By Kevin McClintock
Copyright 2009
(2,089 words)
Four cities. Nine days. It’s a record even for the likes of me.
The cities have blurred together in that time. Kinda reminds me of a mud-slicked windshield. Or maybe it’s the days that have blurred together. I don’t really know anymore.
I push my smoking Buick into a dank alleyway.
Why are these damn slivers of asphalt so wet and dark even in the late afternoon? They are concubines for rats, the homeless and whores.
I pass a man veining Cocaine into a bruised left arm. Just a few yards down stands a whore, plying her trade as she leans her face against the weeping brick, opening her buttocks for a man dressed in suit and tie. A corpse of a tire-crushed tabby lies at their feet, unnoticed.
I move out of the alley, motor down a narrow side street, and swerve into a second tributary lane. Moving further into the stinky bowels of this city.
The city in summer is a cacophony of humanity’s unwashed stench. The dank sewers would be a pleasant respite from the stink generated by these steamy concrete jungles. At least down there, where the rats rule, it’s damp and cool. Up here, the concrete sighs flame.
I spy a motel. It’s a brick building, with a lone neon sign that’s flashing despite the sunlight. One of those ridiculous coffee shacks sits in the parking lot’s center.
I ease the ancient Buick into an empty spot and make my way into the office.
Unbelievably, it’s hotter in here than it is outside in the sun.
A seedy man with bits of food tangled in his reddish mustache refuses to glance up from his battered television set when the swinging door clatters a bell. He only looks up when I ask him for a room.
“What?”
“I need a room.”
He grins rotted teeth, nodding. He flips through a stained ledger, licking his fingers every few pages.
“By the hour?” he asks, peering past me into the foyer, searching for a corner whore.
“Just me. One night.”
I watch an insect land on the man’s half-eaten ham sandwich.
The man shrugs his hairy shoulders. “Eighteen dollars.”
I pay in cash.
He swivels around to snag a slightly dented key from the wall behind him. Room 420, he says, tossing me the key.
“You have a good one,” he says, grabbing up his sandwich. He never saw the fly.
I begin climbing the dark stairs toward the fourth floor. Room 420 is tiny. A mirror facing the door is cracked in three places. There’s a grimy bed, single wooden chair and a wobbly table supporting both a telephone and a black and white television and that’s about it.
The walls are slicked with a greasy slime — feels like wax on my fingers as I switch on the light. And I smell a mixture of mothballs and mold, mixed in with the weak scent of pine cleaner.
My head begins throbbing, beneath my right eyeball.
I’m feeling the urge again.
In the silence of the room, I can hear commotion through the thing walls.
Snoring.
Two people fucking.
Two more people fighting.
I ease the door shut behind me and turn toward the fighting couple in the room sharing the south wall.
I push inside them.
They are married. Evicted from their home. Living in this motel. He’s cheated on her again, certainly not the first time. He’s trying to tell her.
I compel his confession.
Now she’s shouting back at him, with hurt and anger. She’s no innocent human either, it seems — she’s cheated on him just as many times as he on her. Worse, she has no apparently inclination to confess like he’s attempting to do.
So I compel her rage.
Soon there’s the sound of breaking glass.
I smile. Human are all too eager to rise to anger, aren’t they?
I stroke their rage, softly blowing on the flames, glowing the embers; growing the smoke.
The woman hits the wall with a muffled scream. One blow from the man’s fist actually shakes our shared wall.
There’s a whimpering sound coming from the room.
And now choking…
And a short snap of the woman’s neck
I release the man’s rage.
Soon there are footsteps.
Pounding fists against the door.
Much later, police officers force open the door and discover the sobbing man, covered in blood, and his bludgeoned wife at his feet.
He claims a sudden and uncontrollable rage, something he doesn’t understand. If the police knew the truth, if they knew of me, they might believe him. Humans, see; can do enormous feats in times of stress. The same hands that can lift entire cars off a child’s body can also snap bone with a single, cupped fist. Nobody can explain why.
I grin in the dark.
But I know why. Sometimes they just need a little ‘push.’
