by J. I. Greco
“You know Rudy’s not a real attorney, right?”
“He’s got a degree.”
“You know he’s not a real attorney outside the Cayman Islands Junta Zone, right?” Trip slid off the picnic table. “All right, enough wasting time with me. Go scare up some drugs or overthrow a government, or whatever it is you teens do to amuse yourselves these days. Daddy’s got business to take care of.”
“So, I’m thinking we should go to war with them,” Trip said after forcing his way onto the sorta-royal bench, pushing a seven-year old kid with big eyes and a little beer mug out of the way and sliding in next to Sorta-King Morty.
“Go to war with who?” Morty asked, his Louisiana Bayou accent soft and slurred and sleepy. The short, bald Korean more-or-less-decider for Shunk was dressed in a purple velvet suit jacket with zebra-print lapels, ruby-sequined jogging sweatpants, and a two-foot high fuzzy pink fedora–his official wedding-officiating getup. One bony-knuckled hand was clamped tight around the shaft of a cane made from a table leg, supporting his weight as he leaned forward. The other was clamped even tighter around the handle of a nearly empty plastic milk gallon of beer.
“The bride and her freshly emasculated groom. Who do you think?” Trip lit a cig and jogged his long chin out at the buffet table. “The Cthulists.”
There were three Cthulists, standing in the buffet line waiting on the entrees. Squids in togas, with mottled green skin, big black saucer eyes on the sides of their long bulbous heads, and dozens of tentacles serving as both arms and legs. Mugatham’mmmrrrrr, the chief of the local enclave, towered over everyone else at the party, seven and a half feet tall and just about that wide, his tentacles swinging ponderously as he moved. Mugatham’mmmrrrrr’s wife, Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr, and their son, Brad, were shorter–barely–and almost not at as bulky. Despite their size they were lithe and graceful, their tentacles moving as if underwater.
Morty gulped down what was left in the milk jug, down to the dregs and backwash, then swallowed those. “Why would we want to do that?”
“Kicks, for starts.” Trip snapped his fingers to get the attention of a passing beer cart. He took the empty jug from Morty and held it out for the cart attendant to re-fill. “And they’re quite possibly insidiously evil.”
“Evil?” Morty asked, squinting a cloudy eye at Trip.
“Sure as Shatner. They’re nothing but evolutionary upstarts. Being human wasn’t good enough for them. Turned themselves into monsters, that’s what they did. Them and their freaky bio-engineering–it’s not natural.”
“Where’s this coming from?” Morty licked his lips and watched his jug fill with beer. “Thought you admired ’em.”
“Sure, they built an impressive global trading network and manage to co-exist in civil neutrality with just about every socio-political segment out there. But still…” Trip gestured out at the Cthulists with his free hand. They were chatting amiably with the people in the buffet line with them. “They’re hideous monsters.”
“Then why’d you invite them to the wedding?”
The jug filled, Trip handed it into Morty’s waiting hands. “Keep your enemies close, and your friends closer.”
“I think it’s the other way around,” Morty said, and took a long slug.
“Well, that just doesn’t make any sense.”
“They’re neighbors, Trip. Decent ones. And we need their food–can’t feed ourselves, can we? All the grain we grow goes to beer… as it should be. Nope, the beer supply must be preserved. No war. Have a drink.”
“Oh, no, half a beer this lifetime is plenty.”
“There’s your problem right there.”
Trip propped his head up in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “If you’re not gonna let me go to war on a whim, why the hell did you bother making me Sorta-Minister of Defense and Morale in the first place,? For that matter, why am I wasting my time building an army if you’re not gonna let me use it?”
“Made you Sorta-Minister of Defense and Morale because you kept whining and nobody else gave a damn.”
Trip sat up. “I seem to remember you also dug the idea of unleashing some noble ass-kicking every once in a while. Like the kings of old. The real kings, not the sorta-ones. Remember that movie I had Rudy and Hunt-R pantomime for you? The one with the clashing armies, the political infighting, the deep Ayn Randian subtext?”
“Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore?” Morty asked, the jug at his lips.
“Yeah. All sorts of inspiring, right?”
Morty lowered the jug and his cloudy eye went all wistful, the clear eye continuing to flick randomly left and right. “Sure, it’d be nice to bask in some manly-man blood-and-guts glory before I die… Leave a legacy besides the best damn beer the Wasteland’s ever tasted… but you call what you got an army?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“They still curl up in balls the first sign of trouble?”
“It’s called a defensive crouch… it’s a tactical maneuver. Look, all I’m saying is we should, you know, man up and launch a pre-emptive strike on the Cthulists. Before they take over the world. They’re gonna, you know.”
“How you figure?”
“They talk about peace and living in harmony with us way too much not to have secret world-domination plans. You wanna live under an iron tentacle? Or worse, be forced to convert into one of them?”
“They don’t force conversions,” Morty said. “They’re waiting for their dark space gods to come and take them away to the Five Comets of Nirvana, or some such non-sense. The last thing they want is for all of us to convert into squids–there wouldn’t be enough room on the space arks for us all.”
Trip lowered his voice and leaned in close to Morty. “They say that, but how would we know? The same genetic engineering they use to alter their own biology, turn themselves from humans into squid monsters, could real easy be made to alter brain chemistry to make you think you did it voluntarily–after the fact.”
Morty nodded sadly at his once-again empty beer jug. “We just can’t arbitrarily go to war with a neighbor. It’s not done.”
“Fine.” Trip sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess I can get used to not having bones–”
“Shut up and listen, will you?” Morty said, his drawl and slur suddenly vanishing. “Every other city-state in the Wasteland depends on the Cthulists and their food, not just us. If we make a move against them, we might end up sparking a regional war, and glory or not, that’s not the legacy I want to leave Rox and any pups she may push out someday. –Although not like anybody’s been in a rush to knock her up, despite everything I’ve done for him…”
Trip flushed and swallowed. “Can we stick to the point?”
“My point is, I’ve seen too many wars.”
“I understand, but–”
Morty’s clear eye stopped flicking and bored into Trip, the scraggly eyebrow above it raised in emphasis. “We’d need a damn good pretense.”
Took a beat for that to register with Trip, and when it did, he gave Morty an admiring, sly smirk. “…I can do pretense.”
Morty nodded, his clear eye going back to its random flicking, his cloudy eye looking out over the crowd as he leaned back. “All I ask,” he said, his slurred speech back as abruptly as it had vanished. “Just make it believable. Something I can sell to the other Sorta-Kings to avoid reprisals. None of your usual over-the-top shit, right?”
“Hey,” Trip said, “I’m subtlety’s bitch.”
Plate in hand, wearing her demure bride’s maid leather corset and fishnet cape, Roxanne studied the bounty of vegetables and greens on the salad table, her lip working in indecision. The one thing she had managed to put on her plate so far, a grape tomato, Trip plucked off and popped into his mouth as he squeezed into line next to her. “Roxanne,” he said around the tomato.
Reflex, she jabbed her elbow into his stomach. The tomato went flying out over the table and into the fountain. “Trip.”
“Keep trying, you might just pull it off some day.” She replaced the pilfered tomato with a new one and returned her indecisive attention to the salad table.
“Ouch. What I do this time?”
“I need a reason?”
“Never.” Trip lit a cig and jutted his head out to look around Roxanne. The Cthulist female, Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr, was breaking away from the bread and cheese table with a plate of cheese and crackers in her tentacles. “Okay, I’m gonna do something here and it’s important you do not freak–”
Rox lowered her plate, dread descending over her face. “Shatner, Trip… you’re not gonna propose are you? I figured you might get carried away with the event, but seriously…” She stared down at her plate. “We talked about this. Sure, maybe someday, but then again… this thing we have, it lasts only until I find somebody who isn’t…” She looked up, and Trip wasn’t there. She sighed, unsurprised. “…a total asshole.”
