by Eirik Gumeny
Timmy took a deep breath. “OK,” replied the caped super-squirrel, releasing the scientists from his telekinetic stranglehold. They fell to the ground awkwardly, with a variety of thuds.
“All right, well, with that out of the way, I guess it’s time to start talking renegade Aztec gods,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“What do you know, Phil?” asked Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“You guys all right?” asked William H. Taft XLII, offering his hand to Judy.
“Oh my god,” said Judy, pulling herself up. “I am so turned on.”
“Wait, what?”
“Well, I only met him for the first time ... a couple weeks ago,” explained the philosopher.
Judy turned to her scientist companions saying, “Someone needs to do me, right the hell now.” She grabbed one by the arm and began pulling him toward the helicopter. “You, let’s go.”
“He was ... different then than he is now,” continued the bearded man.
The bagged lady shoved the scientist into the helicopter, climbed in on top of him, and slid the door shut behind her.
“The wings are new, for one.”
“Did anyone else just see that?” asked William H. Taft XLII, looking around.
“The tail, as well.”
“It seems really inappropriate is all,” continued the former president, scratching the back of his head. “I mean, you do you, lady, but the timing ...”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
KABOOM
“Sir,” said the completely nondescript bureaucratic drone whose fortune-telling mother hadn’t even bothered to name him due to his fated role in the world, “it appears that Quetzalcoatl and his army have breached Las Vegas and destroyed most of the city.”
“Damn it,” said the President of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America, and Mexico, pounding his fist against his desk. “The hookers?”
“At half capacity, sir.”
“Half?!” replied the president. “Our economy is ruined!”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about the Giant Killers?” asked the president, rubbing his forehead. “Do we have an ETA on them yet?”
“The Giant Killers, sir?”
“Operation Giant Killer?”
“None of the paperwork had ‘Giant Killer’ written on it,” said the drone, flipping through the reports and files he was carrying.
“Well, no, it wouldn’t. It was a secret plan.”
“I don’t know that there’s anything particularly secret about this, sir,” said the office worker, still flipping. “Thor is referred to by name several times. As are his co-workers and the political clones who joined them. Political clones that don’t legally exist. The paperwork even has the model number and flight path of the helicopter taking them from New Jersey to Nevada. There is absolutely no part of this plan that uses any kind of discretion.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” said the president, “that’s not Operation Giant Killer.”
“Sir?”
“I’m not really sure what you’re looking at, son,” explained the president. “The paperwork I got says I’m supposed to send in the Horsemen to deal with our little god infestation.”
“The Horsemen? The Horsemen were ruled a crime against humanity, sir. By a court of clinically deranged criminals. They were supposed to have been dismantled, melted down, turned into spoons, wrapped in plastic, and then fired into space,” said the nameless grunt, outrage quickly rising within him.
“Well, that proved to be expensive,” said the president, “so they weren’t.”
“The Horsemen don’t have filters, sir. They’ll kill everyone.”
“These things happen,” he said with a shrug.
“Those people are innocent, sir. In fact, you dragged them into this. They’re under your orders to try and save the world! You can’t seriously do this.”
“Actually,” said the president, “I already did. I authorized the release of the Horsemen twenty minutes ago.
“Although,” he continued, “I had forgotten how highly illegal that endeavor was, so I guess maybe you’re right after all. Something should probably be done.”
“Thank you for coming to your senses, sir,” replied the nameless young man. “I really wasn’t looking forward to all the paperwork I’d have to file in order to report this to the United Global Congressional Federation of Countries.”
“Neither was I,” replied the president, pulling a crossbow from his desk.
“Sir,” said the completely nondescript bureaucratic drone whose fortune-telling mother hadn’t even bothered to name him due to his fated role in the world, “what are you doing?”
“Solving our paperwork problem,” replied the president as he loaded his crossbow.
“There are numerous, far better options ...”
The President of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America, and Mexico shot an arrow into his assistant’s chest.
“Too bad your mother never saw that coming,” he said.
“Actually, sir,” said the nameless young man, grimacing and looking down at the arrow sticking out of his sternum, “she did.” He slumped down into the armchair across from the president’s desk. “They’ll probably blame you for this, you know.”
“Blame me for what?” said the increasingly confused attempted murderer, loading another arrow.
The office drone ripped opened his increasingly blood-stained buttondown to reveal a heavy black vest, a belt, and an enormous bandolier, all loaded with, and made of, explosives. “The fall,” the drone explained, spitting dark fluids, “of the Amalgamated Provinces and States of Canada, America, and Mexico, for one thing.”
“I thought your torso was oddly shaped,” said the president, shooting the office worker in the chest again.
“Consolidating all the government offices into one building was a pretty stupid idea.”
The president shot the drone in the chest a third time.
“Especially,” continued the drone, blood pouring down his chin now, “considering how terrible a president you are, sir.”
“No kidding, son,” said the president. “I didn’t even vote for me.” He shot his assistant a fourth time.