Instead of listening to the man’s frantic ranting, the officers haul him off in cuffs, their pistols drawn.
Later, I walk outside and down to the corner where a streetlamp has been shot out by a .22 pistol. Coated in shadow stands a whore. I smell her from a block away. I manage to hide my sneer.
She’s sickly looking, wearing a dirty gold skirt and high heels. Bruises pepper her calves. She has a long horse face and tired, sad eyes. She’s led a brutal life — she’s also terminated four infant lives inside her womb over the last three years.
She says something to me, and I nod at the word “fuck” and “honey.”
I lead her back to my hotel room on the fourth floor.
She says more words to me, shrugging off that gold blouse, using her hands to cup her breasts. Her naked body is malnourished and awash with drugs.
She smiles at me.
Sometimes I like to play with humans — toy with them, make them see their wrongs.
Not tonight. Tonight I won’t play.
So I push the whore.
Hard.
She screams, and I clench the noise shut before it proves bothersome. I then clench her shut for good. Her body falls to the grimy carpet and neatly rolls beneath the bed.
Later, I wonder why she had screamed the way she did. When I glance at the cracked mirror, I know why. The whore must have seen my reflection in the glass.
I chuckle at the thought.
Ten minutes later I’m atop the bed and flipping through fuzzy channels, seeing but not watching.
Day turns to night and night turns to day, and by mid-morning I feel strong enough to resume my search in this fourth city in eight days.
I enter the hotel’s foyer and ask the clerk the location of the nearest hospital.
“Why? You hurt?”
I stare at him. There’s honesty in his voice. I bite down on my astonishment. Humans —
They never cease to amaze me.
“Well, it’s ‘bout a mile or two that way,” he continues after a pause, gesturing south. “Called St. Anne’s Mercy.”
Mercy — As if St. Anne or any of the saints ever possessed any. The saints, after all, were human.
Because of his honesty and concern, I reach out and lightly tap him on the arm.
He shies away from me.
“—The fuck?”
The cancer inside his left lung shrivels.
“Have a nice day,” I murmur. As I pass through the door, I push and remove his memory of me. The room will stay ‘occupied’ in his ledger until the smell from beneath the bed becomes much too strong to ignore.
Then again, it’s just a whore.
My Buick takes me to St. Anne’s Mercy.
I shake my head again at the irony of the name. As if placing God’s name into the equation will somehow save soiled souls.
I step into the lobby and breathe deeply. Smelling the fear from those who have something to fear invigorates me.
On every floor, in every waiting room, someone paces or sits nervously or twitches atop a seat cushions because someone they know, someone they love is dead or dying.
I walk through to the elevators.
Before the twin metal doors close, a doctor and two nurses join me. The oldest of the two women is good, and so I won’t push her. The woman next to her has some infidelity issues and has participated in several minor sins, but those deeds have been done not out of spite but by stupidity. I ignore her, too. The man, however, is a different matter. He has killed an innocent soul on the surgical table, years before, and has managed to repress the truth to his superiors. So I push into him, hard, and I can see him wince and grit his teeth.
After he exits the elevator and enters his office on the 26th floor, he will take a scalpel and shove it as far and deep into his right eye socket as he can.
They are so easy to manipulate.
Then again, this is the price they pay for their hard-fought free will.
I exit on the 14th floor.
I pause outside a room, sniff the air, and enter it like a whisper. A balding man lies in the bed, tubes snaking into his arm and nose. He has cancer — black, weepy stuff.
I can smell it.
It is in remission, which is why I am here.
In a few days he will be released, and he will be free to prey on his two young stepdaughters.
I won’t let that happen.
He can’t see me but he can feel my presence, and he’s trying to say something, even with his eyes closed. He knows something is wrong. He knows something is out of the ordinary.
I let him know he’s going to die.
I watch his eyes milk with desperate fear.
Fingers slap at the panic button that will summon the nurse.
So I push.
Inside, I expand the cancer until it overpowers his senses in seconds. He slumps down into the sheets, and the monitor beside the bed records a flat line.
I make my way out of the hospital.
One more stop to make.
Head throbs. Again, just below the right eyeball.
