by Chris Winder
“Craig, you got a crowbar or something?”, Tyler asked the kid with the tools.
“Yeah”, Craig yelled from under the hood. Tyler heard him rustle around inside of his bag. Craig leaned around the open hood and tossed him a large screwdriver, which by the appearance had been used as a pry bar more than once.
Tyler looked at the tool in disgust. It looked like he stored it up some robot’s butt. It wasn’t even name-brand, just some cheap Chinese crap. Then he shrugged, because not only was it not his, if he broke it, that would give Craig the opportunity to buy something that wasn’t complete crap, like everything else he owned.
It took longer than he thought it would to get the trunk open, but that was fine until Craig asked if he could help. He’d rather punch himself in the face, and when he informed Craig of that what should be very obvious fact, he looked crestfallen. Good. He needed to learn his place. When Tyler wants help, Tyler will ask for help, but there’s no way Tyler will ever ask a plebeian like Craig for help.
One final grunt and squeal of the screwdriver scraping against something metal popped the trunk open. Tyler looked at the end of the screwdriver and for a moment, just a moment, felt some appreciation for the cheap thing. Then he remembered where he was and who he was with and tossed the cheap thing to the ground.
The trunk was completely empty, except for one item. Tyler reached for it, but hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to take it out of the trunk, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to pay for it. It was small enough to put in his pants and sneak out, and it looked to valuable not to do just that.
What he found looked like a small bottle, the right size and shape to be octane booster, but he couldn’t read the label. He thought it might be Korean, or possibly Taiwanese, if that was a thing. The bottle was gold-colored and when Tyler finally got the nerve to touch it, it felt like it might actually be gold. A small shudder of excitement ran through his body, thinking about what might be inside.
Tyler remembered that it was likely he wasn’t alone, but if he looked around, he might draw attention to himself. He was a pro at this, and he could already feel his excitement rising, feel his blood begin to rush through his veins... and he loved it. This was the kind of thing he lived for.
He stood back up, stretched his arms above his head and took the moment to glance around in front of him. Then he turned around, seemed to notice that his shoe was untied, which it wasn’t, and kneeled to tie it, again taking a quick look around to see if anyone was looking. The only thing he couldn’t remember was whether or not the place had any security cameras. He didn’t think they did but wanted to be sure.
He didn’t see any, so he closed the trunk almost all the way and went to see what the other two were doing while he formulated his plan. When he got to the driver’s window, he took a peek inside and saw that the radio was new, not original. Too bad, he thought to himself. He needed something to buy so he wouldn’t look suspicious when they left.
He left and when he got to the opened hood, he got a very interesting surprise. The body of the vehicle was stock, but nothing else was. The distributor was aftermarket, as was the single-wire alternator and the low-profile blower were definitely not stock, and neither was the Nitrous Oxide System. Craig and Steven gave him room to inspect the gold-colored braided wire covers, nickel-plated components and painted parts which weren’t too badly damaged in the rollover.
Tyler nearly cried when he discovered the crack in the engine block. Then he did cry, a little, when he saw that the blower was also damaged. But, he thought to himself, there’s still the bottle, and anyone with a car like this would only buy the best octane boost. Whatever brand it was, he’d have to find out more about it, after he tried it in his own car.
“Okay gents, let’s get the distributor out of this one, and be careful of the wires. Either of you two breaks something I’ll kick your ass”, he told them, accompanying the threat with a clenched fist that he waved menacingly in front of both of their noses, but mostly Craig’s. Then he stood back and pretended to watch, but what he was really thinking about was the gold bottle of octane boost and how he was going to get it out of the yard. They wanted to see inside your tool bag to make sure you weren’t taking anything, and they often looked you up and down, but one place people don't generally look is your crotch. The bottle had a somewhat-wide bottom and a long neck, so it could conceivable resemble his man-part if he positioned it correctly.
