by Jeff South
I pull away and eye him. “You’re supposed to be dead. Your portrait at Corporate says you died in 2010.”
“I faked my death. As far as anyone is concerned I was attacked by rabid kangaroos while on a walkabout in Australia.”
“What is this place?” I ask Jeff. “Why didn’t you tell me we were coming to see the presumed dead founder and CEO of Corporate?”
“I didn’t tell you that?” Jeff scrunches his face in a way that tells me this is news to him.
“We don’t have time for all that.” Simon Tybalt motions for us to follow him toward an elevator at the back of the garage. “We have to get you ready to help me save Corporate and save the world.”
“What if I don’t want to?” I stand back and observe the odd man in the fishing hat and the even odder teenager in the top hat and accept this is probably my life now.
“Boy,” he says to Jeff. “He’s surly.”
*
Simon Tybalt leads us on a tour of his moon base, which is a mashup of Wayne Manor, a gothic haunted house, a rustic ski lodge, and the grand lair of some steampunk mad scientist. The rooms are large and ornate. Posters of beautiful actress from before my birth line the hallways.
“That’s Farrah Fawcett there,” he tells me pointing at a tanned blonde in a red swimsuit. He points at another and says, “Suzanne Somers.”
Jeff nudges my ribs with his elbow as we walk. “Isn’t this place awesome?”
“I wanna go home,” I mutter. Jeff rolls his eyes at me in disgust. I turn my attention to our tour guide. “Why do you have all these posters of beautiful women from the ‘70s and ‘80s?”
“There are three things in the world I love,” he tells me. “Building spacecraft out of old cars, the films of Mel Brooks, and beautiful women. What three things do you love most, Tony?”
“I dunno,” I say. “Can we get on with the plan? What are we doing?”
“Your questions will be answered.” He stops at the end of the hall and looks at me.
“The day is coming when we all shall know?” I ask.
“Yeah, sure, however it makes sense to you,” he says, oblivious to my quoting him. He points to two doors on each side of us. “I meant it’s late and you guys need to get to bed. These are your rooms. You guys sleep. I have to drink copious amounts Anxillan whiskey and drunk dial strange women.”
*
The night comes and goes with no visions of apricots dancing in my head. I shuffle from my bed in one of a dozen guestrooms into a shower the size of my bedroom back on Earth. The door is clear plexiglass and each of the three other walls has a shower head. I stand under the water and think about The Simon Tybalt is Alive and Living on the Remote Moon of Nitz Revelation. A pang of guilt hits me when I realize how worried my parents must be. I never should’ve agreed to go through the portal with Jeff. That was a bad choice. I backtrack every poor decision prior to that one. All I see is a series of lousy choices. Coming through the portal with Jeff. Going back to work at Corporate. Working at Corporate in the first place. Breaking up with Marlene. All shitty choices. I suck at choices. Kierkegaard was right. No matter what you do, you’re screwed.
After my shower, I dress in a Corporate t-shirt left for me by Simon Tybalt and throw on the same jeans I’ve been wearing for three days now. I enter the dining room, which is not as large as the other rooms in the house, but still larger than I’m accustomed to. Jeff is already seated at the long narrow dining table. The walls are lined with star maps and clippings of news stories from magazines and online articles about aliens. This could easily be a scene from Someone Else’s Books. I sit across from Jeff and see he is suffering from a case of the early morning stares. He could be asleep. He could be awake. He could be dead. His top hats rests on the table next to a placemat because despite his general anarchic approach to life, he still believes in good table manners.
Simon Tybalt enters from the kitchen with a tray loaded with French toast stacked high, butter, and syrup. He wears his fishing hat and jeans, but the Corporate t-shirt has been replaced with one with a character named King Ding Dong on it.
“Help yourselves, gentlemen,” he tells us. “We’ve much work to do today.”
“Whatdaya got to drink?” Jeff asks.
“I’ve mixed up some green Kwench-Aid for you guys.”
“That’ll do.”