Time to feed…
I wind my way through the city inside the smoking Buick. More dark alleyways and side streets, moving into and out of places nobody else would dare to go.
I park alongside the street twenty-some minutes later.
I look at the building in front of me. Even from here, without a wind, I can smell his stench. Greatly saddens me that such a thing could helm such a beautiful and awe-inspiring structure. I enter the church; make my way past the foyer and its iron churn of holy water.
The congregation chamber is magnificent, with Him on the Cross at one end, a platformed-organ at the other, with reams of stained glass windows running along both lengths.
I follow the stench past the curtain in back of the podium.
A dozen paces and there’s a shift in the air. It’s like struggling to maintain balance in the midst of a fast-moving stream.
The moment I see him, he sees me.
The color has left his face. His feet seem rooted to the plush carpet of the hallway.
“Good God in Heaven,” he finally whispers. He drops a mug of wine across his polished leather shoes.
I slide up alongside him.
“No…”
He knows why I am here, of course. In some ways I resemble the Biblical avenging angel — in other areas not even the slightest.
His face melts and he makes a break for it, turning in panic and running headlong into the wall.
There’s a snap of a bone and the stinging odor of blood in the air, but the priest’s panic has momentarily overcome pain — maybe a finger; maybe an arm.
Panting, he turns. His face is streamed with tears, but he remains standing. I marvel at the man’s strength. I’m impressed, and that doesn’t happen very often.
I grin at him.
“You should not be here,” he whispers, grabbing at a gold cross that’s tucked tightly against his Adam’s apple. “You cannot be here.”
He wears the cloth and the cross, which gives him an essence of power, yet there’s no glowing aura of Belief about him, hugging him like an additional layer of flesh. His shock of seeing me, here in my true form, is genuine.
A puddle of urine soon forms at his feet.
Realization of why I’m here has finally set in. No doubt all the little boys he’s touched are flashing through his mind right now, as are the faces of the five boys buried in the garden out back. I let each innocent face linger in the priest’s mind’s eye, staring and shimmering, before I reach for him.
“No,” he whimpers, bumping against the wall.
As if in answer, the golden cross he’s clutching so desperately for protection has sliced his fingers, mixing gold with crimson.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name,” he begins to speak. The words irritate me, coming from him.
“—Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is—”
I push.
He is silenced forever.
In an instant I’m outside the church, crossing the busy street at the corner and climbing into my Buick.
There I sit for a spell, shuddering, getting my bearings, as I slowly come down from the high of feeding and releasing.
I push, and the trusty Buick rumbles to life, farting smoke behind me.
Five false priests and countless sinners in four cities in ten days — It’s a record even for the likes of me.
I click on the radio as I pull the Buick away from the curb.
The next city awaits…
By Kevin McClintock
Copyright 2009
(13,230 words)
May 23, 2009, 1900 standard
Somewhere inside a dark and dank Romanian castle
“Pig of an American,” hissed Anton Lupescu, sadistic director of the Romanian secret police force and implacable foe to all freedom-loving western forces. Flanking the skinny little elf of a man stood Chang, Lupescu’s impassive manservant, and Madam Oui, the cold but gorgeous Eurasian assassin. “Facing imminent torture and eventual death, will you not save yourself hours of pain and simply tell us where you’ve hidden the plans for America’s new orbiting, sub-molecular, three-stage fusion conversion unit?”
Carl “Killer” Hunter, leader of the government agency J.A.C.K.A.S.S., grinned beneath his gag.
“My friend,” the Romanian softly said moments later, “my torture techniques are a service no man should ever willingly have to face. Why not save yourself the… annoyance, and simply tell me the information I so dearly seek?”
Hunter’s blue eyes flashed with amusement. He remained mute.
“So be it,” Lupescu said with an obvious sneering lisp. He turned to his two underlings. “Bring me my torture implements.”
Chang and Madam Oui left the room.
Strapped down, Carl sighed loudly. The question was, where was the fusion conversion thingie-bopper’s plans? And how far would Lupescu go with this talk of torture? A day? Two days? More?
Carl was deep in contemplation when Lupescu quickly slashed his binds.