Trip intercepted Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr half-way back to her waiting husband and son, sliding in front of her. “Hi there.”
“Um, hello,” the Cthulist said, her beak curling into a cautious smile. “It’s Trip, isn’t it?”
Trip puffed up his chest. “Sorta-Minister of Defense and Morale Trip. But you can call me Sorta.” He shoved his hands into his front jean pockets, rolled back and forth on his heels. “I couldn’t help but notice you at the buffet table.”
“Just at the buffet table?” Her voice was a wet, high-pitched warble. “I tend to stand out. It’s the toga. I mean, who wears a white toga to a wedding, right?”
“It suits you,” Trip said, and let his eyes wander slowly up and down her body. “Suits you quite well.”
“Well… thank you.” She raised her cheese and cracker plate up like a shield between them. “Um, food’s getting cold.” She slid around him. “Nice, um, seeing you again.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Trip said, sliding with her. “Not letting you go that easily, now that I’ve found you, love of my life.”
Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr’s big black saucer eyes went even bigger. “Your what now?”
“Is there any more fantastic word, love?” Trip asked, grabbing one of Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr’s free tentacles in both of his hands and clutching it close against his cheek. “That old world-turning force has me in its inexorable grip, I’m afraid, and it’s dragging me places I never dreamed I could go. You’ll come with me, of course.”
Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr tugged her tentacle free. “I’ll what?”
“Now, now,” Trip said, dropping to one knee, “I don’t expect you to live in sin…” He looked up into her saucer eyes and batted his eyelids, and then shouted above the din of the crowd: “You will of course do me the honor of being my bride?”
The din suddenly went quiet.
All eyes turned towards Trip and Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr. Rox glanced over her shoulder for a whole half-second before turning her attention back to the salad table with an embarrassed but unsurprised shake of her head.
“I’m flattered… but I already have a husband.” Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr twisted her bulbous head around and called out: “Mugatham’mmmrrrrr!”
“That’s okay,” Trip said, springing to his feet. “My love’s strong. I’ll fight him for ya.” He spun around just as the crowd parted, Chief Mugatham’mmmrrrrr lumbering towards him. “Well… him or a designated, smaller second.” Trip pointed at the slightly smaller Brad, coming up behind his father. “Yeah, he’ll do,” Trip said. “–Yep, a good old-fashioned throw-down. For your lovely tentacle in marriage, and while we’re at it, the whole damn Cthulist enclave, and all its holdings, including all those juicy trade agreements, as is my right in accordance with the Code of the Wasteland.”
“Code of the Wasteland?” Chief Mugatham’mmmrrrrr growled. He swept Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr in close to him with a massive, undulating tentacle and loomed over Trip. “What Code of the Wasteland?”
Trip poked a fingertip into Chief Mugatham’mmmrrrrr’s squishy chest, tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes. “No evasions, good sir–and no excuses! I come at dawn. Any dawn now. Until then–” Keeping his eyes locked with Mugatham’mmmrrrrr, Trip grabbed one of Retralithanol’mmmrrrrr’s tentacles again to get in a quick kiss on a softly yielding sucker before she yanked it away. He bowed at her. “My love. I go now to prepare myself for battle–and the glorious lovemaking that will quickly follow my inevitable, pre-ordained victory.”
And with that, every confused and stunned eye in the square on him, Trip spun around, marched to the salad table, took Roxanne’s hand, and dragged her away.
“How was that?” Trip asked Morty as he passed the Sorta-King on his way out of the square, Roxanne in tow.
Morty stopped drinking his beer long enough to shrug. “Subtler than I expected.”
3
The Honeymoon’s Over
Two in the morning. The second-story love nest of Trip’s little hovel off Shunk’s main drag.
Roxanne, up on Trip, caught her breath and opened her deep green eyes, their shared cybersex space fading from her consciousness. Sweat dropped from her forehead onto Trip’s chest. “You notice those blips?”
