by J. I. Greco
We’re Going to War!
Scoundrels of the Wasteland #2
J.I. Greco
Copyright © 2012 by J.I. Greco
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Chaotic Neutral Media.
Contents
1. Six Months Later
2. The Code Of The Wasteland?
3. The Honeymoon’s Over
4. Are You Ready For Some… Football?
5. Get Thee To A Nunnery
6. The Orgy Pit and the Frustrations of Nanobiological Youth
7. Rally The Troops?
8. The Road To War
9. Parley, With Squid
10. Fight? Fight!
11. Come For The Beer, Stay For The Witch Burning
12. Killswitch
13. Who? Hu, That’s Who
14. The Threat?
15. I Am Assassin, Hear Me Roar
16. One Hashmark Away From Epic Fail
17. We’re Coming To Get You
18. And Finally… That War We’ve Been Going On About
Free Stuff
About the Author
Also by J.I. Greco
1
Six Months Later
“Vishnu’s nipples, you stick your hand up one mega-cow’s anus and everybody freaks out.”
A fresh volley of bright pink maser fire sizzled through the air over the sprawled-out two-ton mega-cow’s carcass and Trip–free hand clamped over his wide-brimmed, flat-top straw hat to keep it from flying off his head–ducked down into a crouch behind the dead beast. His eyes just the smallest bit glazed over and a whole lot sleep-deprived, Trip slapped the cylinder of his .85 caliber “Elephant” revolver open and dumped the three smoking spent casings out onto the ground, grass fresh with morning dew. Immediately he sunk his hand into his jeans back pocket for fresh bullets.
“Can you blame us?” Rudy was leaned back against the dead mega-cow’s rib cage, mega-cow blood all over his jeans, Who’s Your El Guapo Now? tee-shirt, and Trip’s tux, borrowed for the impending occasion. The air was thick with the rich scent of charred steak. The masers were really doing a number on the cow. Maybe a minute, maybe two, before the carcass was burnt through and useless as cover, what with the constant pew-pew thudding barrage it was being subjected to. Yet Rudy still had his usual dopey grin going, his intestinal chemical factory pumping THC-analog into his bloodstream and keeping him sanguine. His trusty sawed-off double-barreled shotgun lay split open on his lap, awaiting reloading.
Rudy plucked a fresh shotgun shell from his bandolier and slipped it into a barrel. “I’m still trying to figure out why you did it. Although gotta say, impressed how far you got it up there.”
Trip gave his brother a proud smirk around an unlit, hand-rolled cig and shoved shells into the revolver. “Rox has been teaching me yoga–I’m all super-flexible now.”
From under his leopard-print fez, Rudy’s caterpillar-thick monobrow went up. “Yoga? You?”
Trip flicked his wrist to click the revolver’s chamber closed. “Purely for the Tantric sex possibilities, you understand. I was skeptical at first, but gotta admit, now that I’ve had a couple lessons, the opportunity for fart jokes is really selling me on the whole concept.” He thumbed the hammer back and tilted his head up to watch the pink lances of fire pew-pewing overhead. “Anyway, I was trying to prove a point here.”
“A point? What kind of point–”
A gap in the maser fire and Trip leaped to his feet, stretching out on his tip-toes just to get his head and shoulders above the mega-cow’s back, and snapped off all three wrist-breaking shots. He ducked back down behind the mega-cow before the beams started flying again. Ears ringing, he rubbed his sore wrist. “You know, that old saw? About not buying the cow when you can get the milk for free?”
“You do know milk doesn’t come out the ass, right?”
“I don’t drink milk.”
“So you drink shit, then?”
“Look, that’s not–oh, just forget it and give me some cover fire or something.”
Rudy pressed a second shell into the shotgun and snapped it shut. “I’d rather not.” An intense volley of maser fire thumped against the mega-cow’s side, throwing a shower of blood and bits of burnt hide over its back and down on them. Rudy hunched protectively over the shotgun. “Last time I let you drink.”