“Wha’? Huh?”
“We must hurry, old man,” Lepescu said. The Romanian lisp was completely gone now — replaced instead by a distinct British accent. “They’ll be back in a shake.”
“I… I don’t understand—” Hunter began, but his words were disemboweled in mid-sentence by Lupescu, who stuck his hand into his mouth.
“Shhh!” the British agent said moments later, taking out his hand and frowning at his salvia-drenched fingers. “British agent 43,250,902 at your service, you Ass.”
“Wh’?”
“Couldn’t bloody reveal myself with Chang and Madam Oui mucking about, now could I? Skip and hop those plans off to your bosses in D.C. as soon as you can, old chap. Oh, and here’s a gun. It’s loaded. Now carry on. Chop chop.”
A small snub-nosed Walter PPK was placed into his right hand, fingers folded gently over the stock.
Carl smiled, cocked the pistol and pointed the barrel at the British SAS agent.
“Wha’?” the agent snarled, taken aback. He was shot through the heart even before he could finish his exclamation.
“Your loyalty to the people’s government has long been suspect,” Hunter told the corpse in perfect… Chinese? “Now we finally know. Emperor Ching-Chang-Chew will be quiet satisfied with my actions here tonight.”
Hunter threw aside the PPK, stepped over the leaking corpse and opened up the door. In front of him stood the huge and menacing manservant, Chang.
“Dog,” the big man growled, lifting a heavy automatic and pointing it at his chest.
“Wait!” Carl screamed, throwing up his hands. “You don’t understand! I’m not who you think—”
Chang fired once. And once was enough. Carl slumped to the floor, dead, shot through the heart.
Quickly, Chang ripped off his oriental face and revealed himself to be the true Anton Lupescu, Romanian scum-sucker and all-around Bad Dude.
Madam Oui strolled back into the room and gasped, clutching her ample bosom, staring down at the two leaking corpses on the floor.
“Don’t be alarmed, my little flower,” Lupescu purred. “The imposter calling himself Carl Hunter was actually Chang, a spy for the communist Chinese.”
“And the other?” Madam Oui whispered, gesturing at the second corpse. “The one that looks like your twin?”
Lupescu grinned. “That is the true Carl Hunter, of J.A.C.K.A.S.S. fame, and a true pain in my ass. He was in disguise, see, as a British agent.”
The Romanian madman pocketed his pistol. He then turned to Madam Oui. His eyes never left her breasts. “Now we search for the plans — you and me. And after that? I WILL RULE THE WORLD!” Only a throaty cough mucked up his perfectly executed and minute-long chuckle of pure, triumphant evil.
Madam Oui giggled. The two of them searched the Chinese spy resembling Carl Hunter, but came up with nothing. They next searched the real Carl Hunter, aka British spy, aka Anton Lepescu. This second search proved much more beneficial. Slapping hands and probing fingers revealed an artificial wart near the crack of the dead man’s ass. Once pinched between thumb and forefinger, a tiny computer microchip oozed onto Lupescu’s finger, gelled in yellowish pus.
Qui squealed with disgust, but Lupescu chuckled, holding the chip up to the light for a closer look-see. “Ahhhh! The Kremlin will reward us well for this.” He leered at the woman. “American technology — gotta love it.”
Following another long, evil-sounding chuckle, he turned hungrily on Madam Oui. “Reward me now. Bend over!”
Madam Oui squealed. She then pulled off her face. Next, a heavy automatic found its way into her hand. Finally, she fired the gun.
“Dog!” she hissed in a man’s voice.
After the gun’s discharge, the true Carl “Killer” Hunter leaned back with a sigh, mopping at the ample amounts of eye shadow and lipstick clinging to his angled face. He was a good-looking guy. Hard muscles. Blond hair. Blue eyes — all the stuff that made guys like Carl score with chicks inside country/western bars. The make-up only enhanced his features.
The leader of J.A.C.K.A.S.S. fell onto his ass, brought up his left leg and painfully wrapped it around his neck until the back of his ankle bumped up against his mouth. Grunting from exertion, and in obvious agony by now, the ‘Ass spoke into the microphone sloppily sewn into his white sock.
