon base full of Japanese mercenaries, then there were times to fix a ship whose alien technology didn’t always play nice with its human cousins. This was the latter. She found she preferred the latter.
Stealth mode in the absolute quiet of space felt incongruous. Nonetheless, the sleek black ship voyaged home at full stealth and in as erratic a course as possible, catching the attention of only stars and space dust.
It was always weird coming down from something like this. Neon was antsy but calm at the same time.
“The Thoom are going to be pissed as hell when they find out Kosugi knows they stole his Bilomatic Entrance,” she said, stowing the last of her mission suit away. She thoroughly enjoyed when stupid people got pissed.
“Particularly since they didn’t steal it. Does it show that I’m a little tired of Thoom sleepers gumming up the works?” said the captain. “Can you hand me that other bracelet?” One had rolled out of reach after being jostled from the shelf when she’d shoved the sleeper into her storage locker. Her husband had made those bracelets for her. Copper and cool. Keeping them on kept her human in times of stress.
“Captain?” Yvonne said over speaker from the bridge. “Incoming. Patching.” No one on the moon or Earth could pick up the frequency used.
“Thank you.”
The comm squawked.
A Trini accent issued forth: “Luv?”
“Hey! Was just thinking about you,” said Desiree.
Someone cussed and muttered behind the Trini. Desiree picked out “fucking outer space” and “goddamn cosmos.”
“Tell Milo I said hi,” she said.
Captain Luscious Johnny Smoove who, as it happened, was over four hundred years old but tended not to brag on that, ignored the perturbed Milo Jetstream behind him and focused on his wife. “Success, cap’n?” He listened while she gave him the ten-second report, then: “Milo, they got it.”
“I love you, Quicho!” came the shout from Smoove’s vicinity.
“Are you holding position before deep space till you heard from me?” she asked her husband.
“Yes.” Shamefully, they hadn’t figured out how to get their alien ship to communicate with their Earth tech when in warp.
“Shit,” answered Desiree.
“What?”
“I owe Yvonne five dollars,” she said. Neon made the “whipped” noise behind her captain.
“That’s all my devotion sells for?” said Smoove.
“How many times you looked at Fiona or Ele’s asses today?” she asked.
“Thirty maybe,” came a woman’s voice with a slight brogue right next to Smoove. “Oop, just dropped my stylus. Thirty-one.”
“Space travel sucks for privacy!” Smoove shouted.
“You, husband, owe me,” said Desiree.
Another voice around Smoove, this time a measured baritone: “Smoove? We’re ready. Battle Ready Bastards are secured and medicated.” The Battle Ready Bastards were angels. Desiree’s life was weird that way. Angels, like the baritone’s complaining brother, hated space travel too. Even with artificial gravity and in-seat video, the experience was jarring enough to be annoying.
“Ramses,” said Desiree.
“Yes?” said Ramses Arturo Jetstream.
“Make sure my husband gets home at a decent time.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“See you soon, broheem,” she said.
Smoove again: “I’ll call you when we drop out of warp. Message might not get through for a while, though. Milo wants to head off the Bimaiy well before they hit the tactical line. Damn shortsighted, holding their ambassadors on ice all that time at Area 51. Still glad we busted ’em out, though. Can’t blame ’em for having gone home with a grudge. We’ve got Bigfoot with us but there’s no guarantee the Bimaiy’ll listen to him.”
“Foot’s an asshole but he knows when to be professional,” she said. “We’ll hole up in the Sahara depot till we hear from you, see if we can figure out cheat codes on this toy we just stole.”
Smoove smiled wistfully at that image of her in the wide desert and him in deep space. “You realize we’re both as far from water as can be?” The two oceangoing ships they called home, the Linda Ann and the Semper Fi, were currently docked, one along the rural coast of Senegal and one hidden near Newfoundland.
“I plan on changing that,” said Desiree, thinking of the bones of the home they had begun building in Atlantis some time before and had yet to reach completion, although it finally sported exterior walls now. In places.
World-saving interrupted the best things in life.
But Atlantis was totally worth being patient for.
“But after our last adventure, who can blame us,” Quicho said. It had involved a whale. A giant, psychic whale. “All right, sign off. I love you, Jonathan.”
“Forever,” he said.
“At least till you get home. Quicho out.”
Neon had followed the conversation with a goofy smile. “You too are so freaking adorable!”
“I try not to think about that.”
With the sleeper operative dropped off with agents for deprogramming, the spacecraft parked underground, the weird stolen tech stowed, and a drink or two imbibed, some highly welcome downtime was a godsend. Fewer ways to appreciate that in the Sahara than a nighttime walk in the sand.
Sand was marvelous. Prettier than jewels and much more useful than diamond. The sands underfoot were so fine, they felt like warm, undulating water rather than a multitude of grains.
Everything there was underground. The Sahara Depot was their largest base of operations, used rarely for that precise reason, and known only to a select few. Keita LaFleur, aerospace engineer and spaceship thief, called this place home while the Jetstreams and crew were somewhere off saving the world one more damn time. She had her own crew. They called themselves (very simply and with great economy) “the Gang of Five” (although currently there were only four) and were as stealthy as any lunar ninjas. One noted their presence by the repair, maintenance, and upgrade of the vehicles entrusted to them in the hangar. Keita rarely saw them herself. She liked it that way. She enjoyed solitude.
Sand swallowed Keita’s bare feet. She regarded the sliver of Earth’s moon bordered by stars. She didn’t think about the fact that she’d just been up there. A slight breeze cooled the sweat on the b
ack of her neck. Her scarf usually soaked it up. The scarf was still currently serving as a gasket in the Aerie until the Gang tended to it.
The woman with the dazzling grey streak in her hair and the array of retro eyeglasses stared down at Desiree Quicho sitting rump-roast on the sand. Yes, Keita had been instrumental in getting their shuttle, rechristened the Aerie, out of Area 51. Yes, she didn’t do field missions often, but that lessened Desiree’s putting her life in her hands not one whit, which made it hard answering the question Keita, a moment before, had drifted into the night regarding Neon and Yvonne. They were still, relatively speaking, newcomers.
“I trust them more than I trust you,” said Desiree under witness of the crescent moon.
“They have skills, they helped you get the False Prophet Buford last year, I know, I agree, and that was a huge victory,” said Keita, glad for the glints of light from her friend’s eyes, “but we’ve deprogrammed four people for being sleepers since then. Davis? Davis saw me naked. Know what he said? ‘It’s cool.’ I liked him.”
“What’re you doing, running around naked?”
“Hey. This is my depot.”
“Which is why I trust them more than you,” said Desiree. “When we took them on, Yvonne pulled me aside one day—I think Milo had given a stirring speech or something—and told me her only job was to make sure Neon landed in a safe place. World could go to hell, but she’d quietly make sure we were all right. A new discovery comes along cool enough to pull you out of here, Flowerpot, and you’d be off like a shot. That’s all I mean by trust. Being real. That’s not a failing in you. That’s genius. I guarantee Nee and Yvonne are not sleepers, Thoom or otherwise.”
Sand skittered with another breeze. The Sahara was magnificently quiet at night, owing to the fact that it was so huge, they were nowhere near other living souls except the Silica Elves deep underground who at times guarded this desert compound in exchange for music. Funk, bossa nova, and reggae were favorites. Desiree imagined the ship carrying brothers Milo Jetstream and Ramses Jetstream into a swallowing expanse of similar silence, her husband at the helm. A ship too far out to allow for deception or any other kind of sleeper, outside Desiree’s reach to assist or rescue. She refused to allow her trust to be shaken.
Afro Puffs Are The Antennae Of The Universe Page 1