by David Beem
Bruce Lee (Martial Arts Legend)
Hattori Hanzo (Iga Ninja)
Lieutenant Trevor Killmaster (Navy SEAL)
Nigel Willianbottom (Dead British Salesman, Bit of a Perv)
William Shakespeare (The Bard of Avon, Iamb Enthusiast)
Albert Einstein (Smart Guy with Big Hair)
Marion Bronte (American Bronze Medalist, ’48 Olympics)
Ronald Reagan (40th President of the United States, Eater of Jelly Belly® Jelly Beans)
Nancy Reagan (Just Sayer of the Word No)
Elvis Presley (Crooner, Thruster of Pelvis)
HISTORICAL CATCHING UP FOR THE WEIRDOS WHO NEVER START WITH BOOK ONE BUT REALLY SHOULD RETHINK THEIR CHAOTIC AND NONCONFORMIST EXISTENCE BECAUSE REALLY. BY YOUR BUSTED GREEK CLASSIC AND FATHER OF HISTORY, HERODOTUS (C. 484—C. 425 BCE)
It has been said a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. And in the history of highly conditional apothegms, this one falls somewhere between seek and ye shall find and better late than never. Because, let’s face it: no amount of seeking is going to find that left sock once it’s lost in the dryer, and anyone who’s lived through a Bruckner symphony knows “never” is sometimes better than “late.”
The truth is, a journey of a thousand miles doesn’t begin with the first step. It begins with a new pair of shoes and Dr. Scholl’s Plantar Fasciitis Pain Relief Orthotics. We only say it begins with the first step because plantar fasciitis is tricky to pronounce, and any apothegm with implicit shopping could produce a chilling effect. Men hate shopping, so changing the apothegm would mean putting women in charge of the thousand-mile journeys. And while that might seem okay at first, consider the potential for escalation. One shoe store becomes two shoe stores, price comparisons, and since-we’re-already-out detours. Next thing you know, you’re at TJ Maxx, Kohl’s, Target, Old Navy, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Kazakhstan, and the men are all like: I don’t remember this being the way to Kazakhstan, and the women are all like: If you don’t like the way I do things, go find the planter fascism inserts yourself. At which point, the men, seeking to keep the peace and hasten the impending thousand-mile journey, will remember the invention of air travel and Expedia.com… Because where you book matters.
And speaking of book matters, here’s one now: This is the third installment in a series. If you haven’t read the first two, you’re missing out. For one thing, there was free pizza. For another, David Hasselhoff dressed up as a space chicken.
Essential for catching up the skimmers, skippers, and scalawags:
I am narrating inside your brain from a shared psychic stratum called the Collective Unconscious. Everyone dead and alive is in this psychic stratum. No one understands it, how it started, why it started, nothing. Rob, the Roman Centurion of Oxyrhynchus and inventor of the meatball, has his own theory: Cardea (the goddess of door hinges) took a dare from Cloacina (the goddess of the Roman sewers) and stuck two Kalamata olives up her nose. This tickled, so she sneezed. Rob’s theory is the psychic backfire of her sneeze tore the fabric of space-time to form the Collective Unconscious as it exists today. This theory is as good as any, and that tells you how little is known about this great cosmic mystery. It also tells you why you should never leave two goddesses unsupervised with Kalamata olives at one of Bacchus’s toga parties.
The second point one must understand about the Collective Unconscious is that it’s rather like discovering the living and the dead share the same internet browser and there’s no option for deleting your search history. We’re inside each other’s heads all the time, and that thing you did the other day when you thought no one was looking? That was awesome.
Naturally, some of us dead folks have developed the ability to cloak our consciousnesses. Most do this out of a sense of propriety. Others harbor nefarious intentions. The nefarious types, being nefarious, joined with the immortal Nostradamus to form a cabal of ghouls called the Übermenschen. This group set up shop behind the Great Curtain, a psychic veil for hiding their nefarious deeds from the rest of the Collective, namely ending all war, famine, poverty, disease, etc., through mass mind control.
This is as good a place as any to break the news: Nostradamus and the Übermenschen have transformed the world into a giant exercise in customer satisfaction gone wrong. It’s all smiles all the time. Politeness when assholery is called for. Please and thank you when fuck off would better achieve the desired results. Step out of line…and it’s capital punishment.