“I’ve got the package,” he grunted, face red with pain.
“Don’t move,” replied a voice from his sock. “We’ll come and pick ‘yo ass up pronto!”
Carl nodded. “Ass out…”
May 23, 2009, 1930 standard
Somewhere inside the uber-secret J.A.C.K.A.S.S. base in Langley, Virginia
Question #33 — The diabolical Dr. Hand has just stolen the plans to control every artificial limb on Earth, hoping to make these various plastic arms, legs, fingers and feet do his evil bidding. You find yourself at the corner of 133rd and 52nd street, armed with an over-under M-16/M-203. You spot said Dr. Hand running across 52nd street toward an idling car. He has surrounded himself with a band of innocents — men and women, children, a few babies in carriages, even a loveable dog. None of the innocents know Dr. Hand’s identity. Only you do. So — how do you stop him and bring him to justice?
(Please choose one (1) answer from the following choices:
A) Scream ‘Stop!’ and fire a warning shot into the air.
B) Pepper the entire area with bullets. You’ll kill innocents, but you get the bastard Hand.
C) Deem the venture too difficult and head for a nearby pub.
D) Do nothing and pick your ass.
E) All the above.
Hog sighed, mopping at a damp forehead. This was obviously a trick question. He didn’t remember much from high school, but he did know about those coveted “all the above” answers. Didn’t matter what the subject was — when a test had an “all the above” answer possible multiple-choice answer, you picked it. No questions asked.
He marked (E).
He moved on to the next question.
Question #34 — You are chasing a plutonium bandit in your Jackass-mobile through a back alleyway, avoiding whores giving homeless men head. Swerving onto 233nd street, the bandit bastard suddenly steers his van onto a sidewalk, scattering screaming pedestrians in all directions. With the sidewalk all to yourself now, you see a woman hovering over a baby carriage in your path, frozen in absolute terror. You have just seconds to react. What the hell do you do?
Please choose one (1) answer from the following choices:
A) Run over the woman and child and chalk ‘em up as ‘casualties of war.’
B) Stop the car and save the innocents, but lose the bandit.
C) Run over the two innocents, then stop the car, allowing the bandit to escape.
D) Swerve the car into a nearby brick wall, killing yourself.
Damn tricky one, Hog thought, chewing on the end of his cheap J.A.C.K.A.S.S. promotional pen. And no easy “All the above” answer like before.
He checked “C.”
Why?
Simple — by killing the mother and her child, Hog reasoned, public opinion would sour toward the bandit and his evil organization, since the bandit was the initial cause for the chase in the first place. Thus, public opinion would become a valuable ally with future covert operations against the group. And maybe — just maybe — the bandit would see the deaths of the innocents in his rearview mirror, search their souls, give in to the pang of guilt and turn themselves over to authorities.
Hog smiled. Way too easy!
Question #35 — A nuclear bomb is ticking down to its final lethal seconds, and you find yourself standing next to it inside a locked, smelly bathroom. You are completely naked, and the cell is devoid of any features that could help you either escape or stop the bomb’s detonation. What combination of body fluids can stop the bomb from blowing its wad?
Ah hah, another easy question. The answer was a combination of three body fluids, actually. When these fluids were mixed in the right and precise way, they could become as lethal as a nuke’s detonation or its spewing radiation. He knew. Long ago, Hog had once mixed these three potent fluids together, way back in the early 1990s, when he was visiting his cousin Joe on the family’s radish farm. He’d gone in with a Hustler magazine for a nice and soothing dump. No problem, right? But he’d forgotten to flush the toilet after his business, nor did he give it a single courtesy flush. When he turned to flick from his fingers a single sticky ball of nose candy into the smelly stew at the bottom of the bowl, there’d been a flash, a huge roar and an even “huger” explosion. The stuff had eaten its way down to at least the Earth’s core. Hopefully, it had made it all the way to China, like Bugs Bunny did sometimes in his cartoons. Communist bastards deserved it.
Grabbing up his pen, he wrote, “Piss, Goobers & Shit chunks” on the testing form.
