Pop Kult Warlord

by Nick Cole

  I’ve been feeling that a lot lately.

  At Rashid’s we change into, as he calls them, “evening clothes.” He takes forever, and I fall asleep. It seems like hours later that we go out once more. It’s going on ten o’clock, and the nap has only made my brain foggier. All I want is to go to bed and sleep through the night. And the next day.

  “No worries,” Rashid says as though there are many things to worry about. “Newport’s just getting warmed up. Breezies don’t come out till around now anyway. Takes ’em that long to get ready,” he says without irony. He’s driving his latest toy as we speed down tight twisting turns and hit the straightaways at top speed, thundering into Newport Beach like we’re on our way to fight crime. Or we’re running from one.

  The city’s lit up like Carnivale. Well-dressed beautiful young people pour from every bar onto the party-swollen streets. Everybody seems to know Rashid, and there are constant shouts and waves acknowledging his arrival as we purr down PCH. The Pacific Coast Highway.

  We arrive at the club. It’s called “Less Than Zero” and the line to get in is down the block. It’s an homage to the 1980s and it’s supposedly “firecracker,” according to Rashid. As we make our way to the front, I hear incredulous olive-skinned girls in tight tiny dresses and high heels claiming the disappearing line goes on for another half mile down the street behind me.

  Rashid catches me looking at the beautiful girls, who give me a round of bashful smiles. Probably because of Rashid. I usually don’t get that from girls.

  He elbows me and doesn’t even bother to lean in close as he announces, “Not those dogs. Much better inside, my friend. Much, much better.”

  And then we’re up the narrow steps of the massive club that looms over the Pacific Coast Highway, searchlights performing their ballet in the night above us all. Security not only waves us right through, they bro-fist Rashid as we pass. All is good when it comes to Prince Rashid.

  An oily snake of a little guy comes out to greet Rashid almost immediately. He’s sweating and breathing hard as though he ran from wherever inside the club to make sure he could greet the sultan’s son at the door. I don’t like the guy from the get-go. It’s weird when that happens, but it occasionally does. I call it my spider sense.

  I don’t not like him for any reason in particular. I can just tell he isn’t straight up. And so, I don’t like him. I’ve rarely been wrong.

  “Rashid, Rashid, Rashid!” he exclaims, then glances at me and starts speaking Arabic as if to cut me out of the all-important gossip Rashid must hear. The intent of the pivot is that clear.

  Rashid responds in English.

  “This is my new best friend, Amal. He’s a rock star. Best pro gamer in the world! You should know that, all-knowing one.”

  The night club owner clucks disapprovingly. Then says in overly accented English, “That is only because you yourself do not play professionally, Rashid. Of course… then you would be the best.”

  Unctuous to the point of viscous.

  In other words, world-class oily.

  And Rashid doesn’t bother to correct or argue the point as we’re escorted into a throbbing machine-gun palace of images and sound. The speakers are literally three stories high. The light shifts from blue to violet. On every wall, war movies from the eighties are projected onto the ceiling. Distorted and askew, their images of ultra-violence are beat-mixed with a drum-and-bass techno blitzkrieg on the senses.

  Lines of dialogue morph into sudden songs. Some guy repeatedly jumps off a building as a helicopter blows up in a song called “Welcome to the Party, Pal!”

  Or at least that’s the line that gets repeated for the next twenty minutes in every possible catchy permutation.

  “Let’s get some drinks,” orders Rashid. “Gotta meet up with someone.”

  We make the bar, passing through waves of the most epically beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Long legs. Generous curves. Hair and makeup at the nines. Giant eyes and even longer lashes. All of them looking at us expectantly doe-eyed. Rashid couldn’t care less about any of them.

  I know what it takes for a woman to get ready to go out. Hours of preparation. I can only imagine how much they’ve spent to look just right for this moment where everything might be possible. For them.

  And Rashid dismissed them in an instant like they weren’t even there.