Quit being a pussy, he told himself. He walked to the trunk of the car, grabbed the bottle, quickly made sure the lid was tight and shoved it into his underwear. The test as to whether this would work would come when he stood in front of Craig and Steven, watching them work. This would no-doubt annoy them and they would look to see why he was hovering. If they didn’t notice, the loser cashiers wouldn’t notice either.
He stuck his hands in his pockets so he could adjust the bottle for a more comfortable fit and resisted the urge to look around until he got back to the front of the car. Craig had just finished pulling the distributor out of the car and both he and Steven were inspecting it, commenting on the precision of craftsmanship, the chrome, the electronics, both of which, Tyler guessed, they actually knew nothing about, since both drove Japanese cars which were likely made in Michigan. Nothing good came from Michigan, he thought to himself. I mean, just look at the Lions, the Red Wings, the Pistons.
“What’s wrong?”, Steven asked, a look of concern in his eyes.
Tyler made a face. “What do you mean?”
“You’re shaking your head.” He and Craig were looking back and forth between Tyler and the distributor they had just carefully removed from the wrecked Mustang.
“Nothing”, Tyler said, taking the distributor from them. “I think I have what I need from this wreck. Good job.” Both of the other boys beamed at the rare moment of praise from their friend. Tyler noted it too and promised himself that he’d be extra-cruel for the next day or so in order to prevent any… romantic feelings from developing. He wasn’t that kind of guy.
Tyler made it through the peering eyes of the employees at the front office, the only way out besides hopping a fence or tunneling under it, not because of his ability to act cool, but because of his real reaction to Craig. It appeared that the earlier praise had gone right to the dude’s head. The queer had actually slung his arm around Tyler, like they were dating or something.
The good part was that Tyler got to take the gold bottle home for free. The bad part was that Craig likely wouldn’t be sharing his tools for a week or two until he forgot about the loud, public admonition, involving the words “fag”, “queer”, “butt-monkey” and “ass-pirate”, among others. Tyler had to set what others called “healthy boundaries”, but he called man-distance.
As soon as Tyler got home, his mom tried to talk to him, but he brushed her off as if he were in a foul mood. It always worked, and she let him go to his room without further delay. He slammed his door for good measure, ensuring at least an hour of unbothered peace. Moms could be so annoying.
Tyler hopped onto his laptop computer, lay on his bed with the gold bottle next to it and began to research what, exactly, the bottle was. Several minutes later, after having reached the absolute limit of his attention-span, he’d turned-up exactly zilch. Not a single picture, article, advertisement or anything. Whoever made this stuff, he thought, it was pretty exclusive… and it was all his.
He sat up on his bed and tried to make a decision. He really liked his car, but if he could get a gas-tank of jet-fuel just by adding this bottle, he’d do it. He had just under half of a tank of gas in his car, so it should have time to mix, he thought.
Tyler opened the top of the bottle and heard a satisfying crack, announcing that it was still sealed before he twisted the top. When he took a sniff, the smell nearly made him swoon. What he smelled was definitely gasoline-ish and if it wasn’t explosive he’d kiss Craig on the mouth. This stuff had to be amazing with a smell like that. He looked out the window, and
seeing that night had fallen, made his decision. He was going to take his car to the local gas station, pour the bottle into his gas tank, fill it to the top with premium fuel, and have a great night of speeding through town. Tonight was going to be exciting.
Tyler pulled up to the gas station, got out of his car and pushed the fuel door to pop it open. He concealed the bottle under his shirt until he got the gas cap off and was ready to pour it in. He looked left and right, just once, to make sure nobody was going to snatch it from him before pouring it in.
He didn’t hear the gasoline that was already in his tank sizzle when the liquid touched it. That’s because just then some stinking hillbilly in a beat-up pickup and an obvious broken muffler that actually sounded better than Craig’s car, if he were being honest, but it sure was loud, pulled up on the other side of the pump. As the driver turned the key back and shut of the motor, which kept trying to run in spurts and coughs, Tyler steadied himself, waiting for something to fall off of the rattling heap with a loud crash or explosion, but nothing did.
