Her husband smiled, squeezed her with strong arms and kissed her on the lips. For ten heartbeats, they held each other.
Wiping her eyes, Nancy sat upright and whistled a C-sharp. “Resume play: The 75% True Story of Champ and Eagle Sappline.”
The nozzles of the mote environment sprayed billions of pixels into the room and rendered (through expert foreshortening and forced perspective)
a gigantic compartment-style warehouse
that was far larger than the entire apartment building within which Nancy and her husband lived.
A meter away from the couple—but rendered smaller-than-life to create the illusion of a much greater distance—the actors who played
Champ Sappline, clothed in a parka, and Sagesse, wrapped in a red Japanese robe, grabbed the arms of the teetering mannequin. Green fluid dripped from the machine’s eyelids and lips.
“What the fuck just happened!?!” the garbage man yelled at Sagesse.
The French fellow tore off the mannequin’s mask. Green fluid bathed the mandibles within its concave face, and steam rose toward the warehouse ceiling.
R.J. the Third
(who was played by the stunning English actress Meliza Canford)
squealed in alarm and cried out, “Freeze him again— before it is too late!”
“She’s right,” Champ said to Sagesse. “How do we turn on the liquid nitrogen?”
The French fellow jammed his left thumb into the mannequin’s right aural canal, and something within its head clicked. Looking at the garbage man, he said, “Duplicate.”
Champ thrust his thumb into the opposite ear, poked around and elicited a click.
The mannequin stood at attention and dropped to its knees. Ice covered its head as Sagesse and Champ withdrew their thumbs. Epaulette bulbs flashed yellow and red, and three piccolo flutes skirled.
The garbage man surveyed his kneeling father, sighed and eyed the French fellow. “Two things: You’re gonna fix him, and you’re gonna give me a refund.”
“No.”
“But you broke him—the head didn’t even retract like it’s supposed to. I waited a year and a half, and look what happened to him. To my goddamn father.”
“Machine,” said Sagesse.
“That’s it!” Champ shouted as he clenched his fists and lunged.
Sagesse reached for the hilt of the samurai sword that was attached to his belt.
The garbage man punched the French fellow in the stomach. Grunting, the big foe stumbled back and withdrew his katana from a scabbard that was decorated with the eyes of owls.
R.J. the Third plucked a migraine pen from her cleavage and pointed it at Sagesse’s face. “I’ll lance you!” she warned.
The French fellow paused, holding his samurai sword aloft, while nearby, the redheaded woman readied her weapon. Her eyes were severe, and her dress was gorgeous.
Cowed, Sagesse sheathed his blade.
Champ grumbled, knelt beside the mannequin and looked to R.J. the Third. “Let’s get my dad out of here.”
“I believe that is the most sensible option,” concurred the redheaded beauty as she pulled an errant wisp of hair from her lush eyelashes.
Sheathing his sword, Sagesse looked at the ground, where the two striped dreadlocks that he had accidentally severed lay like dead serpents.
“As a result of this incident,” R.J. the Third announced, “I must revoke Sagesse’s membership in my fan club, and henceforth forbid the inclusion of any person who dwells in the inhabited bowel movement that is otherwise known as New Queens.”
Champ double-tapped his lily and said, “Connect to Mikek.”
The pixels dispersed, revealing the black limbo of the mote environment walls, and then cohered. Orbiting the couple was the following information:
Spring 2062: Two years later
The pixels dispersed and then rendered, with perfect forced perspective,
a verdant and expansive mountain range, limned white by the morning sun.
A conical black air shuttle that was beaded with silver solar nodes flew above the peaks, its dark shadow speeding like a stingray across the crenulated stone.
Within the craft sat Champ, clothed in jeans and a t-shirt that read never believe what you read…except this.; R.J. the Third, squeezed into an opalescent dress; Mikek, clad in orange; and the flesh-colored mannequin, draped in a navy overcoat. Sunshine glimmered upon the marbled green and white ice that surrounded the re-bodied man’s head.
Seated in the pilot’s throne, Mikek appraised R.J. the Third’s curvaceous physique.
Champ asked, “You’d hit her with the shuttle?”
“I’d give her a thruster.”
R.J. the Third blushed at the compliment and coquettishly turned her head.
Mikek examined the bugview octagons and scratched his back with a hairy hand, “This is the location Dr. Kwok gave us, but I don’t see anything.”
“It’ll be camouflaged,” said Champ. “The CCI scientists who survived August Thirty-first are all in hiding. Just circle around for a bit so she can see us.”
“Shit on shit.” The driver scratched his hirsute nape and sighed. “I’ll go to half power so that the solar cells can—”
“Look over there.” The garbage man pointed to an octagon that displayed two mountaintops. Between these sharp peaks floated a bright, glimmering object. “Zoom in.”
