Nuklear Age

by Clevinger, Brian

“Are you sure?”

  “Hey, I know what I'm doing.”

  “Really sure?”

  “I don't tell you how to sidekick and you don't tell me how to Hero.”

  “All right, just checking.”

  Rachel returned to collect the dessert plates. “Is there anything else I can get you gentlemen? Some coffee perhaps?”

  The Hero looked her straight in the eyes and confidently blubbered, “We can't pay the bill! It's so much money and we don't have enough because those little ceramic rabbits were so cute and on sale for only two more minutes. It’s not my fault! I bought thirteen sets in case one broke in transit!” he stopped to breathe.

  “So you can't pay your bill?” Rachel clarified.

  “No we can't,” the Hero answered. He was ashamed even to exist.

  “I'll have to speak with the manager, excuse me.” She trotted back to a door marked “Employees Only” and stepped inside its forbidden depths.

  “’Hush up. Let me do the talking. I know what I'm doing. I don't tell you how to sidekick and you don't tell me how to hero.’ Pathetic.”

  Angus snorted an agreement, “Ah seen haggis with more backbone than that. Literally.”

  “Heh, good one,” Atomik Lad said.

  “Ah’m serious. Little chunks of ‘em.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” said a man looking remarkably like a manager who spontaneously appeared next to their table.

  “Bwah!” Nuklear Man decided the generic waiters had learned much from the manager.

  “I am Mr. Manager, the manager. I understand that you are unable to pay your bill. I believe we can work something out,” he motioned to the door leading to the kitchen.

  “Oh no,” Nuklear Man said with apprehension. “This Hero ain’t getting’ no dishpan hands.”

  Mr. Manager tossed him a pair of kitchen gloves. “You’re right. Now get to work, boys. Rachel?”

  She smiled her waitress smile to him.

  “You've got the rest of the day off.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Manager.” She took off her apron, tossed it on Atomik Lad, gave him a wink and walked out the door whistling to herself.

  The Heroic trio groaned in unison.

  __________

  Issue 7 – Food Fight

  “Attention!” Mr. Manager roared in his best drill sergeant voice.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder to shoulder once Angus hopped onto a tabletop. Mr. Manager paced in front of them. He trod back and forth he trod while peering at the ground. His hands were clasped behind his back and tightly wrenching one another.

  “You, Pretty-Boy!” he barked.

  Nuklear Man uttered a quiet “Meep” to himself and jerked to such a degree of attention that it would’ve shattered any normal human spine.

  “You're on kitchen duty. You've got a mess back there that makes the Dragon’s Strike look like a tea party.”

  “Yessir,” the Hero obediently responded before scurrying into the kitchen.

  A feminine shriek split the ambiance like a supernova crackling against the night sky.

  Mr. Manager closed his eyes with a distinct air of impatience that was evident only to those who put that much attention into eye shutting, “That’s the women’s restroom, you dolt!”

  Nuklear Man backed out of the door clearly marked “Women” while failing to defend himself against a young lady who expected between zero and no perverts to be involved with her average visit to the bathroom. She battered the Golden Guardian about the head with her purse while screaming, “You brute, you brute, you terrible brute!” She huffed at Mr. Manager and stormed out of the building.

  “You, Kid!” Mr. Manager barked at Atomik Lad.

  “Hey, I'm almost twenty.”

  “Hey, I almost care. Help out Pretty-Boy. He makes one slip up and I'm holding you responsible.”

  Atomik Lad dragged Nuklear Man into the kitchen.

  Mr. Manager spun on Angus, “You, Shorty!”

  Ordinarily the Iron Scotsman would have chosen this time to demonstrate how effective the business end of his Surprisingly Wieldly and Concealable Enemy-B-Crushed named Bertha was when used properly and how very properly it could be used on people who called him Shorty. But something about the manager's manner forced compliance even out of the Surly Scot. “Aye?”

  “Those two got the kitchen, so you're stuck with waitering.” He tossed Rachel's discarded apron on Angus. It covered him like a sheet.

  __________

  Two figures of purity stood near the entrance to the dark depths of the kitchen. Neither wanted to leave what little light was provided there by the luminescence that peeked out from the lobby through the kitchen doors.

