by Eirik Gumeny
“That could be it, yeah,” said Erin.
“I only see the one ...” He furrowed his brow. “That’s weird.”
“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”
“Seriously,” said Erin, putting her finger in her ear again and wiggling it around violently, “you don’t hear that?”
“No, nothing.”
“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”
“How can you not hear that? It’s getting louder by the second.”
“Are you all right, honey?”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”
“What is that?!” yelled Erin, spastically turning in a circle, scouring the park for the offending noise. Jorge grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Erin. I’m sorry about this, but: calm down. We can figure out what the sound is in a second. Right now we really need to take a few steps to the left.” Jorge lifted his head slightly, indicating the patch of sky directly above them and the large black dot rapidly getting larger.
Erin looked up. “Oh, right,” she said, “yeah.”
Jorge and Erin, ignoring their aching knees and ankles, rushed across the park as the large black dot revealed itself to be a small black sphere. The small black sphere, in turn, became a large black sphere, and then crashed into the model of the Manhattan skyline that had been built along the waterfront after the actual skyline had had the audacity to sink when the world had ended for the thirteenth time.
The impact of the sphere quite understandably created a small crater and sent a shockwave out along the ground, tripping up Erin and Jorge and irking the grass some too. The husband and wife, face-first in the angry lawn, their backs to the impact, turned their heads awkwardly and peered at the smoking crater.
“Should we check it out?” asked Erin.
“I guess so?” answered Jorge, rolling onto his back and scanning the sky. “I don’t see any others.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Stray meteor?” he said with a shrug.
Slowly, Erin and Jorge approached the crest of the hole.
“That’s no meteor.”
They stared at the melting ball of metal cradled in the center of the pit. At least eight feet in diameter, the outer layer appeared to be an ungainly cross-stitching of multiple sheets of steel, titanium, and machine guns, variously dripping, smoking, or outright burning.
“What the hell is that?” asked Erin. “A satellite?”
A square of smoking metal burst from the center of the ball, sailing over the couple and across the park.
Erin stepped behind Jorge, saying, “Maybe we should –”
It was then that a small squirrel stepped from the wreckage and posed, dramatically, on its hind legs, its front paws on its hips. Its cape fluttered in the sudden and localized wind.
“hothothothothot” The squirrel immediately scurried off the flaming orb and onto the grass near Jorge and Erin. “Uh, hey, there,” said the squirrel, looking up.
“That – that squirrel can talk,” said Erin.
“Squirrels don’t talk, honey ...” replied Jorge, furrowing his brow.
“Not talking,” corrected the squirrel, communicating directly with Erin, “telepathy.”
“Telepathy?” blurted the woman.
“Babe?” inquired her husband, reversing the angle of his eyebrows.
“Don’t worry about it, boss,” said the squirrel, this time to both of them. “She’s fine. She’s just a lot smarter than you. I picked up on her brainwaves first, figured there’d be a better chance of her hearing me. Granted, I spent the last few minutes screaming, but, y’know, A for effort and all that.”
“You’ve got quite the set of lungs on you,” said Erin. “Or ... in ... your brain? I guess?” She scrunched up her face slightly. “It was loud is what I’m saying.”
“Atmospheric re-entry was a lot more terrifying than I had anticipated,” explained the squirrel.
The man, the woman, and the squirrel stood silently for a moment. Then another moment. Jorge scratched his chin.
“So, uh, I don’t mean to be rude, but: what exactly is your deal?” asked Erin.
“Should we be concerned?” continued Jorge. “‘cause we’re not. But, I mean, we could be, if there’s a planet of cape-wearing squirrels out there plotting against us or something.”
“Or are you, like, a test animal?” suggested Erin. “Like those monkeys they tried to fling into space on giant catapults.”
“I’m from here,” answered the squirrel. “Scientists jammed a bunch of chemicals in my brain and then boiled it in radiation, giving me psychic powers. Then, not too long after that, an angry, reborn Aztec god threw me into space when I tried to stop him from taking over the world.”
Erin and Jorge stared at the tiny, caped squirrel, blinking with reckless abandon. Then Erin shrugged. “I’ve heard stranger.”
“I think I read about that, actually,” added Jorge slowly. “No, wait. That was a reborn Hindu goddess who ate most of India.”
“OK, sure,” said the rodent, scratching the back of his tiny, furry neck. “Think you guys could point me in the direction of a good restaurant? I’m fucking starving.”
CHAPTER ONE
Thor, God of Lousy Customer Service
“Hi, this is room 222, I ordered a sandwich about forty-five minutes ago and I still haven’t received it.”
“From where?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Where did you order your sandwich from? And why are you calling me?”
“I ordered room service. From the hotel. And you’re the hotel. That’s why I’m calling you.”
“I don’t think that’s right. We don’t do room service. We don’t even have a kitchen.”
“Are you sure? ‘cause they didn’t mention that when I ordered my sandwich.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. The last time someone tried to use the stove it exploded. We never replaced it.”
“You don’t need a stove to make a sandwich ...”