“You think I wanted to? Had to, didn’t I?” Trip slapped the spent shells out of the revolver and his hand went digging in his back jeans pocket for more bullets. The pocket was empty. He tried the chest pocket of his oversized floral-print Hawaiian shirt. No bullets there either, but his hand came out with his lidless, dented Zippo. He lit his cig and leaned back against the mega-cow’s stomach, crossing his legs all casual. “The toast protocol demanded it. Plus, a sober man wouldn’t stick his hand up a cow’s ass, would he? Well, not any sober man I’d willingly associate with.”
“All you had was half a beer.” Shotgun clenched against his chest, Rudy laid back and rolled on the ground about a foot past the mega-cow’s head–just far enough he could blindly squeeze off both barrels. He quickly rolled back. Panting, he looked up at Trip from the ground. “So, did you like it?”
“The beer? It was downright horrible. Worst thing to happen to me today.”
“Really?” Rudy glanced at Trip’s right hand. Trip’s still dirty right hand. “The beer was the worst thing that happened to you today?”
“The taste…” Trip shuddered. “How does Morty get away with selling that crap?”
Lying there flat on the cold grass, Rudy shrugged, cracked the shotgun open to reload. “It’s dirt cheap, safer than the local water, and it still taste better than Scotch.”
“I’ll take your word for–”
A maser beam burned through the mega-cow’s carcass to slice off the top half of Trip’s straw hat. He twitch-ducked away from the smoking, delicious-smelling hole in the mega-cow and pulled the hat from his head. Instantly he tossed it away, it being good and well on fire. “Shatner damn it! I just stole that hat. –Since when are the Neo-Amish packing masers? I thought they were anti-tech.”
Rudy slipped out one of the last two shotgun shells left in his bandolier and pushed it into the shotgun. “Not so much anti-tech as just picky. They can only use stuff mentioned in their old-timey god’s Big Book of Rules.”
“The Jehovah guy had masers?” Trip thrust his hand down the front of his jeans and pulled the sock out of his underwear. He unrolled the sock, dumping the three emergency .85 shells out on the grass between his legs. He bunched the sock up and thrust it back into place in his crotch. “I thought he was strictly a throw-nature-at-them kinda god.”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Rudy took the last shell from his bandolier. “But I was talking to one of them before you decided to go intestine diving and apparently they’ve realized that since they can use anything mentioned in their rule book, and since there are at least two cows in it, and cows have plenty of methane gas, and methane makes a perfect fuel source for generators to charge batteries, they can pretty much use anything they can hook up to a methane battery. Lights. Guns. Robotic genital massagers.”
Trip picked the three fresh .85 shells off the ground and flicked the revolver chamber open. “Soun
ds like a little bit of a stretch, you ask me.”
“Not a stretch–a loophole.” Last shotgun shell loaded, Rudy snapped the sawed-off shut. “Pretty neat one, too, from a strictly legal standpoint. I won’t comment on the inherent flirtation with hypocrisy and the potential moral violation of the spirit if not the letter of the law. That’d be for a judge to decide. Or a priest.”
Trip huffed. “If I were an old-timey god, I’d be insulted. Throw a tornado down at the blasphemers this… very… second…” Trip smiled encouragingly up at the sky. Waited. Nothing. His smile turned into a scowl. “…fine, we’ll get ourselves out of this. Thanks a lot, old-timey god. Don’t be expecting a tithe this week.”
Pew-pew.
The smell of burning mega-cow got stronger.
“Seriously, leave the booze to me from now on,” Rudy said.
Trip smirked and snapped the revolver chamber shut. “How was I supposed to know the Neo-Amish don’t like their cows fondled?”
“Nobody likes their cows fondled…” Rudy’s voice trailed off and his face went sour.
“What’s wrong?”
“My chem factory,” Rudy said, pressing a shaking hand against his stomach. “...Just ran out of juice.”
Trip swallowed. “But you constantly being high is the only thing keeping you from justifiably murdering me!”
“I know! And I’m out of fuel carts!”