  Nuklear Man whistled innocently to the best of his ability. This involved more than a little spitting. He faked a yawn, stretched, and reached behind his sidekick with a mighty hand to push him forward into the darkness.

  Atomik Lad deftly dropped to his knees as the pressure was first applied to his back. This evasive maneuver caused the Hero to lose his balance and topple into the inky void beyond.

  “Guess you volunteered to tackle the stuff in the storeroom,” Atomik Lad said. “I'll just be up here in the kitchen mopping and washing dishes,” he gloated happily.

  “Best two out of three?”

  “Sure.”

  Nuklear Man walked back into the light and basked in its brilliance once again. Atomik Lad snatched a mop that was leaning on the counter next to him and tripped his mentor into the darkness with it. The Golden Guardian lay sprawled on his belly.

  “Best three of five?”

  “Get back there.”

  “Nuts.” He walked apprehensively into the bleak unknown.

  “Mr. Manger said he was going to hold me responsible for anything you screw up, so no horsin' around back there, got it?”

  “I never get to have any fun.” His pout sounded like it was uttered from across a vast, empty and unlit stadium in the dead of night.

  __________

  Angus was having a rough time. Mr. Manger scolded him for marking up the tabletops with his Iron: Battle Boots and ordered him to clean them ASAP. This was easier said than done. In order for Angus to clean a table, he had to stand on it. This caused him to scuff up the table which had to be cleaned which scuffed up the table which had to be cleaned into forever and ever. To make matters worse, he didn't know what an “ASAP” was, what it might look like, be used for, or where to find it anyway. He hoped Mr. Manger wouldn't notice.

  __________

  Atomik Lad washed dishes with the kind of pleasure one typically finds in those who have other people wash dishes. But the sidekick treated every dish, platter, cup, bowl and piece of silverware as though the quality of his soul would be judged on the quality of the gleaming shine he gave each piece.

  __________

  The rubbery kitchen gloves slid over his skin and golden spandex as though they'd been waiting their entire existence to shield Nuklear Man—AND NUKLEAR MAN ALONE—from this tepid wasteland. He thrust his armored hands skyward, “I dub thee, Excalibur!”

  “Nuke, stop goofing off. And don't break anything.”

  “Just suiting up,” he called back. The hollow echo of his own voice gave him a chill, but the warmth of his kitchen gloves kept his blood hot for adventure!

  __________

  The bell attached to the Benny’s entrance signaled to Angus that a customer had popped in. He kicked at the table he had been cleaning for what seemed like hours but more resembled minutes. This left a fresh scuff mark. “Son of an Englishman!” he cursed. The Iron Scotsman hopped down to the floor and trotted to the entrance grumbling about how the feeding frenzy had already left his tiny gut with an empty feeling. He staggered back a step as he rounded the corner. His beady eyes widened, his tight fists clenched, his scowl scowled like it hadn't in years. “Ah don’t believe it.”

  An emerald green suit of armor fashioned in the likeness of a charming leprechaun stood toe to toe with Angus’s iron gr
ay armor that resembled a raging Scottish warrior circa the 14th century.

  The armored duo was locked eye to eye.

  “That’s right, me boy-o, Seamus O’Riley, the Steel Irishman.”

  “Ye, ye, ye,” Angus stammered angrily.

  “Reduced to waiterin’? Aye, times are tough I know, I know. But we all can’t be as successful as me, now can we?”

  “Ah ain’t no waiter, ye motif stealin’ laddie! Ah oughta rip off them arms o’ ye in return for—”

  “Shorty!” Mr. Manager snapped, “No offense to you, Mr. O’Riley.”

  “None taken, I be assurin’ ye.”

  Mr. Manager nodded pleasantly to Seamus and turned sharply to Angus, “You are to treat our customers with the respect they deserve!”

  “Only thing ol’ Seamus deserves is a goood bashin’ in the head!”

  “This is Mr. Seamus O’Riley of the breakfast cereal conglomerate Kismet Krunchies, featuring the secret ingredient Kismet Green. He’s rich and that makes him better than ordinary people. It’s called capitalism.”

  “Ah bloody knows who he be! He’s the rat that stole me idea for a breakfast cereal, Scootish Squishies!”