Question #36 — True or false — you can’t trust anybody ‘cept your Ass-mates?”
False, Hog wrote.
Hal Brognolia, his boss, stepped into the room when he was done.
“Yo,” Hog said, picking his nose.
“Good news and bad news, Hog. The good news? You passed your re-certification test. You’re still an ‘Ass.”
Hog whooped it up.
“The bad news? You’ve got a new mission. So get your ass down to Florida.”
“What’s up?”
“Some geek convention. May be a threat to national security. I’d send Carl, but he’s off in Romania. And the others are on a mission at a mall in Kansas. You’re the only ‘Ass I have.”
“Yippee!” Hog grumbled, rising up from the seat and lugging the M-60 behind him.
May 23, 2009, 1940 standard
Somewhere inside a Wichita, Kansas mall
Thank Christ her M-245×10 machine gun was silenced at the tip, or all inside this Christian bookstore would’ve been alerted to her presence. As it was, Hillary O’Connor was able to silently rub out the pretty lady shelving the “Bible Man” videos, stuffing the bleeding corpse beneath the magazine racks without too many visible bloodstains. And the old crone who saw her near the Vacation Bible packets? The bitch caught sight of Hillary’s cock tattoo, and damn near fainted, whispering a warding prayer over and over again, until the J.A.C.K.A.S.S. member’s knife dipped into crimson mush eighty-three times. It was the final thrust to the woman’s pinky finger that did the old hag in. With that, Hillary was once again on the prowl.
She silently crawled across the blue carpeting of the bookstore on her stomach, passing a bunch of Bibles and greeting cards. Turning, she crawled across an open aisle into the children’s reading section, where she stopped to catch her breath. She was closer to her dangerous target now.
Counterfeiters. Vile scum — counterfeiters. Worse, they were disguised as Christian bookstore owners and employees. Hillary had faced some of the best of the world’s worst in past campaigns — Al-Qaida, airline hijackers, drug lords, left-wing Republicans, conservative liberals, Queer Nation and Jerry Springer guests. But all of those groups and various individuals paled to insignificance when compared with the unabashed evil she now faced just feet away from her.
… Counterfeiters.
The thought alone nearly stopped her dead in her tracks. They’d brought their fake moneymaking ways to the proud people of Kansas, and she wasn’t about to let it continue.
Hillary, facially at least, was a good-looking woman. That assessment held true until she decided to shave the hair from her head. Then, during a drunken sex spree with a Seal team back in ’93, she got a tattoo. Not a rose on the ass or kitten on the ankle, but a huge black cock that stretched from her right forehead down to her left shoulder blade. Cock or no cock, she possessed a lean and mean fighting’ machine of a body, honed to perfection in her days with the all-women anti-group F.E.M.M.E. (she’d held out for contract negotiations, but Hal Brognolia and J.A.C.K.A.S.S. came along with a better free agent offer, and she’d taken it).
She ducked down as three teens sauntered past her position. Deep in conversation about naked nuns, the boys failed to see her there on the floor. Because of this, they were spared painful deaths.
The same couldn’t be said, sadly, for the old man near the audio books, whose legs Hillary crawled through as she made her way toward the front counter. When he looked down with a confused expression, she sent a poisoned quill from her wrist crossbow into one of his testicles. She didn’t even bother to look back when he slumped down next to her on the floor, dead.
“Casualties of war,” she whispered. “Casualties of war.”
Due to the importance of nabbing these counterfeiters “dead and in many bloody pieces” (as the instructions crayoned atop a box of Cracker Jacks stuffed inside a convenience store dumpster had clearly stated), J.A.C.K.A.S.S. couldn’t go around sneaking and crawling and hiding and shit like that — it went against ‘Ass doctrine and logic to do such things.
Which is why all hell was about to break loose.
“Asses,” she whispered into her microphone. “Time to dance.”
She whipped out her gun and waited for the grenade to go boom.