  A few he smiles at as we near the bar. A very few. They seem to communicate some message only the two of them understand. Some past secret that can never be acknowledged in the shifting light of a thundering club at close to midnight.

  A space clears for us at the swamped bar as if it was always meant to. Just clears. No prompt needed. No action required. A sea of people just parts as if they know their part in this massively staged opera.

  I don’t know why… but I don’t like any of this. It makes me uneasy.

  Or maybe I’m jealous. Not everybody gets to be the pharaoh.

  But I don’t think that’s it.

  If I had to put a thumbtack in it, I would say it’s because none of it is me. And I don’t like what other people become around whatever this is. Phony. Less than what their real value is to the ones who love them. Plastic. Cheap and expendable.

  It’s something I don’t even want to think about. But it’s there. It surrounds Rashid. And he’s happy to have it that way.

  And then again, I think to myself, as Rashid orders “two G and Ts, Abdul” from the model-good-looking bartender who probably did time in some army somewhere, maybe these people want it this way. Maybe they like knowing what the score is and I’m selling them short. Sure, it’s not my cup of tea… but maybe it’s theirs. Who am I to judge?

  In Calistan… I’m nobody.

  Our drinks land on the bar.

  Real lime.

  Vintage tonic.

  Top-notch gin. Top shelf is a couple of steps below.

  Gorgeously cut cubes of clear arctic ice that seem forged instead of simply frozen into shape. Made from what I can only assume is the most pure water to be had in all of Calistan.

  I notice the bartender’s confidence as he sets out the perfect drinks, first the flippant toss of the napkins and then the deft placement, demanding that I watch his perfect nonchalance. But I know it’s an act. Everybody on that side of the bar is trying not to act as if their lives depend on Rashid liking the drink they’ve just made.

  Yeah… I don’t like that. I prefer bars where the bartender doesn’t hate you, but he’ll beat you senseless if you step out of line.

  Rashid sips. I gulp. I’m thirsty.

  He smiles at me once, briefly. Like he’s unhappy. Suddenly melancholy. Letting me know he’s deep-ish.

  “You know…” he seems to confess. “We had to do that today.”

  I don’t say anything. I try to catch the bartender’s eye. He’s watching us like a hawk, but he doesn’t seem concerned in the least when I gently rock my empty drink at him.

  Message received: Rashid will do the ordering. And he isn’t even nearly finished with his drink.

  “No matter what anyone tells you…” continues the prince at my elbow, “for the Calistani team to go forward, we had to get rid of that foreign abomination on our territory. Tomorrow we’re going to do some great things online. But that… that had to be dealt with first.” He’s holding his drink in front of his face, staring past the cold, clear cubes as though he sees something there on the swarming dance floor that needs his appraisal.

  “Rashid…”

  The voice is musical. And feminine.

  We turn, and there is the stunner to end all stunners. Not as tall as the others, but every feature is the literal embodiment of some heroine princess from One Thousand and One Nights. Her face is perfectly sculpted. Her hair full and wavy. Her seductive cat eyes don’t bother to regard me for even a brief smoky second.

  Yeah… she’s that beautiful. Even a blind man would’ve seen it.

  “Rashid, we have a table upstairs… we’ve been waitin
g for you for thirty minutes.”

  She doesn’t ask who I am. That’s not important. I’m not important in the echelons above reality I’m being exposed to. Offered a glimpse of. Fine. A little anonymity suits me just fine right about now.

  And there is this part of me that suddenly wants to be in that crowd of beautiful people that get to talk to her on equal terms. For reasons I don’t know how to articulate at this very second.

  “This is my girlfriend, Samira,” says Rashid with little enthusiasm.

  She holds out her hand and casts those gorgeous eyes right into my face. Like she knows exactly what they do.

  I take her hand and nod. Only nod. Not because she’s stunningly beautiful and I’m nervous. In any other circumstance I would move on her with a deferential comment that could be taken for so much more if there was any interest in playing. But no. I nod because the man I’m standing next to is dangerous. And someday I want my five million in gold and to leave Calistan alive. So I just nod, rattle my perfect ice cubes at the bartender ineffectively, and try to push the thoughts I’m having about her out of my head.