  “Ah, Angus. Ye always been having quite the imagination. Who in his right mind would eat cereal made o’ haggis?”

  “Kismet Green is made o’ haggis!”

  “Control yourself, Angus, or you’re fired!”

  “No need to be doin’ that, good sir. Everyone in the cereal business knows about Angus’s rantin’s. Not a one of them be takin’ him serious o’ course. Kismet Krunchies wouldn’t be the number one breakfast product in the world if it were made o’ haggis. Any plain fool can be seeing that.”

  __________

  A dim green light pulsed, um, lightly. At first Nuklear Man couldn't tell if his mind was playing tricks on him or not. But the more he concentrated on it, the more he was certain that this was one of the few strange lights in the dark that wasn't somehow in cahoots with his imagination. The green light had a faint hum that waxed and waned with its fluctuating intensity. It seemed to Nuklear Man that it was coming from inside an old barrel that had warped and rotted over the ages, thus allowing several small imperfections to let the eerie light escape from within. He carefully crept toward it. The light was like the heartbeat of a sleeping mythical beast. His gloved hands hovered mere inches above the lid where the majority of the light peeked through gaps between it and the rim. Having grown accustomed to the green light, the Hero could make out an ancient, tattered label on the barrel's lid. It read, “Barrel O’ Cheese” with the “O” resembling a cheese wheel. Below the logo, in considerably smaller print, it said “Best if served before 1959.”

  “Ick,” he said into the darkness. It was the first sound he made since happening upon this strange occurrence and seemed as loud as a gunshot to Nuklear Man.

  A high-pitched hum ran through the emptiness. Nuklear Man immediately noticed the pinprick of green light that zipped out of a knothole in the barrel and hovered so close to his nose that he was forced cross-eyed to look at it. “Intruder!” the floating green speck announced far louder than its size would suggest possible.

  “Eh?” Nuklear Man responded confusedly.

  “I don't hear any cleaning back there!” Atomik Lad's voice was distant, as though calling from a dream.

  Hundreds of green specks of light poured from the barrel’s knotholes and gaps and all of them were converging on the Hero.

  “Oooh, pretty.”

  “Attack!” a huge yet tiny high-pitched voice echoed from across the battlefield. A barrage of green laser bolts rained from the floating specks and assaulted Nuklear Man with thousands of piercing ouchies.

  “Nuke! What's all that noise? Don't make me come back there!”

  “Ouch! Quit it! C'mon! Ow, my eye!” the Hero whimpered as he waved his arms around uselessly.

  A squadron of the Barrel Defense Force split off from the main fleet that was taking severe losses from the Invader's maniacal strategy of random counterstrikes. The splinter cell dove for the Invader’s feet and divided again into two smaller squads, each heading to one of Nuklear Man’s cape corners.

  __________

  “Shorty!” Mr. Manager yelled from across the restaurant.

  The Iron Scotsman growled as he put away his massive mauling club and climbed down from the booth behind Seamus. The Iron Scotsman took out a small notebook and pencil from one of the many pockets in the waitress's apron he was wearing, “Mblembml?” he mumbled.

  “What is it ye be askin’ me, boy-o?”

  “And that’s another thing! Ye steal me cereal fortune, then ye steal me armored motif, and now ye steal me speech gimmick!”

  “I’ve been talking like this since before ye was skimping pennies at the breadline.”

  “I don’t think so, laddie! Ah been spoutin’ incomprehensible rhetoric since before ye had ye first slug o’ nickel beer!”

  The two looked around contemplatively for a few moments.

  “Well,” admitted Angus. “Maybe not quite that soon, but ye get me meaning.”

  “Aye, I do.”

  __________

  “Operation Trip: Go!” a commanding high-pitched voice bellowed from somewhere inside the barrel.

  “Nuke, what are you doing?” Atomik Lad's voice seemed to be coming from beyond reality as we know it.

  Nuklear Man's cape, with the help of many green dots, wrapped itself around his legs. He wobbled like a drunkard and collapsed on his face. “The cheese has gone bad!” he called back to his sidekick.

  “Well, that's what you're there for. Clean it up!”

  “But it's winning!”