“But you do need sandwich materials. Which we don’t have. Because we don’t do room service. Because we don’t have a kitchen. Because it blew up.”
“They didn’t say that before.”
“Who is this ‘they’ you keep talking about?”
“I didn’t get his name. But he answered the phone. Had a man’s voice. Was it Bob? Do you have a Bob here?”
“We do not have a Bob here. We have a Thor and we have a Catrina.”
“Well, it wasn’t Catrina. And I don’t think it was Thor. I’d remember a name like Thor.”
“Are you sure you dialed the front desk?”
“Yeah, definitely. They said ‘Renaissance Meadowlands front desk’ and then I ordered my sandwich.”
“This isn’t the Renaissance Meadowlands.”
“Really.”
“Really.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“The stationery on the desk here says ‘Holiday Inn, Secaucus, New Jersey.’ ... I’m not staying at the Renaissance, am I?”
“You are not, no.”
“But I ordered my sandwich from them.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Do you think they’ll deliver it here?”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“Can I order a sandwich from you?”
“No. No, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no kitchen here, remember? No room service?”
“Oh, right.”
“Can I go now?”
“Do you know where I can get a sandwich?”
“There’s a Dunkin Donuts and a deli in the plaza.”
“Do they deliver?”
“No. Not anymore.”
“Anymore?”
“This is a surprisingly dangerous plaza.”
“Can you go and get a sandwich for me?”
>
“No. No, I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Both.”
“You’re a really terrible hotel, you know that?”
“Yes. Yes, I do,” said Thor Odinson, former Norse God of Thunder, hanging up the phone and shaking his head. “How do these people keep finding me?”
There had been twenty-five apocalypses to date. The planet’s surface had changed so drastically and so often that maps were now filed under History or Fiction in the one library that still existed. Words like “earth-shattering,” “cataclysm,” and “forever” were commonplace in weather forecasts, and an eighty percent chance of widespread fire tornados simply meant “wear shorts.” People barely noticed the end of the world anymore unless they were directly involved.
The last apocalypse that Thor was even remotely aware of was just over a year ago, when he killed Quetzalcoatl, a resurrected Aztec snake-god, with stolen demolition tools and accidentally cracked open the sky. Even then, he was fuzzy on the details. The two apocalypses since that one? He’d be humped if he knew.
Thor did have a Google alert set for “Ragnarok,” but, seeing as how his mortality stemmed directly from science disproving religion, news about the Nordic Twilight of the Gods was few and far between. His friends had tried to convince the fallen deity to broaden his definitions, but he adamantly refused to acknowledge any lesser armageddon. Partly out of arrogance, partly out of the indifference needed to survive in a world where restaurants regularly had a section roped off for the living dead, but, mostly, out of spite. Thor was still pretty pissed being the God of Thunder didn’t get him farther with the ladies.
“Who was that?” asked Mark Hughes – cyborg, veteran of the Robot Wars, and manager and proprietor of the Secaucus Holiday Inn.
Thor, not aware that his boss had been standing behind him, hastily replied, “Wrong number.”
“Didn’t sound like a wrong number.”
“There was a wrong number involved ...”
“Was that one of our guests?”
“Maybe.”
“What did they want, Thor?”
“A sandwich.”
“And you said ...?”
“That they could get their own sandwich.”
“Does that sound like good customer service to you?”
“Not even a little.”
Mark crossed his arms over his chest. He stared sternly at Thor, his ocular implant whirring. Sternly. “Go get them a sandwich, Thor.”
“No way, man. I’m off in ...” He looked at the wireless handset’s clock. “ ...now. I’m not getting sandwiches for anyone but me.”
“One, you’re not off until Catrina shows up, and she’s still upstairs. Two – and this is the important one, Thor – were you going to go to the deli and get a sandwich, for yourself, right now, like you do every day?”
“Uh ...”
“That’s what I thought,” said Mark. “Get the guy a sandwich. After Catrina comes down.”
“Oh, come on,” contended Thor. “This is bullshit.”
“Yeah, well, I let you and your friends live here for free, so you’re pretty much my bitch.”
“Ha,” yipped Catrina Dalisay, tying back her long black hair as she crossed the lobby from the elevator. “Mark called you his bitch.”
“You’re his bitch, too,” countered Thor.
“Yeah, but he can’t actually call me that ‘cause I have lady parts.”
“Seriously? How does that work?”
“Nobody knows, Thor, but it’s true,” explained Mark. “Now call back our guest and find out what kind of sandwich he wants. And get me a number four while you’re there.”
“And I want a turkey on a roll, no mayo,” added Catrina. She began typing into her mobile phone.
“What?” said Thor. “How is tha– Who are you texting?”
“Vicky wants a number two,” Catrina replied, reading the incoming message.
“Oh, come on!”
“And Charlie says he wants a chicken parm.”
“I hate you all,” murmured the thunder god.
CHAPTER TWO
The Bad Kind of Robot
Timmy the telepathic, telekinetic, cape-wearing, space-faring super-squirrel scampered along the cracked, weed-ridden shoulder of an abandoned highway, wandering in the general direction of west and trying to figure out how to get back to his family.