*** ***
Nearby, Jake “Little Boy” Tyler slithered through an assortment of dusty books, trying to stay as quiet as a mouse. Jake was a dwarf. Or a midget. Normally these were completely different things, but not when it came to Jake. Jake, see, was both. Born a “dwarf midget,” he was barely two feet tall. But his short stature wasn’t a nuisance. It had, in fact, bailed him out of numerous nasty situations. For example, he once had to crawl up a sink faucet during an operation in Mexico City, a move that saved his life. His life was saved again two years later, when he crawled up inside a woman’s coochie as assassins searched to decapitate him. He’d even managed to give the woman an orgasm, which was kinda kooky, since she was KGB and a lesbian. So yeah, his short stature had come in handy numerous times, and it was proving valuable once again — here in the heart of Kansas.
High above the store’s book-lined aisles he crawled atop the various bookshelves like a slimy worm. Twice he damn near sneezed from the collected dust. He almost fell a third time. Through it all, he crawled and he hummed the tune to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Over and over and over again.
He paused to check his watch.
Almost time…
He clipped off a grenade from his utility belt around his rather ample waist, bit off the body, spat out the grenade and threw the pin with a shout. He then hunkered down to wait for the grenade’s explosion.
Moments later, a startled counterfeiter — having been hit atop the head by a metal pin from the shelf above her head — heard a faint groan, a whispered and rather high-pitched “You jackass!” and then the sound of an opened palm slapping a forehead.
Seconds later, the counterfeiter’s world turned light, then red, and finally, dark.
*** ***
“Move it, dearie,” Frenchie whispered to the girl staring up at him with an opened mouth. Frenchie adjusted the sight on his sniper rifle propped up on a bookshelf, and gestured for the girl to high-tail it out of there as soon as possible. Little Boy’s grenade was due to blow in just seconds, and he—
Speaking of blowing… A male employee came into his sights, and Frenchie’s heart melted. Yeah, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the French-born man with the birth name of Jacque Chateau was gay. Only Jacque — or Frenchie, as friends and lovers knew him — could wear his obnoxiously pink war suit or leave his signature eye shadow marks on the scope’s edge. Despite it all, he could still place a bullet between a frog’s gonads at four hundred yards out. For that reason, and sole reason alone, the dark-haired European was a needed asset.
Before Frenchie could eye the man employees’ crotch through his scope, Little Boy’s grenade blew poor Ted into a million crimson pieces, and Frenchie began to pop bullets out by the bushels.
*** ***
The grenade exploded. Little Boy went flying as his twin machine pistols spat flame and lead while riding smoke and flame across the room and out into the mall’s rather crowded hallway.
O’Conner, cursing nearby, hefted her assault rifle and opened fire.
Twelve died. God she loved her job!
Screaming, Frenchie sniped two counterfeiters before launching twin missiles toward the front counter. He then returned to his sniping, spitting out steady three-round bursts. In the next aisle over, he heard a telephone ring.
O’Conner cursed, slashing the knife across a customer’s exposed throat. Shoving the corpse aside, she lobbed two smoke grenades and fervently hoped the call wasn’t collect.
Before this mission, she’d asked Brognolia for those radio headphone jobbies, the type that all the other anti-evil groups — Gray Berets, Kick-Ass Team, and the Marauders — wore. But oh no, Hal just had to take his damn trip to Bermuda, so there hadn’t been enough money left over to purchase such exotic equipment. Given a couple $20 bills, she instead visited a local Radio Shack across the street to purchase multiple microphone headsets worn by those crabby Monday Night Football commentators way back in the 70s — you know, the ones that looped around the face with a big colorful sponge ball tipping each end? Anyway, she’d been told by a pimply-faced teen working there that the damn things were reliable. But that was bullshit. Reception kept cutting out, twice the damn thing picking up feed from a Spanish-speaking radio station in southern Mexico. The Toros had won a soccer match, she was told, with rain expected in Mexico City by nightfall.
The phone kept ringing. Why the fuck did phones ring at the most inopportune times? And no, the phone tied to her hip wasn’t a walkie-talkie, cellular jobs or even a cordless. It was a big black phone one usually found bolted to grimy subway walls. It took up most of her leg and weighed a friggin’ ton!
She grabbed up the chipped receiver and screamed a heated, “Yeah?”