The driver tapped the octagon, magnifying the glaring curiosity, which was a chromium kite.
“That’s it!” Champ and R.J. the Third cried in accidental, but perfect, harmony.
“If you say so.” Mikek notched two drift thrusters and pushed the steering scepter to the right.
The air shuttle arced between the mountain peaks, slowed and hovered beside the chromium kite. Below the craft, the ground trembled and cracked, and from a rift arose a forty-meter-tall cylindrical building that was covered with dirt.
An iris opened in the roof of this tower, and a fifty-year-old Chinese woman wearing a sky-blue lab coat climbed from the aperture. Looking up at the air shuttle, she waved amicably.
The motes dispersed, and soon, the following information orbited the couple:
Spring 2063: One year later
The pixels dispersed and then rendered
the air shuttle, which currently hovered beside the top of the dirt-covered tower. Birds wheeled across the blue sky, pointlessly crying out.
The iris opened, and Champ and Eagle climbed outside, both of them wearing jeans, t-shirts and the same face. The sun shone brightly upon the skin-colored latex that covered all of the mannequin’s chrome plating.
Dr. Kwok stuck her head through the aperture like a groundhog and watched their departure. The men reached the air shuttle ramp, turned around and waved good-bye to the scientist.
“Thank you,” said Champ. “We really, really appreciate all that you did for us.”
“You’re welcome. This interface fluid should last for a long time.”
“Good,” said Eagle. “I’m getting pretty sick of dying.”
The father and son entered the craft and shut the door behind them.
Engines flashed, and the shuttle sped off, light glinting upon the silver solar nodes that adorned its hull.
Within the vehicle, Mikek said, “If I was desperate—really out of options—I’d land this thing on Dr. Kwok.”
The motes dispersed and then rendered, with perfect forced perspective,
the interior of a church.
Immediately before an avuncular female minister stood Champ Sappline, attired in a loose blue tuxedo, and his beaming black bride Molly Rodriguez, who wore a sky-blue dress that was adorned with silk flowers. Foremost amongst
the ninety wedding attendees were Eagle Sappline, Potato O’Boyd, Bagel Butch and Pedro Cheung (all clothed in black tuxedos), R.J. the Third (wearing a gossamer slip that had gold filigree), the obese feline Architect (huddled within a floating litter box), the herpetology student (clothed in an alligator-skin dress), the Indian from the fifth floor (draped in a flag of truce) and the entire Mikek Ghentz family (all of whom wore linen sweatsuits).
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the female minister said to Champ and Molly. “You may pledge yourselves to each other with a kiss.”
Champ Sappline took his wife’s shoulders and pressed his lips to hers.
“Kick the stars!” yelled Eagle.
All throughout the church, the guests clapped enthusiastically.
The newlyweds’ kiss deepened. Their chests pressed together and their hearts touched.
Eagle turned his head to his old friends and whispered, “They waited for me to get fixed—Champ and Molly. Delayed the wedding for three whole years.”
“Respectful,” commented Pedro Cheung, who was almost sober.
The newlyweds pulled their lips apart and embraced each other.
“It’s about time we had that kiss,” whispered the radiant bride.
“Thanks for waiting,” responded the groom.
The clapping increased. Champ looked over at his father.
A piccolo flute pierced the applause.
The wedding guests looked at the mannequin.
“Don’t worry,” Eagle said, “that’s just how I whistle.”
The motes dispersed and then rendered
a festooned dancing hall. Beer kegs, champagne pyramids, salad forests, candied chickens and ziggurats of Sandwedish sandwiches lay upon the food trolley. The wedding guests loudly and jubilantly celebrated the marriage.
An austere forty-five-year-old brunette woman who was clothed in a rose-colored spring dress walked up to Champ.
“Congratulations,” said Candace, who was his first wife. “Molly seems lovely in every possible way.”
“Thanks. And thanks for coming.”
The austere woman nodded. “I’m glad that you’re happy.” She looked down at the purse in her hands and added, “I hope she treats you better than I did.”
“You and I had a lot of good years.”
“We did,” said Candace, lifting her gaze.
“Those’re the ones I usually think about.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
The former husband and wife hugged each other and, for a moment, were transported in time.
Soon, they parted and walked toward their respective second spouses.
The pixels dispersed, and the following information orbited the couple:
Spring 2065: Two years later
The motes dispersed and then rendered
the interior of a bar. Booths circled the perimeter of the violet establishment like unmotivated turtles. Champ, fifty, with short silver-blonde hair, and Eagle, clothed in an overcoat and sunglasses, sat upon a bench with Molly, Bagel Butch, Pedro Cheung, R.J. the Third, Mikek, the herpetology student and her fiancé.
Eagle raised a glass of top-shelf Scotch and said, “To Potato O’Boyd.”
