Savant kicked blindly at Commander Mike and the sole of his boot passed close enough to Jake’s face to make him jump. “Dammit, get out from between my legs, you stupid monkey.”
The Monkeynaut scrambled away from the kicking and ended up on Jake’s shoulder where he gave Jake a confused look.
“He’s afraid he might like it,” Jake explained.
Savant tried to turn but hit his head on the top of the duct. Turning the other way had the same result. “If I could turn around, I’d punch you.”
“Well you can’t, so keep going.” Jake waited for his teammate to move some distance before he followed.
They crawled along for several minutes. It felt like miles on his knees. Jake knew they hadn’t gone far but he assumed they were no longer under Flying Saucers and Cups. “Where are we going, Commander Mike?”
“A safe place,” the Monkeynaut pointed deeper into the vent. “A safe place down below. We’re almost there.”
Savant asked what the monkey was saying just about the time he tumbled down the shaft, dropped several feet and landed in the safe place on his head.
Savant was still swearing when Jake lowered himself carefully through the hole into the storage room below. The monkey landed softly next to him and trudged across the room where he righted a plastic chair and sat. His iconic blue spacesuit was in tatters and Jake could see for the first time that his fur was matted in places and worn through in others, revealing the machine’s frame beneath.
Jake felt he was staring and looked away. “Where are we, Commander?”
“Would you stop talking to that thing like it’s real?” Savant held his hand against his head. “Do you know how crazy you look?”
“Respect the system, Savant.”
Savant rolled his eyes and tested the growing lump on his head with cautious fingers. “I hate it when you use my shit against me. You know that?”
“I know it,” Jake said with a grin and turned back to the monkey. “What happened here, Commander?”
“They made heat here.” Commander Mike leaned over and rapped on the metal body of an industrial furnace.
“It’s the old boiler room, you stupid monkey,” Savant said.
Jake waved his hands back and forth. “No. I mean, in the park. What happened to Futopia? Where are the other Monkeynauts?”
Generally, when a monkey sighs, it’s funny. The sound is a little squeaky and it’s always amusing to see them acting like people. But there was no humor in Commander Mike McMonkey’s sigh. It was filled only with pain. “I don’t know what happened to them. They’ve disappeared. I fear they were taken.”
“Who would take them?”
“The Dark Riders, TM. They see it as their job to enforce some kind of order in Futopia that only they understand. For years, the TraceRacers, TM, stopped them—or at least they tried to. But not too long ago the TraceRacers vanished. Not long after that, my crew disappeared as well.” Commander Mike sighed again. This time it was funny.
Jake didn’t laugh. “Grunt and Ace?”
The monkey nodded. “Gone.”
“And Stanley?” Jake asked, knowing full well Stanley and the commander’s history together.
“She’s gone, too.”
Savant had finally let go of his head but it was obvious that the fall or the Monkeynauts backstory was still causing him pain. He winced as he spoke. “Stanley? She? Who the hell is Stanley?”
Commander Mike looked into the distance. His voice took on a hollow sound full of memory as if he was speaking in flashback. “Stanley, TM, was our vehicle specialist. She was the best. No one could ride an A.P.E., TM, like Stanley.”
Savant winced again. “Go easy on the details there, Mikey. I don’t need to know about your love life.”
“A.P.E. stands for Adaptive Primate Exoskeleon, you moron,” Jake snapped. “It was an exosuit the Monkeynauts used around the ship for heavy lifting—”
“Yeah, you know all that and I’m the moron?” Savant backed toward the wall and lowered himself to the ground with a grunt.
Jake put a hand on the monkey’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Commander Mike.”
“I miss them, but with my team gone, there is a bigger problem.” The monkey stood and looked toward the sky. “There is no one to stop Major Ursa, TM, and his Cosmomutts, TM, from spreading their space-communism, TM, across the stars. Can you help me, brave visitor?”
“Good going, Jake. You broke the monkey.”
“It’s the show, Savant. The Monkeynauts fought the—”
“Cosmomutts,” Savant said with a dismissive wave. “I get it. It’s not incredibly hard to follow.”
“That is why I am here,” the monkey said boldly. “That is my mission. And that is the only thing that matters now.”
“Maybe Major Ursa has your team.”
Commander Mike shook his head and sat back down. “No. They’ve disappeared, too. And, I’ve had absolutely no contact with TAIL, TM.”
Jake turned to Savant. “That’s the Terran Alliance of Interstellar Logistics.”
“You never get to call me a nerd again, Jake. Understand?”
Commander Mike continued. “I’m cut off. Alone. And my team needs me. If I fail there is a good chance that liberty could begin to fall through the galaxy. We need to find the rest of the Monkeynauts and—”
Savant stood. “Oh, enough of this. Your team is dead. Okay?”
“No,” Commander Mike said as he shook his head. “They’ll be back next week.”
“I’m afraid not, Space Chimp. They’re dead. And if it wasn’t the Dark Riders it was sure as shit those bears that killed them.”
“No,” Commander Mike said again. “They’ll be back next week.”
“They’re dead. Deceased. Kaput. Tails up. They’ve met their monkey maker and gone to the big barrel in the sky.”