But not everyone on the planet is being mind-controlled into zombie oblivion. Some are worthy champions of humanity’s fate. Others are not the champions any right-minded person would’ve asked for. Namely, the Church of the Ladder Day Dudes, whose nifty talisman is a medallion that cancels mind control. But if you’re traveling with the Dudes, mind control may be the least of your problems, since the Dudes are led by two stoners who fancy themselves the A-Team and are quickly giving the word “cult” a worse connotation than it already had.
One worthy champion for humanity is the apotheosis of all hot blondes, Mary Thomas, a deadly and mysterious GSPOT spy. Unfortunately, she’s gone missing after foiling her team’s mission to prevent the assassination of the prime minister of Australia by deliberately assassinating the prime minister of Australia. Also, the prime minister of Australia is her father. So that’s weird.
Two semiworthy champions are Edger Bonkovich, aka Zarathustra, the World’s First Superhero, and Fabio Jimenez, the World’s First Superhero’s Best Friend. Edger and Fabio presently have their hands full executing a daring rescue operation. Prepare now to travel with me through the Collective Unconscious into the mind of the Mighty Zarathustra as he and Fabio zoom above crystal blue waters faster than the speed of sound. For the forces of evil are (again) afoot, this time on a supersweet cruise liner off the coast of Fiji, and the very polite zombie apocalypse world (again) needs a hero…
Chapter One
“Nobody lives forever!” yells Fabio, his electronically altered voice hitching with excitement. Clouds of puffy black smoke blot out the sun as he Supermans into the dizzying fumes of rocket fuel and gunpowder.
Dude! I call telepathically. Be careful!
It’s weird experiencing the world through this…Fabiovision…our psychic connection in the Collective Unconscious. It’s all I can do not to react to what’s happening to him like it’s happening to me, even though he’s got my supersuit and is barreling down on the ship from the front, while I’m in street clothes, skimming the ocean’s surface from the back.
Fireballs spiral past him. Wind scrapes along his supersuit. Sunlight cuts through the thinning smoke. And there it is, a massive white fortress spinning in lightning-quick turns, Nostradamus’s cruise liner. My stomach plunges in synchronicity with Fabio’s corkscrew maneuver.
Another blast knocks him off course. My pulse pounds harder. He should be safe enough inside my supersuit, which is the whole point of him borrowing it. But him getting the suit doesn’t make it easier for me to split my concentration. Speaking of which, it’s probably time to fight back.
Breathe… I never get used to this. It’s like guiding fizzing candy through my veins and out my brain. I seize control of his eyes and operate the retinal scanner on the supersuit’s HUD.
“Dude, give me my eyes back!”
Hang on a sec, I reply.
DEPLOY COUNTERMEASURES? Y/N?
YES.
Panels open on Fabio’s forearms. Flares deploy. The remaining rockets tear away—except one.
“Ah, a little help here?” Fabio swerves left, then right.
Close my eyes—focus. Microexplosions of sizzling telekinetic energy light up my neurons. Harder this time, like I’m compressed Styrofoam in a pressure cooker. This missile’s heavy! The surface hot. I shake my head to clear it. I’m not really lifting this. Not physically, anyway. The missile sputters and sparks as I hurl it skyward, where it explodes too far away to do harm.
“Thanks!” shouts Fabio. The massive c
ruise liner sweeps up before him. He crests the guardrail. His boots hit the deck, and he inventories his surroundings. Sleek, organic lines. An aqua-colored pool. Windows… Six levels, and a multistory oval skylight set on a bias above the balcony.
The Fabiovision pans down: deck chairs. People sunning themselves—whoops. Even knowing what to expect, it still takes me a second to process. It’s not really my fault. Being on a luxury cruise liner in the South Pacific doesn’t usually qualify as dangerous, unless we’re talking UV rays. But the fifty or sixty people sunning themselves here aren’t really on vacation.
“Edge, buddy,” says Fabio. “Is it too off mission if I maybe blend in for a bit and lotion some zombie babes?”
Zombies. I don’t really like calling them that, but it fits.
Fabio, remember: These people are innocent. They’re mind controlled. They’re like nonplayable characters. Hurting them doesn’t weaken Nostradamus in the slightest.
“Hurt them? Buddy. I’m a lover not a fighter.”
The ship rushes up, and I barely snap out of Fabiovision in time. Slowing my pace, I float over the rail on the aft deck. Man, I get so wrapped up seeing through his eyes, I forget to take stock of my surroundings. Empty deck. Stairs. I managed not to crash into the side of the ship, which is always good. Guess our diversion worked?