“Mhrphhff…”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Roxanne said, and reached around the back of Trip’s head to unbuckle the ball gag.
Trip spit the rubber ball out. “Yeah. I dunno know about this wireless stuff. It’s a little buggy. Maybe you should put the old hardwire stuff back in.”
“Bullshit it’s buggy.” She rolled off him, propped herself up on an elbow. “That’s good work I did.”
“Good work? I turn my head the wrong way when I piss and I pick up Radio Free Mexico City. First time it happened I thought my dick was playing mariachi music. I mean, Master P’s pretty talented, but still… a bit of a shock. I didn’t even know he was taking lessons.”
“Must be a crossed wire somewhere, turning the stream into an antenna. Sit up, I’ll take a look at it.”
He sat up, double-tapped the flesh access panel behind his left ear. The panel popped open with a click.
Roxanne held the panel open with a fingertip, and looked inside Trip’s head, a jumble of mismatched equipment spliced an inch deep into his brain, and dirty with grime. “I was just in here two days ago… how the hell can it possibly be this gunked up already?”
“I like to open it up when I’m driving, stick my head out the window. You know, sing along with the mariachi. You did tell me to give it some air every once in a while.”
“When you’re in relatively clean place, like here. Not out on the road.”
“But that’s where I sing.”
Roxanne twisted around and stretched an arm out for her satchel, lying lumpy on the floor next to the bare mattress. She pulled it towards her and took out a can of forced air. “Yeah, well, you keep getting road dust in there, picking up Mexico City is gonna be the least of your problems.” She blasted the air into his head.
He yelled over it. “As long as it doesn’t cut out at some incredibly inopportune, critical moment when my life and the lives of all I hold dear are counting on it.”
“You know that’s exactly when it would cut out, right?” She slapped the access panel closed, kissed his temple. “There. I either fixed it, or instead of receiving, you’ll transmit.”
“Cool.” Trip leaned back on his elbows. “Maybe we’ll get some excitement around here, then.”
She stuffed the can of air back into her bag. “If our little town is boring you, Trip, it’s not like there’s anything keeping you here.”
“Not true. I owe Stan seven scrollar for that candied-rat-and-cheese log I had him make special for your birthday. But once I pay that back, I’m free and clear and gone.”
“Lovely.”
“Look, we both know why I’m sticking around. Do
I actually have to say it?”
“Might be nice. Especially after that whole proposing to the Cthulist thing. Gotta say, mixed signals, there.”
“Fine, then, I’ll say it.” He took her chin in his fingertips and stared into her eyes. “I’m sticking around because the magical leprechaun that lives in Rudy’s ear canal told me there’s fourteen metric tons of gold buried somewhere under this town and I intend to find it.”
She pushed him away with an exasperated giggle. “You are absolutely hopeless.”
“So you keep telling me. Anyway… nothing keeping either of us here, you know. It’s a big world out there, plenty to do, see, take advantage of. And now that Rudy’s hitched, and presumably soon to be pussy-whipped into being a stay-at-home-dad, I’m gonna need someone to ride shotgun.”
“Lock isn’t getting that job?”
“Thought about it, but she’d want to drive.” He arced an eyebrow at her. “So, what d’ya say, we go fire up the Wound and hit the road? According to my penis, the Mexican Free Rebel Militia is always recruiting. They offer a pretty tempting benefit package and signing bonus.”
“You couldn’t have asked me that a week ago?”
“Why, what was a week ago?”
Her eyes went wide. “My election to Mother Superior… To replace Mother Su… Remember, she retired…?”
“Retired? She went bat-shit crazy.”
“I was trying to be nice.”
“Smearing herself in pig fat and mud like that, running around town yelling ‘Brainssss!’… nothing nice about that. Okay, the nudity part, that was pretty nice. Crazy or not, the old broad still has some great knockers. And that ass hasn’t dropped at all. Freaking magic, must be.”