“Barrel of what?” the monkey asked.
“Monkeys!” Savant screamed despite the fact that it obviously hurt his head to do so. “Barrel of monkeys, you stupid monkey.”
Commander Mike looked confused. He turned to Jake and put up a hand to shield a whisper from Savant. “I think there’s something wrong with your friend.”
“There is. He’s an asshole.”
“Don’t you get it, space ape? They’re dead.”
Commander Mike shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can tell you’re upset but I just don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Savant screamed and grabbed at his hair.
It was nice to watch Savant get pushed over the edge. That it was a monkey in a space suit doing the pushing made it all the better. Jake wanted to laugh but he held it back and explained, “He doesn’t understand, Savant. He can’t. Death didn’t exist in the Monkeynauts show.”
“What? No one ever got shot?”
“Just in the shoulder.”
“And the rockets never exploded?”
“Sure,” Jake said. “But they always had parachutes.”
“In space?!”
“What do you want?” Jake said. “It was a kids’ show.”
“It was a lame show.”
“It was a great show and…” Jake cut himself off. “It doesn’t matter. Just know that there is no death in their world.”
“Well there is death to the Dark Riders,” Savant said and then swore. “That’s right, I did watch it, okay? I watched a cartoon. Just like normal, stupid people. And I watched it because it didn’t pussyfoot around things like death. People died. And the Dark Riders were badass killers. They offed everyone. So if they’ve got this guy’s monkeys, those monkeys are toast and the stupid show is cancelled.”
“Dude! Be sensitive.”
“I’m being sensible, Jake. His friends are gone. But our friends aren’t, so maybe he can quit moping and help us find them.”
“I help people,” Commander Mike muttered to himself and then perked up and repeated it louder. “I help people. That’s something else I do. I can help you.”
“Thank you, Commander Mike.” Jake said.
“Yeah, big thanks, Mr. Monkey,” Savant mumbled.
Commander Mike’s eyebrows pitched and his eyes grew larger. “And maybe you could help me find my friends, too?” the monkey asked.
Jake nodded. “We’ll do everything we can.”
“That’s right,” Savant agreed. “Jake will do everything he can,”
“Savant, we’re going to help.”
“Right. Sorry.” Savant winked. He fed some extra drama into his voice. It was his stupid superhero impression. “We’ll do everything we can to help.”
“My thanks,” said Commander Mike. “To both of you.”
“We won’t rest until you’re reunited,” Savant boomed.
Commander Mike rushed across the room and shook Savant’s hand. “I appreciate it.”
“Unless we get to sleep. Then I will take a nap. But after that nap it will be right back to the not resting.”
“Knock it off, Savant.” Jake gave the man a hard look and sat in the plastic chair.
“Too much with the voice?”
Jake turned to Commander Mike. “We are going to help. I assure you.”
“Until our ride arrives and we leave this place forever and for good,” said Savant added.
The Monkeynaut looked at Jake and pointed a furry finger at Savant. “You’re right, he is an asshole.”
15
Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s home since the time he was 22, was a 23-room, shingle-style, Queen Anne mansion that sat on a sprawling 155 acres of lush green hills not far from the village of Oyster Bay on a peninsula called Cove Neck in New York.
To this day, the home was filled with the memories of the 26th President and his family: books, for Roosevelt was a voracious reader; hunting trophies, for Roosevelt was a legendary hunter; and guns, for that’s what one hunts with.
It was a time capsule and tribute to one of America’s most popular presidents, a nationally recognized treasure under the protection of the National Park Service and revered by Americans fortunate enough to visit the grounds.
This Sagamore Hill, however, was a three-quarter scaled replica designed by the Imaginators of DamAnimation Inc., and it was never intended to be inhabited by life-sized people. This was immediately evident by the fact that the rooms of this Sagamore Hill only had three walls. And only one room.
Theodore Roosevelt was blissfully unaware of this fact and invited Mason and Glitch into the North Room, a painstakingly, if not slightly smaller, replica of the statesman’s own office and favorite room in what he called his Summer White House.
They passed through a gateway of ivory tusks and found themselves in a cozy wood-lined room. Three-quarter scaled books were painted on the shelves, and slightly smaller than life-sized animals hung from the walls. Bison, elk, dinosaurs and a rainbow of Bearberry Bear heads grinned at them from the study walls. To their right, a mounted bison head clicked to life and turned toward them.
“Oh hey,” it said in the smooth baritone one would expect from a cartoon bison.
“Not now,” Teddy mumbled over his shoulder to the bison as he set his rifle in a well-stocked gun rack.
“Hey, Elksa,” the Bison continued as it looked across the room to another taxidermy head. “Elksa!”
An elk head on the opposite side of the room opened its eyes and spoke with a southern twang despite the fact that elk are mostly found west of the Rockies. “What? What is it, Buddy?”
Buddy the Bison turned back to the men that had entered the North Room. “We have company.”
Glitch chuckled and the elk turned its head with an audible whir. Elksa’s LED eyes grew larger in forced astonishment as she focused on the group. “You’re right, Buddy. We should probably welcome them, don’t you think?”