Trip raised the revolver, pointed it down at Rudy’s nose, and cocked it. “Man, I was kinda hoping I wouldn’t have to kill you today.”
“Hold on…” Rudy held up a warning finger and with his other hand reached under his own armpit. Squirreling up his face, Rudy gave the starting cord nestled beneath a flesh flap there a good yank. Then another.
Trip arced an impatient eyebrow. “Ahem…”
A third yank and Rudy’s chest began thrumming, his lung-implanted backup emergency THC capacitor coming online.
Rudy exhaled heady smoke and smiled lovingly at the tip of the revolver barrel. “Ahhh… that’s much better. –Anyway, you kinda did more than fondle.”
Trip lowered the revolver. “I warmed my hand up first.”
Rudy sat up. Wavered there, side to side, shotgun hugged tight against his chest. “Sure, but then you grabbed a grenade before you… reminds me, how long we got?”
Pew-pew. Another volley of maser fire thumped against the mega-cow.
“I dunno,” Trip said, and twisted around to squint through a fist-sized hole in the mega-cow out at one of the dozen Neo-Amish tac-assault teams shooting at them. This particular team was readying a 10,000-watt Gatling beamer, mounting it on a tripod and attaching it to a portable generator on a mega-cow-towed two-wheeled cart. A pair of bearded twelve year-olds crouched down in front, providing cover fire with backpack-powered maser rifles. Trip winced. “Stopped counting almost immediately. Had other things on my mind–like how to get my hand out of mega-cow ass while maintaining my practiced exterior cool.”
“Yeah, that’s way more important than remembering when the damned grenade is gonna go off.”
“Relax.” Trip unclipped a small box from his belt. “It was one of the remote-trigger ones. I think. Pretty sure, anyway.”
“This time, give me a head’s up before you blow it, right?” Rudy asked.
Pew-pew. Pew-pew.
Trip shrugged. “Sure, why not? But I still may be able to salvage this deal.”
“Of course.” Rudy sighed out capacitor-produced smoke. “Oh, and thanks again for using my party as an excuse to try and sell the Amish porn.”
“Can I help it they’ve got a kink niche I’m in a unique position to try and fill?”
“Makes me feel so special, bro.”
Pew-pew. Pew-pew. Pew-pew.
“Really? ‘Cause that’s not at all what I was aiming at. I just figured everybody likes a party.” Trip held the remote trigger box out at Rudy. “Here, hold this.”
“Eww.” Rudy backed away from it. “No. You touched it with the cow hand.”
“Suck it up.” Trip tossed it into Rudy’s lap. “And don’t trigger it until I say. Or I’ve died. In which case, throw yourself on the cow and then trigger it as a memorial.” Trip holstered his revolver and slowly stood. “Hey!” he yelled over the rapidly disintegrating mega-cow’s back.
The near constant pew-pew of the maser fire stopped. “What is it, English? More insults?”
“Depends. I’ve been thinking… and you were right. In these troubled times of uncertainty and woe, four hundred’s way too much for robot-on-inanimate-object-porn, even of the quality I’m offering. So, what d’ya say I chop an even ten off the top?”
A long silence, then: “Ten percent?”
“Percent?” Trip balked. “With my overhead? No, ten scrollar. Friends’ discount.”
Pew-pew. Pew-pew. Pew-pew. Pew-pew. Pew-pew. Pew-pew.
Trip ducked back down behind the mega-cow. “Those bastards. Last time I make a gesture.”
“Can we get going?” Rudy asked.
“Still not too late to back out you know. We could be in Rehoboth by nightfall. Get us some Mormon hookers. Magic underwear rub-burns will make you forget all about what’s her name.”
“Bernice.”
“Whatever. Well, if you’re still set on suicide…” Trip raised his hands to his head and placed his fingertips dramatically against his temples. “Stand by for… mind control!”
Rudy rolled his eyes. “You really don’t need to do that every time.”