“Got anything else?” I ask. Jeff stops pouring syrup on his French toast midstream and stares at me as if I’d declared puppies make for good stir fry and Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
“What?” I respond. “The sugary Kwench-Aid and the maple syrup is a bit much.”
Jeff says nothing as he shovels a wad of French toast into his frowning mouth.
“I’ve got some milk.” Simon Tybalt fetches a pitcher from the refrigerator. “It’s not the milk you know from Earth cows. This is from virgin midget goats on Qastar VII. It’s an acquired taste. I bought it off a Qastarian farmer. He’s dead now. Life is funny that way. One minute you’re milking your goats for market, the next your planet is thrown into a sudden Ice Age because of an accident involving a climate change device I had absolutely nothing to do with.”
I sip from the glass he pours. The milk tastes like a peach pie cooked on a George Foreman grill topped with rancid yogurt. I don’t wish to be rude, so I drink more anyway. Jeff maintains his glare of disdain for my very existence.
“What?” I ask him as I choke down a swallow of the milk.
“You dissed Styx in the car yesterday. You turned down Kwench-Aid for breakfast. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
“People change, man.” I sip from my glass but only let the milk touch my lips and pretend to swallow because this crap is nasty.
“Whatever.” He shoves a fork full of French toast into his mouth and pouts.
“Now who’s surly?” I snap back.
“So.” Simon Tybalt sips his own glass of milk. “You have the nano plans, right?”
“Yep,” says Jeff while chewing, apparently disposing of his usual commitment to table etiquette. He retrieves a jump drive from his inside jacket pocket and hands it to Simon. “I’m supposed to trade it for Leigh Ann, right?”
“Actually.” Simon Tybalt pulls a jump drive of his own out of his pocket and holds it out. “You’ll give him this.”
“What is that?” I ask.
“I call this The Grand Illusion.”
“Because he appreciates the genius of Styx,” Jeff snarls at me.
“When this is inserted into Grandor’s database, it will appear perfectly normal and he’ll be quite pleased. He’ll release Leigh Ann to you, because he is, after all, a businessman. He doesn’t want to harm anyone.”
I’m having the same feeling I had at Corporate when Max spouted off words and phrases that meant nothing to me.
“Absolutely.” I nod my head in that way you do when you need to appear in on things.
“I’ve rigged the program to run a virus exactly twenty-four hours after it is downloaded. It’ll completely delete his entire database.”
“We’re going to double-cross him?” I ask. “Won’t that be dangerous? What if we get caught?”
“That’s the job,” is all Jeff says.
“Most important,” Simon Tybalt looks at me. “While you’re with Grandor, you’re to steal my plans for the quintonium drive. He stole them from me after I developed a prototype and I want them back.”
“Wait,” I say. “So, that’s a real thing? Jeff said it wasn’t a real thing.”
“You should know,” Simon tells me. “You should know quite a bit about the drive, as well as most of what Corporate is all about. Stealing the plans for that drive is the whole reason you’re here, my friend.”
“I really have no clue why I’m here.” I stand and take my plate to the sink because when I’m feeling particularly frustrated or upset, I feel the need to busy myself with a household chore. “I’m ignorant of everything going on and feel utterly useless
.”
“You didn’t tell him?” Simon asks Jeff.
“I haven’t found the right time.”
“Tell me what?”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Jeff says, shrugging. He stands and comes to me, yet maintains a safe distance. “Your freak out levels were already in the red zone. I didn’t wanna make it worse.”
“What are you talking about?” I look to Simon Tybalt for some insight. “What’s he talking about?’
The mythical founder of Corporate walks to Jeff, pointing like a scolding father. “I helped send you back through the portal specifically for bringing him for training. He needs to know what he’s dealing with so we can use him properly.”
I remember two cheerleaders in my freshman English comp class saying something similar once when they wanted me to do their essay assignment for them. Because they were cute cheerleaders who feigned a passing interest me, I obliged. Sure, they used me to cheat on their homework, but they were cheerleaders. They yield a certain sorcery over guys like me. Jeff and Simon are not cute cheerleaders, so I’m less inclined to play ball.