Hidden mechanics clicked as Buddy nodded and said, “It would be the friendly thing to do.”
“Don’t you do it,” Teddy growled.
The stuffed animals ignored him and the room filled with a bouncy tune. Buddy took a deep breath he didn’t need and started the welcome song with, “We welcome you to Sagamore.”
Elksa joined in with, “Kick up your feet, they must be sore.”
A bird in a glass case on the center table flapped to life, “Come right in but mind the floor.”
The lion skin rug finished off the verse, “You’ll feel right at home at Thagamore.” No one could explain why the lion had a lisp.
With the first verse completed, every taxidermy animal and sculpted bust in the North Room came to life to sing the chorus together.
It’s the house that Teddy built,
At the top of Sagamore Hi—
In a room that is 25% smaller than normal, a gunshot from an elephant gun is somewhat louder than normal. With his implants, Glitch probably could have done the math quickly, but the blast startled him almost as much as it did Buddy the Bison, who was now only half the head he used to be.
Buddy was missing a horn, an eye and most of his mouth. He had lost his love of singing as well and just sat there hanging quietly on the wall.
“I told you, you damned Bison!” Teddy roared. “I told you I’d shoot you again if you sang that song one more time!” He turned to the rest of the room and cocked the hammer of the rifle’s second barrel. “And that goes for every last one of you. Do you hear me?”
The machines all settled back into their dormant states and Teddy eased the hammer down and handed the gun to Tyler, who dutifully reloaded it and set it on the rack.
“I apologize, friends. But every single time I walk in here they start singing that damn song.”
“Don’t you think you overreacted?” Mason asked.
Roosevelt looked up and to the right. He stared into the distance as his hands found his lapels. “Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.” He let go of his lapels and sat. He waved for the two men to do so as well.
They both, but Glitch in particular, looked ridiculous sitting in a three-quarter scale chair. But they settled in as the camera drones spread throughout the room.
Mason looked at Glitch with a shrug. “I’m not sure I quite understand that one.”
Glitch coughed and spoke, “While the oyster merely rests on the ocean floor waiting for opportunity to literally land in its face, man cannot afford such inaction. Man’s productivity comes from movement and conscious decision.”
“Bully,” Teddy roared. “You’re not as dumb as you look, son.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. But you didn’t have to shoot the funny buffalo.”
“Bah,” Roosevelt waved the comment off. “There’s plenty more where that came from. Besides, at this point I’d rather see Taft’s fat head hanging up there in Buddy’s place.”
“Mr. President,” Glitch said. “Could you please tell us what the hell happened here?”
“There’s no need for that language, son. It’s unbecoming of you.”
Glitch shrunk in his tiny chair. “Sorry.”
“As to the problems that befall our great nation, what can I say except, it all went to hell.”
Glitch raised a finger to correct the President but decided, no, he’s the President and he can say hell if he wants to.
“What happened?” Mason asked.
“I’m not sure of what started this whole mess. But it all began with that damned tree and these vicious creatures.” He kicked a pink Bearberry skin rug that lay at his feet.
“The Bearberry Bears?” Glitch asked sadly.
“It started with them and got worse.” Roosevelt stood and walked over to one of the Bearberry Bears on the wall. “We were here, enjoying the opportunity to meet and talk with our fellow Americans. It’s easy to lose touch when you become President, you know? Then there was screaming. People came thundering into President Town like a herd of water buffalo. The ground trembled as they stampeded across the bridge screaming for help. It soon became clear they were running from these bloodthirsty beasts.” He stare
d off into the distance for a quiet moment. “We lost a lot of good Presidents that day. Some terrible ones too.”
Theodore Roosevelt turned back to the visitors. “We did our best to protect them. We’re Presidents after all. It is our sworn duty to protect this nation and its citizens. We stood together. Party lines meant nothing. Democrat, Republican, Whig. It didn’t matter. And we saved those that we could as we fought those bears back across the bridge.
“I wanted to pursue them. To run them right up that silly tree of theirs and raze the damned thing. I felt that the combined might of our government should be brought to bare on the bears to better the lives of all Americans.”
“Why didn’t you?” Mason asked.
Teddy huffed, “Taft. He split us right down the middle with his ‘It’s not government’s place’ malarkey. He thought we should stay out of it. We’ve been at war with him ever since.”
“That was ten years ago,” Mason said. “You haven’t made peace yet?”
Roosevelt waved off the notion of peace. “If he wants it to be this way, it suits me just fine. The people are safe and a good war keeps you on your toes.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier?”
Roosevelt looked up and to the right. He stared into the distance as his hands found his lapels. “I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that the highest form of success which comes , not to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.”
Roosevelt’s hands returned to the arms of the chair. “Plus, I really don’t like the guy.”
“But what about the Bearberry Bears?” Glitch asked.
“What about them? With all of our visitors gone, there’s no one left to hurt.”
Glitch rotated in his seat and gestured to the mechanical remains of his arm.
“Oh, yes.” Teddy leaned forward in his chair and examined the arm from across the room. “I must say, my boy. You must have blown their furry little minds. Half-man. Half-machine. They probably didn’t know what to make of you.”
“Actually, they made him half a half man.”
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