  And that throws her a bit.

  Because she makes men helpless, and she knows it.

  Maybe. Maybe I’m reading all of my baggage into the deep dark of her exotic eyes. Maybe.

  She tilts her head once at me. Just slightly. As if asking me a question she can’t quite believe the answer to. But her mouth keeps making business with Rashid. She’s telling Rashid that he needs to come upstairs to the VIP room now. People are waiting for him. And all the while the slight tilt in her head, exposing her perfectly formed jawline, is asking if I want to play her little game of desire. And telling me she doesn’t really believe I’m more interested in a drink. Or in anything, or anyone, else. Only her.

  I turn to the bartender and say, loud enough to be heard, “Hey, Abdul… another G and T if you can break away from yourself.” And then I give him my dead-eyed serious look.

  I’m met with a white-hot glare of murder at the very idea that a dog like myself would crack the whip. Then he must catch a look from Rashid backing up my boorish behavior, because he nervously bends to the task and I turn back to her with a nice all-is-right-with-the-world smile, expecting her to be waiting for me to bother staring at her epic curves.

  Instead, like a pro, she has turned on stiletto high heels and is moving off through the parting crowd in her sheer light-green silk pantaloons. Legs and hips below an exposed and tanned midriff sway this way and that way to make sure I’m watching her go.

  Yeah. It’s a pro move. I die a little watching her go. And she knows it.

  “She’s on fire,” whispers Rashid in my ear. He laughs low and evil. “I get it. And I’m right there with you, man. I can’t even touch her myself. Imagine how I feel!”

  He drains his drink gustily. Then looks at the bartender and the rest of the staff by default and issues the only sweeping decree I’ve ever witnessed. He really is a real live prince in that moment. “Take care of my friend,” he announces.

  He turns back to me.

  “Gotta go now. This is family stuff. Her dad’s dropping twenty-five million on our wedding. So I have to be on my best behavior for just a little while longer.” He looks up at the hidden levels most of those around us will never see. “I’ll catch up with you in about two hours. Then we’ll have some real fun.”

  For the next two hours I drink at the bar and talk to a sudden sea of girls who wander near me accidentally on purpose. I end up with tons of contacts in my smartphone, whether I want them or not. Each contact comes with a selfie that often crosses the line between pinup glamour and pornographic.

  Most of the young Arab males around the bar look like they want to kill me and would enjoy doing so immensely, my friend.

  Halfway through this, I finish a drink and excuse myself to use the restroom. Inside the monument to urination that is the club’s VIP lounge, I meet Omar.

  Rashid’s brother.

  The guy whose base we nuked. Or so I’ll find out later.

  “I just want you to know…” says the slightly chubby, almost bankerly-looking man in designer wire-rimmed glasses. “That you’re working for pure evil.”

  I turn to see who’s talking to me. Then I turn back to my business and finish up. I’ve had enough gin to feel cocky about my situation.

  At the mirror he comes and stands next me like some relentless little poltergeist. He’s the opposite of Rashid. Small. Almost invisible. Watching me in the mirror, he doesn’t move a muscle. After I wash up, he hands me a towel.

  “My brother is the worst thing that can happen to Calistan. My name is Omar. I’m Rashid’s younger brother.”

  I nod, dry my hands, and check my look in the mirror. I’ve been talking to this girl back at the bar whose face I can’t remember because I keep thinking of Samira.

  And now I have Rashid’s brother, and Calistani politics, in my face. Getting my five million in gold is beginning to turn into a hassle. But there is still a way through, and I’m pretty sure it involves some kind of diplomacy.

  I turn and lean against the cool marble countertop of the private and palatial restroom, inspecting my suit. I need a new one, that’s for sure. Threads are starting to appear all prison break from the seams.

  I think of Rome.

  “Listen, Omar, is it?” I say with a nice friendly smile. “I’m just a ringer for Calistan’s online presence. That’s all. Rashid seems very nice.”