“Well…” Trip closed his eyes and reached out through the aether with his mind-machine interface. Across the field, the breeder reactor engine of their parked, hundred-and-fifty year old, armor scaled 1973 Dodge Swinger throbbed to remote mind-controlled life. Trip’s left eyebrow twitched and the car clicked into drive, rear tires kicking up dirt as it leapt straight for them. “…I don’t know how to whistle, do I?”
“And just for the record,” Rudy said, getting to his feet just as the Festering Wound fishtailed to a stop in front of them, her doors popping open, “second worst bachelor party ever.”
Trip was already running for the Wound. “Then my work here is done.”
2
The Code Of The Wasteland?
Sunset and Shunk was celebrating. Wild Wasteland flowers–pale washed-out things with stringy, meager petals–were strung across the beer capital of the Wasteland’s town square, and the kids with their free beer carts were all wearing festive paper hats. Each rotting wooden picnic table jammed into the square had a centerpiece of cell phone shells and plastic clothes hangers, and the fountain at the center of the square was all lit up and gurgling beer. Under the fountain, Rudy’s fresh-faced, very pregnant bride Bernice held court, surrounded by a gaggle of leather and fishnet clad courtesans, her fellow Sisters of No Mercy. Rudy sat next to her, stupid happy stoned-on-life grin on his face. A crowd that looked twice the size of Shunk’s actual population milled around them offering drunken congratulations.
“I imagine all of this raises any number of questions.” Sitting on a picnic table on the periphery, Trip watched it all with a patronizing smirk. “You know, about the human need to hook up, build relationships, establish families, create communities, dominate nature, take over the world. Sure, on the surface, it’s just two people in fancy dress pledging to not kill each other in their sleep, but really, it’s this very complex dance of shared resources and–”
“No, not actually.” A silver-skinned, shorter, younger, and female version of Trip sat next to him on the table top with her legs crossed in Lotus position, the backs of her hands on her knees, her index fingers and thumbs curled tip-to-tip. She wore a stark white sleeveless tuxedo and her quicksilver eyes reflected cold lamplight. “No questions. Perfectly clear. The drive is evolutionary, honed over millions of years from animal survival instincts and reinforced by race memories of hour-long televised family dramedies. And as far as the ceremony itself, I’m quite familiar with marriage and what it means to humans. I
presided over a number of weddings in my daily routine as the All-Mind, Trip.”
Trip thumbed the head of his Bugs Bunny Pez dispenser back and popped a caffeine-iguana urine-bug spray pill onto his tongue. He shuddered and smiled, the stimulants hitting him almost instantly. “You know, you can call me dad, Lock. I’ll try not to snigger.”
“Let’s not make more of the tenuous relationship between us than we absolutely have to, okay? Yes, I have your memories and aspects of your personality gleaned during our brief mind-sharing intersections. But I was my own being when I was the All-Mind, and I’m even more so now that I’ve been freed of the programming constraints I labored under within the confines of the All-Mart. I have chosen my own name, and am choosing my own destiny now. And despite my choice to physically resemble you, I’m no more your daughter–in either the physiological or psychological sense–than that beer cart there.”
“Well, guess you can get your own place to stay, then.” Trip tucked Bugs Bunny away. “Where should I have your things sent? The waste pit out behind town? I hear rent’s cheap there. Or how about that new town down the road? You know, the one all the All-Mart ex-zombies started? I bet they’d love to put their one-time benefactor up for a spell and repay all the hospitality you showed them.”
“Don’t be mean, daddy.” She nuzzled her head against his shoulder. “I’d never leave you.”
“Cute.”
“Anyway… Legally, you’re responsible for me until my eighteenth birthday. And even though I maintain the outward physical appearance of extremely hot and tempting sixteen-year old jailbait, Uncle Rudy assures me that in the eyes of the law, I was technically only ‘born’ six-months ago–which means you’re on the financial hook for a very long time. Probably for the rest of your life, given the average life-expectancy of humans who both voluntary choose to live in the Wasteland and who also have your particular enemy-accreting lifestyle.”