He expected some young, hick punk in a cowboy hat, spurs and giant, tombstone belt buckle to hop out, but the frail, old man who emerged had a yellow-white beard down past his too-high, worn-out jeans. The old man wasn’t even a challenge, so Tyler ignored him and filled his tank. Then he took a deep breath. Either he’d just destroyed his engine, which of course he’d blame on bad gas, which would likely result in his father suing the station, or it was going to be a fun night. There were no other options.
Tyler sat in his car and put his seatbelt on, safety first, for him anyway. He couldn’t hear the sizzle of gasoline in his tank. He didn’t know that it was not longer gasoline, but something more akin to really powerful jet fuel, martian-style. He didn’t know that the trashed bottle he’d opened was actually the completely fermented milk of a hornswaggle. Hornswaggle milk was prized by the Kalaxians, although it was slightly corrosive and had to be stored in one of the only metals which could resist the acid, gold. Kalaxians treasured the liquid, and therefore the hornswaggles themselves, because it was the only thing that could really get a Kalaxian drunk. However, if it wasn’t consumed within a reasonable amount of time, it became a horrid, bitter, liquid that no Kalaxian would drink, and would need to be tossed-out.
As Tyler sat in his car, the gasoline in his tank continued to mix and react with the rotten hornswaggle milk and become even more powerful. If he could have seen inside the tank, he might’ve thought twice about pushing the button that would suck that purple-glowing-liquid up into his car’s engine. He would have thought thrice about shifting from Park to Drive, and he would have thought… four times about pressing on the accelerator, even a little. But Tyler was not a pussy. It was now or never.
When the old man turned to put the gas pump’s nozzle into his tank, something like an explosion banged on the other side of the pump. It startled him so badly he thought he might drop the pump handle, but he didn’t. When he turned around to see what it was, he could hear something… spinning, it sounded like. He put the pump handle back in the pump and peered around the other side. The thing he heard spinning was a round blue and silver emblem, spinning around and around.
* * *
Admiral Eekbo would be rubbing his tentacles together in anticipation, but as the public display of emotion was considered childish, he refrained from doing so. Even at this exciting moment, it was no time to look weak in front of the crew.
“Status report”, he ordered, using his most menacing tone of squirts and bloops.
“Admiral, the Doom-Bot has just landed. Cloaking field is activated and systems are powering-up. It will be operational in thirty seconds”, his weapons officer responded.
Doom-Bots were custom-made by slaves on Tyrux-3 just for the Kalaxian Empire. They consisted of Trilaxian unbreakable armor, dozens of weapons, claws, spikes, poison gas, missiles, death-ray guns, lasers and a very, very bad attitude. Their sole purpose was to destroy, kill and subjugate the entire population of planets and had been used successfully in the past.
True, they were considered to be the lazy Admiral’s way out, but after the bioweapon was released on his science vessel, and the vessel had to be destroyed, he wasn’t going to risk his crew by putting them on the surface just yet. First, the Doom-Bot would wreak havoc, kill most of them, hunt-down and destroy any more of these ‘crack whores’ it could find, burn their bodies to ash and then it would be safe. His troops would perform mop-up operations that would seal the planet’s fate as a slave colony for the Kalaxian Empire for the rest of eternity.
“Admiral”, the weapons officer said. “The Doom-Bot is coming on-line now. Accessing on-board feed.” The Kalaxian squashed a button on its control board and the holovid came to life, the Doom-Bot at the center, surrounded by what appeared to be buildings in the middle of what appeared to be a street.
As the Doom-Bot’s arms began to unfold from the spherical shape it landed in, an Earth-vehicle turned a corner and smashed right into it. The Doom-Bot barely noticed as the vehicle wrapped its soft, metal body around the Bot’s armor and bounced harmlessly off, only to burst into flame a second later. It was difficult for Admiral Eekbo not to laugh, but he managed.
The Admiral pressed the left button once, the right button six times and the left button twice before pressing the round center button. Several seconds later, a smelly, half-starved Shoo-Bee slave, which very much resembled a well-fed Lindsay Lohan, brought him a gold chalice and opened a gold bottle of hornswaggle juice for him. Today was a day to celebrate, and even though he was on duty, an Admiral could do as he pleased.