“To Potato O’Boyd,” replied the chorus, holding their drinks aloft.
Eagle dipped his thimble as Champ and the others drank.
The re-bodied man looked at the aged faces of Bagel Butch and Pedro Cheung and then down at his drink. Two tiny bubbles rose from his thimble to the surface like dead fish.
The pixels dispersed, and the following information orbited the couple:
Winter 2067: One and a half years later
The motes dispersed and then rendered, with perfect forced perspective,
Eagle Sappline seated upon an antique motorcycle. The mannequin steered the speeding two-wheeler along a tortuous mountain road.
The roar of the engine was as loud as a war.
The motes dispersed and then rendered
the peach-colored waiting area of a hospital. Upon one of its buoyed benches sat Champ, fifty-two and wearing bedraggled plaid pajamas, and Eagle, dressed in an overcoat and sunglasses.
“I feel like I should be in there with her,” said the garbage man, nervously tapping his right slipper.
“No,” said Eagle. “If there’s one piece of advice I came back from the dead to give you, it’s this: No husband should be in that room. Ever. What’s going in there—what that looks like and sounds like and smells like—is way worse than death.”
“But it’s our child she’s having.” Champ looked at the living wall, where the words “Delivery Room” shone green. Apprehension, anxiety, guilt and joy knotted his fingers together like quiltwork. “Molly said it was my choice, but I just—”
“Don’t. There’s a reason obstetricians make so much money.”
Champ anxiously ran his hands through his short silver-blonde hair. “You were in the room when I was born.”
“That experience didn’t make us closer.”
“But—”
“Learn from my mistakes.”
A smiling doctor walked from the wall and announced, “Champ Sappline, you are the father of a healthy eight-pound girl!”
“Great!”
“Kick the stars!”
The father and son leaped from their seats, cheered and hugged each other.
Luminous with joy, Champ turned to the doctor and asked, “Can I see her?”
“Of course you may.”
Eagle seized his son’s arm and shook his head. “Wait ’til he cleans off all the junk.”
The pixels dispersed, and the following information orbited the couple:
Winter 2072: Five years later
The motes dispersed and then rendered
the golden velvet den of a sizable Brooklyn City apartment, where windowalls admitted a view of the solar panes, floatads, stacked flyways and air barbicans that lined the far side of the East River. Champ, fifty-six, with short silver hair, Molly, fifty-one and a little heavier, and Eagle, clothed in a robe, watched a biracial five-year-old girl run across the den. The gleeful child held a stuffed bird in each of her hands.
“Gale’s got a lotta life in her,” remarked the re-bodied man.
The weary mother affirmed his statement with a sigh. “I’ve priced tranquilizer darts.”
Eagle chirped, and Molly grinned.
Champ stood up and arched his back, grunting as the joints in his spine crackled. Leaning over, he said, “Come here,” to his bounding daughter.
Gale made squawking noises as she flew both of her birds toward her father. Champ scooped up his little girl and kissed her on the forehead.
The five-year-old giggled.
Eagle chirped.
The pixels dispersed, and the following information orbited the couple:
Summer 2077: Five years later
The motes dispersed and then rendered
the outside of a nightclub named Jolly Molly’s. Eagle’s antique motorcycle was parked on the nether curb.
Hundreds of flashily dressed patrons who clasped mates, oily cocktails and furry drinks filled the dimly lit interior of the club.
Seated together in a plush velvet booth were Molly, thinner and with silver hair, R.J. the Third, her beauty diminished, Architect, his fur white, the herpetology student, her tattoos wrinkled, Candace, gaunt, Mikek, bald, and Eagle, unchanged and wearing an overcoat and sunglasses.
A spotlight glared, and gradually, the audience quietened.
Standing in the middle of the room upon a buoyed dais was Champ, sixty-one years old, dressed in his orange garbage man’s uniform.
The amateur comedian ran a hand through his silver-white hair, looked at the mirthless crowd and said, “An obese cat goes into a bar.
“He climbs onto a stool and says to the grumpy Irish bartender, ‘Hey, barkeep. I’d like some cheese.’ The bartender looks at the obese cat and says, ‘You should lay off the dairy.’ The cat says, ‘It’s not for me, it’s for the mouse I ate last week.’ The bartender scratches his beard and says, ‘I don’t believe you.’ The cat opens his mouth really wide and a weird little voice says, ‘Hey asshole, get me some cheddar.’
“The bartender gets angry and says, ‘Nobody talks like that to me in my bar—get the hell out!’ The cat closes his mouth and asks, ‘Me or the mouse?’ The bartender asks, ‘Can you get rid of him?’ The cat says, ‘Not easily—I swallowed a Chinese mouse the other day, and he’s into Orientals.’”
The audience laughed, and one person chirped very loudly.
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