  In other words… I just work here. Y’know.

  If this is some sort of weird loyalty test on Rashid’s part to get me to trash talk him, or plot behind his back… then I’ll do my best to avoid a panel van ride and a firing squad in some warehouse district. Or a twenty-year sentence for sedition I won’t make two months of.

  “He’s not,” replies Omar flatly. “Nice. And that was my base today. The one you blew up. It was supposed to be mine once we captured it. But the mullahs thought otherwise, as they always do.”

  “Technically Rashid blew it up,” I offer lamely.

  “I’m aware. But Rashid’s not that good at much besides wrecking other people’s stuff. Trust me. Twenty-six years has taught me that.”

  “Well, it is how I make my living.”

  He smiles wanly at this. Then continues with a new attack.

  “Right…” he begins. “But Civ Craft is about building things. Not blowing things up. You can do that, if that’s your thing, but we’ll never win if all we do is go around blowing everyone’s stuff up.”

  “It seems to be Rashid’s thing. Good or bad. And he’s the one paying me.” The moment I say that I realize I’ve gone too far. I can see that getting back to Rashid. Being used against me when things eventually get weird. Because of course… things are going to get weird. You can almost bet money on that. Except it wouldn’t be a bet. It’d be an investment. Because you’re going to get your money back. For sure.

  Sedition. They’ll call it sedition. And then bye-bye for a long, long time. Some kind of concentration camp out in the California desert. Breaking rocks on the chain gang. Makin’ big rocks small. That kinda thing.

  “It’s really not my problem,” I say, hoping to cover my bad hand with a little cold neutrality.

  “Humanity is not your problem… or winning at Civ Craft is not your problem?” asks Omar.

  I sigh. Now I’m going to be told there’s a lot more at stake than just a game. This… this right here is teaching me not to be greedy. So far, none of this is worth five million in gold.

  “Listen… Omar, my online specialty is blowing things up. Combat. That sort of thing. Yeah… it’s weird hiring me for a game about building civilizations from the ground up. But if that’s how Rashid wants to run strategy for this game, by which I mean, turning it into some kind of first-person shooter, then that’s totally legit. That’s his call. There’s a total conquest victory condition for this game. I checked it out. You don’t have to build the pyramids or the space elevator
. You can just club every other civilization to death and keep everyone in the Bronze Age. That can be arranged. I can make that happen.”

  “Total conquest,” spits Omar like I just offered him a brochure to visit a unicorn farm. Also… he literally spits on the pristine marble floor of the massive restroom. I know it’s a restroom at its core. But it’s beautiful and spitting on it somehow seems… blasphemous.

  We continue to be the only occupants of this sacred place. I imagine his bodyguards are at the door keeping others out. I try to think of the girl I’d hoped to replace images of Samira with… and I still can’t remember what she looks like.

  “That’s so ninth century,” hisses Omar. “Or so radical Islam before the Meltdown. ISIS and butchers and refugee rapists. Throwing children into industrial kneading machines and destroying history with a sledgehammer.”

  His words echo off the porcelain and marble. He almost chokes on his own rage.

  And he’s right.

  This is the thing I’ve really been trying not to think about. And maybe Samira is somehow in my mind because my mind is trying to get me to think about anything other than this nightmare I’m in. Trying to get me to focus. Because… Calistan is almost ninth century compared to the capitals of the world I’ve been losing myself in since…

  … well, since another life, long ago.

  He turns to face me. We’ve been talking to each other’s mirror image. He isn’t slick and smooth and cool like Rashid. He’s an ordinary little man who wears fine clothes and is well kept because he came from money. A lot of money. But if it weren’t for those things I would’ve recognized a gamer. An ordinary guy. That’s what gamers are.

  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

  “Rashid,” he whispers to my face as he leans forward and stands on his tiptoes, “is what’s wrong with Calistan. You’re from the outside. You can see it. Me too. I studied abroad. I read Vonnegut. I know that man can be so unkind to the weak. My brother…”