Eekbo had only poured half of the bottle into the gold chalice when there was a flash of light from the holo-vid and an error message replaced the upcoming carnage, announcing that the signal was lost.
Eekbo turned to his weapons officer who was pushing all three of its buttons furiously as it stared into a very small viewscreen.
The smell of fear filled the room, and nearly drowned-out the odor of Admiral Eekbo’s anger. “Report!”, he ordered the weapons officer.
“Admiral”, the Kalaxian replied, pausing long enough to rub its tentacles together in anxiety. “The Doom-Bot has been destroyed.”
The room went silent, except for the normal little pops and br-r-r-rts that always emanated from Kalaxians. They were all looking at their Admiral, waiting to see what he would do.
“What happened”, he asked. Though his voice was calm, the calmness sent a shiver of danger through the room.
“Analyzing the feed now, Admiral.” A few long seconds later, the weapons officer said, “I have it. It appears that the robot was struck by a self-guided missile. I’m bringing up an image the Doom-Bot captured just before it was destroyed.”
The holo-vid illuminated and displayed a slowly-rotating image. It was a red car, its front emblem missing, being guided by a boy who looked very surprised.
The Admiral stood, watched the holo-vid for a few more seconds, and excused himself to his private room. The bridge crew looked at each other, but none knew what to do next.
7
The bridge was silent as a half-digested carrote. If Admiral Eekbo had a frown to frown with, it would be frowning deeply. If he had a brow upon which could eyebrows could be furrowed, oh how furrowed they would be. If he had something resembling muscles, instead of sacs into which his body pumped fluids to produce movement, they would be tense cords of twisted rope.
All the members of the bridge crew watched their Admiral in silent horror. Two of them had all three of their eyes sunken so far back into their bodies, their irises were the only visible part, but nobody noticed because they were all staring at their Admiral.
None on the bridge were more than three hundred years old, so none could remember an Admiral losing a battle, or even having read or heard about one doing so. Yet, they were witnessing just that, and they were horrified. There wasn’t a procedure, protocol or even advice to turn to in their guidebooks. Each had, in turn, qu
ietly exited the bridge to go check, and each had returned disappointed.
Every trick the Admiral seemed to have at his disposal seemed to have been prepared for long in advance by the Earthlings. Every weapon the Kalaxian Empire had thought to see fit to add to the fleet had failed miserably. It didn’t fail because it was a poor strategy, as there was no such thing when the guidebook was followed. It failed because — nobody would say it out-loud of course — Earthlings were superior strategists.
Sure, there were stories — probably just legends — of a Captain who’d lost a battle. There were different outcomes, and they all seemed to be based on which planet in the Kalaxian you heard the story from.
One one planet, all went well because the Captain returned with a larger, more powerful force a few years later and wiped-out the whole species, except their king, which he kept as a personal slave. That story went on and on about all the riches, all females and all the notoriety the Captain had earned… though nobody could remember what his name was now.
On another planet, the Captain, upon learning that he’d lost, ordered all of his ships to make an emergency landing on a star. Naturally, it hadn’t work out so well for the Captain, his crew or the remainder of his ships.
On yet another planet, the Captain wasn’t a captain… he was an Admiral. He lost the battle because he failed to follow his guidebook. In fact, he’d literally thrown it right out the window. He had it launched into deep space. The battle was long, and just when it looked like he was about to succeed… the enemy outsmarted him.
That story said that a small vessel of the enemy, a spy ship, had been following them. When it saw the Admiral throw the guidebook out the window, they picked it up. It had taken them a while to understand the significance, the wisdom, the sheer power contained within that data tablet, but once they did, they turned its knowledge back on those it was designed to protect. When the Admiral discovered his mistake, he ordered every ship in his fleet to self-destruct, rather than allow the enemy to get their hands on more guidebooks. They followed his orders.