Can you sense her? I ask, a black hole amassing in my chest.
No, replies Bruce Lee. But that doesn’t mean anything. She’ll be cloaked. Edge, remember: If Mary is here, that’s a bonus. Rescuing Caleb and Johnny is the priority.
My fingers curl into fists. She should be here. All our intel points to this—
Fabio’s fight-or-flight pings my subconscious alarm. Switch to Fabiovision. Across the ship, a dozen men dressed in identical black suits, ties, and Ray-Bans race out onto the balcony, guns drawn. His gaze sweeps down. Zombies rising from their lounge chairs. Never a dull moment.
Bruce, Hanzo, Killmaster: Fabio needs you!
Comin’ through, losers! Hanzo’s shoving is like frozen slush in my veins. Hattori Hanzo, ninja.
Fabio’s hands fly to his utility belt. Six tiny marbles unleash in quick succession. The rapidly autoassembling nanofibers trigger midflight, and the marbles re-form into ninja throwing stars. Agents drop their firearms to clutch impaled shooting hands, and Hanzo releases control of Fabio.
A whiff of coconut. Sweaty, bronzed zombies closing in—
Fingers clamp on Fabio’s arms and wrists. He’s jerked to the deck in a tangle of greasy arms and legs. The suit’s visor cracks his lip. Weird, I can taste the metallic tang of his blood.
“VIOLENCE IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH!” the zombies intone in unison.
My brain tilts and pitches in panic. Feet still firmly planted on the opposite end of the ship, I immerse myself deeper in the Fabiovision. The scent of coconut suntan lotion quadruples in my nose. Mottled sunlight pinches through suntanned limbs and torsos. I can’t move! Weight on my throat!
That’s Fabio’s throat, sir, offers Killmaster, Navy SEAL.
Okay, okay, I reply. Help him!
[You’re the one who said the zombies are “innocent,”] replies Hanzo, this time in ancient Japanese. [You’ll recall I was for killing them.]
I never should’ve agreed to this! The dynamic duo, he said. You can’t have a Batman without a Robin, he said. You can’t have a Han without a Chewbacca, he said.
Cartilage grinds in Fabio’s throat beneath a greasy elbow…
You’re about to have an Edger without a Fabio, sir, says Killmaster.
Fabio’s arm breaks free. He punches a shoulder. A forearm shoves across his chest. His airway opens, oxygen floods in. A broken beer bottle scrapes over his ribs. Brown glass shatters against the supersuit’s metamaterial armor, and I catch a whiff of beer.
He’s so gonna die, says Killmaster. Sir.
“Edge!” cries Fabio. “The strange man in my head is saying I’m so gonna die!”
I quiet my mind against the tangling limbs, crunching glass, and hoppy beer. The porous, weblike barriers between our minds cling and flex as I push. Tendrils of consciousness yield. Their grips slacken. A blonde in a bikini slumps over him. Men in swim trunks flop with clacking elbows and knees to the deck.
“Took you long enough.” Fabio slides the blonde off, sits up, and takes in a generous eyeful of cleavage. “Hello, gorgeous. I couldn’t help notice you’re turning into a lobster. Mind if I…? Oh, I know, I know. I can feel your disapproval from here, Edge. Jeez. I just don’t get it. I mean, I’m a nice guy. When am I finally gonna meet a—uh-oh.”
Agents, now on Fabio’s level, cut paths through the sleeping zombie bodies. I try to coax them to sleep the same way as the others, following the folds of their strange cloned minds…
[It’s like origami,] says Hanzo. [Even if you could unfold their minds, you’d be left with a blank sheet of paper.]
I agree, sir, says Killmaster. Where’s Mary when we need her? These guys need snipering.
I can take it from here, says Bruce.
Fabio strikes a crane stance. “Aw, yeah!” he cries. “Time for some Clone Fu!”
The clones exchange unreadable glances from beneath their Ray-Bans. “What is this?” one of them asks, waving vaguely at Fabio’s crane stance. “I don’t like it. Smells like cultural appropriation.”
Fabio smells his right armpit self-consciously.
The clone gestures again at Fabio. “It makes it look like you are Chinese, which you are not.”
“Kung Fu isn’t cultural appropriation!”
“Are you Chinese?”
“No.”
The clone shrugs. “I rest my case.”