The relationship between Timmy and his wife had become tense enough after he was kidnapped, gained psychic powers, and became a freelance superhero. A thirteen month disappearance wasn’t going to help any. Especially not since getting hurled off the planet by an angry god was exactly the kind of thing she had warned him about.
How was he going to apologize for this one, Timmy wondered. Flowers? No, his wife was allergic to some kinds of flowers. He could never remember which. Was it orchids? Dandelions? Or was she allergic to flour? Maybe he’d grab whatever he could find and take his chances. Or maybe nuts. Timmy’s wife did love nuts. Surely she’d understand that it wasn’t his intention to nearly die.
Timmy sighed. Maybe he’d just say he loved her and he missed her and swear off saving the world for a while.
And then there were the kids ...
A giant slab of polished metal planted itself in front of Timmy, pulverizing what was left of the shattered highway. Timmy skittered to a stop, staring at the block of steel through the rising dust. It appeared to be a gigantic foot, attached to a gigantic leg, attached to an even more gigantic robot. The machine was at least twenty-feet tall and vaguely humanoid in shape, with two monstrous hydraulic thighs, colossal spring-loaded forearms, clamps for hands, a metric crapload of rockets mounted to the shoulders, and a large, clear dome for a head. A dome that had a two-hundred-year-old man laughing maniacally inside of it.
“God damn it.”
***
Timmy followed the robot down the highway. Despite the terrifying hardware and the crazy old man, the squirrel needed to know for sure that this thing’s intentions were evil. Timmy was, admittedly, not the best at reading human emotions and had been overzealous before. There was an entire troop of Girl Scouts that would never forgive him for what he had done.
The super-squirrel had been trailing the mechanical man for the better part of an hour when they came upon a small town, nestled at the base of an even smaller hill. Immediately, the robot jumped down the road’s embankment. The machine crashed through a building, exposed a flamethrower from its arm, set a group of tents and fleeing people on fire, and then made its way across the town toward the bank, violently squashing everything it could find along the way.
This was definitely the bad kind of robot.
Timmy bounded after the mechanical man, jumping from hill to screaming pedestrian to car roof.
“Hey, asshole!” he thought, as loudly as he could.
The old man in the dome didn’t show any signs of hearing the squirrel. Instead, the robot punched a hole into the side of the bank.
“I’m talking to you, old man!”
Still nothing. Timmy tried to read the man’s thoughts, but couldn’t find them. The dome appeared to shield the old man from Timmy’s mental powers.
Timmy raised a furry eyebrow. This was new.
Still, Timmy was more than a one-trick pony. He was more than several well-trained ponies, actually, as ponies were kind of useless in high-stress situations, always whinnying and pooping instead of helping. The super-squirrel lifted a car with his mind and threw it at the robot.
The car collided with a mechanical arm before falling to the street. The dome spun, the old man looking from side to side, trying to identify his assailant but finding only panicking townsfolk.
“OK,” he said through a loudspeaker in the robot’s chest, “who did that?”
Timmy hurled another car into the old man’s mechanical suit. The automobile clanged against the robot, the windshield shattering. The dome continued to spin.
“Right. Got tha
t. But where are you?”
Clang. Shatter. Spin.
“In all seriousness now,” continued the old man, “who is doing that? I cannot see you. Are you a ghost? Edison? Is that you?”
Timmy sighed. Then he tossed the car he was standing on into the robot’s chest, jumping off and onto the dome as the automobile smashed against the mechanical torso.
“What’s this now? A squirrel? Who the dickens is throwing squirrels at me?”
Timmy sighed again. Then he tapped on the glass with one of his tiny claws. He pointed at himself, then at the old man, and then brought his claw across his neck in a slicing gesture.
“I am not following.”
Timmy raised his middle claw to the old man.
“Oh, OK,” said the man. “I believe I understand now. You. You are the one throwing cars at me.”
Timmy nodded.
“How?”
Timmy pointed to his head. Then he pointed to one of the robot’s shoulder-mounted arsenals. Then he crushed it with his brain.
“Ah, I see,” said the old man. “Psychokinesis.” He shook his head inside the dome. “That will not do at all.”
The robot crackled with purple electricity. Timmy’s fur stood on end.
“This isn’t good,” thought the squirrel.
There was a sound, like a dull electronic plunk, and then a sphere of black energy exploded from the robot. Timmy was sent flying. Car radios and hot plates and any other electronics unfortunate enough to find themselves in its wake exploded as the sphere crossed over them. Lightning began to leap from the marauding mechanical man. From inside his dome the senior citizen laughed.
Timmy landed awkwardly against a fire hydrant, dazed but physically unharmed. Mostly he was angry. The squirrel grabbed a car with his mind ... only nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing. He tried to pick up a small chunk of debris lying in the street. It didn’t do anything except continue to lie in the street.
“Well, shit,” thought Timmy.
The robot stomped away from the bank, slowly approaching the squirrel, lightning sparking every which way and rockets aimed squarely at Timmy. The super-squirrel ducked behind the fire hydrant.