“I’ve had a lot of secrets kept from me lately. My best friend survived being sucked through a portal. My girlfriend apparently hunts aliens who have infiltrated Earth.” My chest is heaving because my anger is taking over. “I’m tired of secrets. Someone tell me what is going on.”
Simon Tybalt walks over and embraces me. I’m terribly uncomfortable with all of this.
“Life hurts sometimes,” he tells me. “It hurts when your heart gets broken. It hurts when you’re betrayed. It hurts when try to stop an edge trimmer with your face.”
I push him away and walk to Jeff.
“What the hell is going on?” I want to grab him and shake him, but I’m not sure what purpose that would serve. I stomp around the room. “What the hell is happening to my life?”
“There’s something inside you, man,” Jeff says.
A sudden flush of panic runs through me. Since everything I know about everyone I know is all wrong, I wonder if everything I know about myself is wrong, too. “Am I an android or something? Am I even a person?”
“Sssh. Sssh.” Simon Tybalt tries to hug me again, but I’m done with that shit.
“Get off me. I want answers and I want them now.”
Jeff throws his arms up in the air and huffs as if he’s being peer pressured into holding up a liquor store using his finger for a gun. After a couple of false starts, he finally spills the beans.
“I may or may not have downloaded the entire Corporate training database and library into your brain. On purpose.”
*
I sprint away from the conversation and weave my way through the corridors. I pass countless posters of beautiful women and arrive at the garage where Miss America awaits. I get in the driver’s side and start pressing buttons.
“How do I start this damn thing?” I shout.
Jeff and Simon Tybalt are running toward me, calling after me to stop. The engine won’t start. The only result I achieve from all the button pushing is Styx blaring over the stereo. I’m so sick of Styx right now. I shut off the music, get out of the car, and prowl like a caged tiger who was promised a gazelle for dinner, but was given tofu instead.
“You’re pissed,” Jeff says. “I get it.”
“You don’t have a clue, you asshole.”
Simon grabs my shoulders. “You have inside you a piece of nanotech that attaches to your cerebral cortex and downloads its contents into your consciousness. The particular device in you is the entire Corporate training catalog. You’re a walking, talking encyclopedia of Corporate.”
“When? How? Why?” I ask.
“Prom night,” Jeff says. “When I offered you the flask of Kwench-Aid. It was in there.”
“Making the nano waterproof was a last minute decision,” Simon says.
My body trembles with rage. I want to punch my friend. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to tell Simon the goat milk crap he served was disgusting, but that would be impolite.
“Inside you is the only version of this nano. We needed to beta test it and Jeff already had a different form of nano in him. I needed to know if I could put all that Corporate knowledge into someone’s brain.”
“That was a dick move. Both of you.” I turn to Jeff. He is looking away from me stammering something in jibberish. “Tell me why, Jeff.”
“You had all these plans to go to college.” He walks away to Miss America and leans on her hood. “You were leaving. I’m not going to college. I don’t care about going to college. I just wanna live. I wanted something to keep you at Corporate.” He still won’t look at me, but I can see his face. He knows this was a shitty thing to do to me.
“I don’t want to be at Corporate anymore,” I tell him. “I’m tired of it. I want to move on. That was my choice. You took my choice away from me.”
“I don’t have friends other than you. I have Leigh Ann, but I’m not sure where our relationship is headed now that she’s been sucked through the portal and held hostage by a whack job alien. That might be tough to bounce back from. I’m not ready to see me and you split up. So, I made you like me. Just like Kilroy and Mr. Roboto.”
“Enough!” A new strain of anger rages through me and I storm about the room in the kind of tirade one might record on their phone in the hopes of creating an epic viral video. “Kilroy is Mr. Roboto. Mr. Roboto is Kilroy. It’s the same damn person! Read the album liner notes. Better yet. Actually listen to the song. It ends with ‘I’m Kilroy.’ How much more obvious can it be? I keep telling you, but you refuse to listen. And you know why? Because you don’t give a flying piece of chicken shit about anyone except yourself! I’ve carried you our entire friendship. Bailed you out of one shit storm after another. You’re a terrible decision maker. The worst. Kilroy Was Here is a lousy album. Garbage. It broke up the damn band. Yet, you treat it like a masterpiece and you’ve forced it into a metaphor of our friendship. I guess that works if you consider it ended a great run. Like you spiking my drink with a brain-altering miniature robot spider ended us.”