Red letters scroll across the HUD: ACCESS BATTLE PLAN? Y/N? Fabio hesitates.
What’s wrong? I ask. Access battle plan!
“Well, I don’t know,” Fabio replies. “I don’t want to be culturally insensitive.”
Allow me, then. Bruce seizes control of Fabio’s eyes and activates Battle Plan. In the HUD, a red line winds through the clones’ configuration as holograms perform likely attacks, counterattacks, probabilities, and relative strength calculations.
Sir? says Killmaster in an annoyed tone. The whole point of this plan is for him to draw them off while you sneak in through the back. Get sneaking.
Fabio flips, kicks, and punches his way through the melee, his visor fogging at the edges. The suit’s autoadjust kicks in; a coolant gel deploys along the spine. I release the Fabiovision, and my surroundings come into focus. Right. Stairs. Maybe Mary’s up there.
Edge, says Dad. Johnny first. Remember?
My sneakers hit the stairs two at a time.
Chapter Two
The stairs empty onto a large cedar deck and bars of sunshine. A diesel-laden breeze lifts my hair and wrinkles my nose. I jog onto the deck, and the towering walls and open-air roof are vaguely vertigo inducing. I tamp that down and focus. There’s a Hollywood A-lister around here needing rescue, and something tells me he won’t be in the pool or the jacuzzi. Massage tables, shuffleboard, arcade consoles. Those might be nice places to get kidnapped to, but let’s get real. Is this a hostage situation or not? Jeez, four private bars?
It’s five o’clock somewhere, sir, says Killmaster.
Whatever. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can look for Mary. My gaze cruises the rich oak doors on the perimeter of the common area. Four of them. Which is Johnny’s?
He’s cloaked, says Killmaster, as a new kind of Fabiovision blurs and resolves like a kaleidoscope in my mind’s eye. I’m floating disembodied in one of the suites. A man reeking of Axe Body Spray is handcuffed to a bed. The scene rewinds in high speed through the various rooms of the suite until I’m standing outside the door.
Suite A.
Finally. I hurry around a gaggle of lounge chairs and head for the dark wood railing bordering the recreation area. Its gleaming surface is smooth under my hand. There’s a break in the rail before Suite B.
Any
sign of Mary? I ask.
Whoa there, Romeo, says Killmaster. “Desperate dork” isn’t a good look. Sir.
The door to Suite B swings open, and Killmaster’s psychic sense goes full Navy SEAL. Some guy in an unbuttoned floral shirt, swim trunks, and flip-flops stumbles out. Wait—Mikey? Mike Dame, CEO and founder of InstaTron.
Hang on, I say. How come you didn’t sense him?
He’s got a medallion, Killmaster replies. Look.
I raise a hand against the rings of sunlight flashing off his pendant as Mikey stumbles forward. Disheveled hair. Stubbled cheeks. His eyes lock onto mine and sharpen.
“Edge? Is it really you?!”
He teeters. I grab his elbow and brace against my back foot. His gaze tracks above my shoulder and then turns over his shoulder. He refocuses on me.
“How do I know you’re not a clone?”
“Huh?”
“A clone! A clone!” He shakes my arms. “Edger Bonkovich is dead! He’s dead because of me!”
“No,” I hurry to say. “No, Mikey. I, um…well. I kind of…faked…my death.” Wince. “Sorry.”
“Faked it?” He frowns. “Like an orgasm? Tell me this isn’t about the porn cow.”
Wince again. “What? No!”
“The booster shots. It’s because I lied to you about the booster shots.”
“Really, it’s not you. It’s me.”
“That’s what they all say, I bet. All you fake-death people. Selfish.” He tugs free of my grip. “Well, whatever your reason, you should know we’re way beyond porn cows now, Edge. Zombies. And there’re monkeys. Invisibility! Edge, they’ve got invisibility!”
Sir? asks Killmaster. This is the CEO of InstaTron? He’s unhinged.
Yeah. I scratch my cheek and try to keep my face neutral. A far cry from the guy I knew, that’s for sure. Maybe they’ve done something to him?
“Edge! It’s like World War Z out there, only…nicer.” He shudders. “They’ve criminalized rudeness. It’s horrible. I haven’t dropped a proper F-bomb in weeks.” He surveys the rec area, panting. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck.” He giggles. “Oh, that felt so good, you have no idea. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He hunches and giggles again.