“Are – are you done yet?” asked the drone, drifting from consciousness.
“Yeah ...” said the president, looking sadly at the empty crossbow. “There’s a chainsaw in the closet, though.”
“Don’t – don’t bother,” the young man struggled to say. He began lifting himself from the chair, only to stumble forward, vomit an unhealthy amount of blood onto the president’s carpet, and then pull himself back into the chair.
“You all right there, son?”
The completely nondescript bureaucratic drone whose fortune-telling mother hadn’t even bothered to name him due to his fated role in the world raised an eyebrow and gave the president a look, then pulled a detonator from his pocket.
“Fuck you, sir.”
He pushed the button.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Join, or Die
Quetzalcoatl stood – or coiled, or whatever it’s called when a snake rests on his tail and gives a speech – before his gathered minions in the hollowed out remains of the Bellagio casino. A single roulette table stood forlornly in the corner, the rest of the cavernous room having been reduced to splinters and pools of multi-colored tokens.
“Assorted smelly people in my employ ...” began the Aztec god.
“You’re not paying us,” shouted Jill from the back of the crowd.
“I’m not charging you, though. Think of all that money you’re not giving to me and consider it your earnings.”
“I don’t think –” said Jack, standing at Jill’s side.
“I know you don’t,” barked Quetzalcoatl, cutting him off. “And that’s OK. We don’t pass judgment on the mental shortcomings of others here.
“Speaking of stupid people within our ranks, though,” continued the snake-man, “it has c
ome to my attention that some of you may be wavering in your belief of me. Rest assured, I am still one hundred percent committed to whatever it is I told you I believed.”
“World peace,” said one member of the congregation.
“The dismantling of the patriarchy,” corrected a second.
“Puppies!” shouted a third.
“Exactly,” agreed Quetzalcoatl. “And I know some of you are also questioning just how and why things got so violent in the general areas I was inhabiting at any given time. The thing about that was, it wasn’t. You’re simply not opening your minds to their ... openest. It wasn’t violence at all; it was performance art! The flames you see engulfing this city are the literal interpretation of our ideas setting the world on fire.”
“But,” said Hil, “isn’t that exactly the opposite way a metaphor is supposed to work?”
“Well, they’d clearly be expecting that, wouldn’t they? Metaphorical burning is so played out.”
A large portion of the crowd began nodding in approval. The ones who didn’t – Hil and Jill included – furrowed their brows instead. Quetzalcoatl noticed this mass furrowing and addressed their concerns directly.
“If that still doesn’t convince you to do what I say,” he said, “just remember that I will kill you all without even a second thought.”
The furrowed eyebrow to raised eyebrow ratio shifted significantly.
“Where are Bill and Phil?” asked one particularly swift and observant member of the Quetzalcoatl fan club.
“Not here,” replied the psychopathic cult leader. “Turns out neither of them could fly.”
The raised eyebrow percentage skyrocketed, as did the angle of the raised eyebrows in question.
“More importantly, though, gentlemen and ladies, is that gathering of people not on fire over there,” continued Quetzalcoatl, pointing over the crowd’s collective head and through the missing front wall of the Bellagio, toward the helicopter parked beneath the faux Eiffel Tower.
“That is a state of being that needs to be corrected.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
It’d Take a Miracle
“Yeah, OK,” said Thor Odinson, the government helicopter rocking rhythmically behind him, “but how are we supposed to stop him?”
“Violence?” suggested Phil Thompson with a slight shrug. “I don’t really know.”
“Seriously? That’s your answer?”
“You’ve been at Quetzalcoatl’s side this entire time,” added Chester A. Arthur XVII, “and that’s all you’ve got?”
Phil the philosopher took a deep breath. He looked at the trio of cloned politicians, the god with a caped squirrel on his shoulder, and the hotel employee encircling him, eagerly anticipating what he had to say. Knitting his brow and gathering his thoughts, he looked to the scientists for assistance. The scientists, however, had all joined Judy in the helicopter.
Phil made a sweater out of his brow. He took another deep breath.
“Quetzalcoatl told me he once ... destroyed a small continent, but didn’t die,” began the bearded man. “Then he drowned ... without actually drowning. Immediately after that ... he drank himself into a coma ... without actually going into a coma.
“But, then, that was only his own ... recounting of his history. All I know with certainty ... is that last week, no more than ten feet from me, I watched him die ... at the sharpened metal hands of a squadron of murder-drones. Only Quetzalcoatl didn’t die. Instead, he ... metamorphosed into the winged snake god of a long-dead civilization.
“So, yes,” Phil concluded, “nothing is all I’ve got.”
“This is insane,” said Queen Victoria XXX. “Everyone’s got some kind of weakness, something that can be exploited. Shouldn’t a snake-man have some kind of soft underbelly? Allergies? Maybe a girlfriend or a kid we can kidnap? A favorite teddy bear we can set on fire? Anything?”