  “Ugh, just hold your breath.”

  __________

  Seamus gingerly sipped his coffee and clicked his tongue while taking in every aspect of its character.

  “No, this won’t be doin’ either.”

  “That’s ye sixth cup o’ coffee! What’s wrong with this one?”

  “It’s not quite rich enough. You ought to be knowin’ all about that, boy-o.”

  “One more remark like that one and Ah’ll bash ye head in, laddie.”

  “Boy-o.”

  “Laddie!”

  “BOY-O!”

  “LADDIE!”

  __________

  Nuklear Man felt like the universe had suddenly taken it upon itself to go upside down with the exception of himself. He was suspended by his feet in mid-air. His head was just a foot from the barrel’s lid, the bottom of his cape was resting gently on the floor. The lid rustled of its own accord and flipped open, flooding the room with a green tint. The Hero blinked groggily and squinted as a platform, built in scale for a gnat, rose from the green depths to be level with Nuklear Man’s nose. A small green dot rested atop it. He had to cross his eyes to see it properly.

  Tiny music, somehow triumphant, emanated from the barrel with extremely minuscule flashes. “Victory!” the green dot proclaimed. This incited a flurry of noises and flashes from the barrel.

  “Wah?” Nuklear Man inquired.

  “Quiet! You are now a war prisoner of the mighty Cheesiediluvian Empire!” Another rush of excitement flowed from the barrel.

  “Prisoner? Cheesiediluvian? War?”

  “Yes! The outside would is ours for the taking! Your failed invasion has been repelled by our superior Cheesiediluvian Barrel Defense Force!” More cheers.

  “Invasion?”

  “Do not play dumb with me, Outsider!”

  Nuklear Man decided to skip the obvious “Who's playing?” line, though feel free to insert it yourself at your leisure.

  “We have known of your plots to usurp our kingdom for some time. But now we have proven our superiority over your kind! I, Daisy the XXVIII, shall usher in a new era! The age of Cheesiediluvian Conquest! Today, the storeroom! Tomorrow, the kitchen!” An uproar of cheers erupted from the barrel. The effect was like when a television in an adjacent room is turned up just a little too loud.
/>
  “Oh yeah, I'm really scared of a guy named Daisy.”

  “Such insolence from a vanquished foe,” the despot said haughtily. “Deploy the Cheesenaught!”

  “That's it,” Atomik Lad said from the kitchen. “Nuke, I'm coming back there, and if you're not working your cape off, or if even one thing is out of place, you've got some explaining to do!”

  __________

  Two figures stood in defiance of one another. One, a cold gray beast, crouched menacingly in the smoking section. The other, a warm green knight posed righteously in the non-smoking section. Each muttered curses to the other that neither could fully make out. They hefted their mighty weapons: a huge spiked and studded blunt instrument of destruction for the dwarf and an emerald shield-like implement bladed in the shape of a four-leafed clover for the leprechaun.

  “DWARF-A-PULT!”

  “LEPRE-CANNON!”

  __________

  A plank of wood near the barrel's bottom opened like an automatic garage door. A strange humanoid shadow splashed across the floor among a sea of green light. Slowly, a cheese-automaton waddled from the aperture like a little wind-up toy.

  “Behold,” gloated the green dot, “Our scientists’ newest and most invincible creation: the Cheesenaught!”

  “It's just cheese,” Nuklear Man remarked.

  “You dare mock us, Defeated One?”

  “Well yeah. I mean, c'mon. It's walking cheese.”

  “Cheesenaught! Destroy the Mocker!”

  “Feh, mock this.” Nuklear Man pointed a finger gun at the Cheesenaught and reduced it to a heap of dairy slag with a tiny dose of Plazma Power.

  Sounds of chaos rose form the barrel as Daisy attempted to quell the mob below him. “Assemble the defense force! Flee to the hills! Trust in your Emperor! Destroy the Outsider!” His commands fell upon ears deafened with horror.

  The Golden Guardian felt an impish tingle in his nose. “Ahem, Mr. Twenty-Eight?” Nuklear Man interjected.

  “The Cheesiediluvian Empire shall persevere! We are the Chosen Race to populate the restaurant! Lobbyfest Destiny shall be ours!”