“Okay,” Jeff says. “I get it. I suck.”
“Actually, we can extend the metaphor a bit further.” I should really stop now, but I’m on a roll. “What’s your second favorite Styx song after ‘Mr. Roboto?’”
“’Music Time.’”
“See? You’re not drawn to one of their classic songs from when they were one of the world’s most popular bands. You prefer the song that was recorded in the midst of a breakup. How perfect is that? You picked two songs synonymous with the dissolution of your favorite band. So, I guess now they’re perfect choices!”
The exact moment during my tirade I reached into Jeff’s chest and crushed his spirit can’t be determined. It may have been my insult of his favorite album. It may have been calling him selfish. Likely, it was when I told him he had ruined our friendship.
“You’re wrong about Kilroy Was Here. That’s blasphemy.”
I guess it was the album comment.
“Shut up!” Simon Tybalt commands. “We need to stop a maniac from taking over the Earth and you guys want to bicker about which Styx album was best and who spiked a drink with a nanotech? First of all, everyone knows the best Styx album is The Grand Illusion. A case could be made for Paradise Theater, sure, but everything great about Styx is on The Grand Illusion.
“And Kilroy Was Here is hardly garbage,” he continues. “It’s a product of its era. Sure, it’s polarizing, but there’s no denying the catchiness of ‘Mr. Roboto’ or the anger in ‘Heavy Metal Poisoning.’”
“See?” Jeff shouts. “He gets it. Why can’t you?”
A heavy silence falls over the garage.
“Get over here, you two. Now.” Simon’s voice is more forceful than usual. We both walk toward him and face one another. “Shake hands.”
“I won’t shake the hand of a blasphemer,” Jeff mutters.
“I won’t shake the hand
of a deceitful bastard,” I say.
“This is a bastard-free zone.” Simon grabs my right hand and Jeff’s and forces them together. We begrudgingly shake, but I don’t mean it. Simon then reaches to both our necks and presses a pen-like device into us. I feel a surge of calming electrical currents flood my body. I pull my hand from my friend’s and an odd sensation consumes me. A lump forms in my throat.
“Let’s try a little empathy, shall we?” Simon says.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I stand across from my friend and he looks like Jeff, but, yet, doesn’t. I don’t feel quite like myself. The pierce in my neck from Simon Tybalt’s device still stings. Jeff rubs his neck and frowns like a little kid.
“What the hell, dude?” He points at Simon. “Why did you do that?”
“You’ve both been injected with an empathizer. Maintain direct eye contact with one another for ten seconds without talking.”
“I don’t want to,” I say.
“Quiet,” he commands. “Or I’ll alter your equilibrium and you will constantly tip over.”
I eye my friend and he eyes me. I’m not sure what is supposed to happen but after a few seconds I feel my anger dissipate. I no longer see his face or his ridiculous behavior. Gone are the faded ruffled tuxedo shirt and top hat. Instead, it’s as if I can see his soul and feel what he feels. A burning warmth envelops me and I feel a lump in my throat. From what I can see, he must be experiencing the same thing.
“Do you two have something to say to one another?” Simon asks.
“I know you’re ready to do your own thing.” Jeff looks at the floor and sways. “It’s obvious. Stuff that used to be fun for you isn’t any more and I get it. You want a normal life. You always have. I screwed that up for you. I’m sorry I injected you with a nanotech. That was a shitty thing to do.”
I can’t help but accept his apology and offer one of my own.
“You didn’t mean any harm. I know that. You want this whole thing to keep going. You have a wanderlust and want to go on these grand adventures. You always want us to be Kilroy and Mr. Roboto. You want us to be us.”