“Even when he was being ... straightforward, it sounded like he was speaking in riddles. Quetzalcoatl has no allegiances, no ... vulnerabilities that I’ve ever witnessed. I honestly don’t know what else I can tell you.”
“Uh, guys,” interrupted William H. Taft XLII, “can you argue faster? I think we just got found.”
The cloned president pointed past the philosopher toward the incoming wave of angry liberal arts majors and vagabonds crowding the avenue. The unwashed mass of flannel and blonde dreadlocks stretched back to the shattered casinos lining the horizon. It was like a protest march for animal rights, only instead of signs, everyone was carrying hatchets and pocket knives and broken bottles and weaponized pieces of murder-drone.
“Phil?” asked Catrina, staring with concern in the opposite direction, past the thinker and William H. Taft XLII and the helicopter. “When did you guys get killer robots?” She pointed to the twelve tractor-trailer-sized mechanical monsters marching in from the other end of the avenue.
“We didn’t,” said Phil, turning, his eyes growing as wide as hers.
“Oh, this won’t end well,” said William H. Taft XLII, looking back and forth between the mob and the robots.
After the world was ended for the sixth time – back when the occasional society-decimating cataclysm was still considered a problem – a team of United States Army engineers set out to end the end of the world once and for all. After performing several months’ worth of math in several days, and drinking several dozen gallons of military-grade coffee, they concluded the most effective way to stop any future armageddons was to hunt down and eliminate the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
To do this, the engineers created twelve Horsemen of their own, each the size of a large Army personnel transport and resembling a centaur – assuming the viewer was either an eight-year old with an overactive imagination or eating mushrooms.
The Horsemen were over-armored, loaded with two of every weapon known to mankind, and programmed with a stripped-down, African-warlord version of the standard murder-drone programming. They were put through a rigorous, dedicated training regimen, but kept veering off-program and targeting live kittens instead. A few of the more even-headed engineers considered scrapping the program entirely prior to launch, but they were all mysteriously set on fire.
“I think I can ... talk the philosophers out of this,” said Phil. “I don’t know what you’re going to do about ... them, though,” he continued, indicating the walking war-crimes.
“I can take ‘em,” thought Timmy the super-squirrel.
The Horsemen were ultimately successful in eliminating the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. However, after a meteor strike ended the world for the seventh time, it became readily apparent to everyone that the robots had been significantly less successful in actually stopping any apocalypses. This made the Horsemen mad.
“Are you crazy?” asked Catrina.
The Horsemen weren’t actually supposed to be capable of anger, but, due to a misplaced one in the Horsemen’s coding, they were able to work themselves into the frothing rage of an old-money douchebag with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement forced to wait in a line of perfectly reasonable length.
“I guess we’ll find out,” replied the squirrel.
The Horsemen went on a rampage and murdered half the world’s population. It wasn’t until Japan built a team of brightly-colored robots shaped like jungle cats that the monstrous murder-drones were stopped. And, even then, the Japanese robots failed the first three times, only finding success after they connected with one other into an even larger robot and were given a sword the size of a small skyscraper. Then the world was saved.
Well, eventually the world was saved.
The battle between the Horsemen and the Japanese mega-robot actually sank Japan, all three Koreas, and a number of the smaller Pacific islands, ultimately flooding large portions of beachfront property across the globe and ending the world for the eighth time.
But then, for reals, then the world was saved.
For, like, a month.
“All right,” barked
Chester A. Arthur XVII, “Billy, you get the scientists out of their orgy and go with Phil to stop the ... people over there.”
“Sure thing,” said William H. Taft XLII, with a nod.
“I don’t know what good scientists are going to do against ... self-righteous, riled-up writers and poets,” replied Phil.
“That’s why I’m sending Billy,” replied Chester A. Arthur XVII.
“I fail to see how that ... adds anything to the mix.”
“Let me clarify: That’s why I’m sending Billy and his rocket launcher.”
“Oh,” said Phil. “Well, all right, then.”
“Let’s go ‘talk” to these assholes,” said William H. Taft XLII, hoisting his rocket launcher onto his shoulder.
“Can you try not to kill them ... if you don’t have to?” asked Phil.
“No promises.”
“Some of them ... are my friends.”
“Man, that’s your problem.”
The heavyset president, his rocket launcher, and the philosopher jogged toward the helicopter and began banging on the door, shouting and apologizing simultaneously.
“All right, now, Timmy ...” began Chester A. Arthur XVII, turning his attention toward the Horsemen.
“Already gone, chuckles,” replied the telepathic squirrel from almost half a mile away.
“Right, well, uh, good luck then,” thought the president in return.
“I don’t need luck.”
“Look, I was only trying to be polite.”
“You can take your manners and shove them up your ass. I don’t like being told what to do, about anything.”
“I can’t actually tell you to be lucky; that doesn’t even make sense,” thought Chester A. Arthur XVII in reply. “Now get out of my head.”
“With pleasure,” replied Timmy.