“Yes ma’am,” a polite, Asian voice said, “AT&T has received a collect call—” Hillary groaned and rolled her eyes, “—from one Hal Brognolia at the CIA office in western Virginia. Will you accept the charges?”
Another grenade exploded, and Hillary ducked a flying severed head. A spray of blood spattered her from a counterfeiter who waved a severed stump for a left arm.
“Yeah… why the hell not?”
There was a click.
“Hillary?” a man’s voice growled in her ear.
“Kinda busy here!” she snapped back, biting the pin off a grenade and chucking it toward the children’s reading section. “What the hell do ‘ya want, Hal?”
“We need you back here in Virginia pronto. Something’s come up.”
“What ‘bout the counterfeiters?”
“To hell with ‘em. This is waaaay more important.”
At Hillary’s feet sat a suitcase nuke, to which she was presently arming it. She hit the “1,2,3,4,5” combination and the nuke beeped acceptance. Two minutes before detonation, the bomb read, and counting. “Where’s the rest of the team?”
“I’ve sent somebody to pick up Carl’s ass up over in Eastern Europe. I personally sent Hoggie down to Florida to prep the rest of you when you get there.”
“Sir?”
“Just cut and run, O’Connor. That’s an order.”
“Jesus…” she cursed, shaking her head. “Let me gather up Frenchie and the ‘Boy, and we’ll leave the bookstore and try to—”
“Bookstore? What the hell you mean, a bookstore? No, damn it, no! The counterfeiters were inside a candy store! A candy store! And—”
“Oh,” Hillary said. She then brightened. “Hey, I think we saw a candy store just down the hallway, near Sears.”
Hillary’s boss groaned. “Screw it. Just get your jackasses back here pronto! Brognolia out!”
Cursing, Hillary hung up the phone’s receiver and labored to use the rotary dial to start calling the rest of her ‘mates.
“This’d better be important,” she bitched, as more blood splattered nearby book covers.
*** ***
Less than a minute later, a helicopter landed and flew the three ‘Asses the hell out of Kansas. Local authorities found thirty-four people dead inside the bookstore, all of them innocent bystanders. It was the largest tragedy to ever hit that portion of the state…
…Until Hillary’s nuke detonated ninety seconds later.
May 23, 2009, 2012 standard
Somewhere inside a brightly-lit but crowded Florida conference room
“Morph Noph Ak,” grunted a skinny boy with slicked back blonde hair, acne, a Star Trek uniform and a pocket protector. He pushed up his glasses to peer out across the convention hall, which was filled with more than a thousand male and female mirror images of the speaker. Taking in a deep breath, Brent Mayne set up his joke with a “Hasph Norph Kanaf, Nok Messampeph!” With a growing smile, he polished off the joke with a grunted, “Nof! Nuk nok niiki-a-morph!”
The convention hall erupted with laughter and appreciative applause. Brent blushed, waved to his comrades below, and stumbled off the stage.
A man in a three-piece suit and wearing pointed rubber Vulcan ears lifted his hands to silence the masses. The Vulcan salutation salute followed seconds later. A hush fell over the crowd as every single soul returned the hand gesture, many with tears in their eyes.
Charles Kitszman, director of the “East Coast Trekkie fan club,” golf-clapped as he searched through the hundreds of faces for Brent, who was now sitting at a nearby gaming table filled with Klingons.
“Hey! How ‘bout another round for our Klingon comedian, Brent Mayne, from St. Louis!”
There were cheers.
“Listen, I don’t want to bore you like some drunken Masospern—” here Kitszman paused as a wave of laughter washed over him, “—but we’ve got to Warp Factor Nine on over and discuss today’s additional events.”
He pointed at a nearby projected screen filled with words.
“Now, at 2 p.m., out in the main hall beyond you all, a reenactment of the Borg attack on Federation Starbase 243 will take place, so you don’t want to miss that! At 4 p.m., there’ll be the regular commencement for our new “Trekkie” brothers and sisters and — hey guys, let me briefly pause here to congratulate you all for spreading our religion faster than a wild fire on the planet Qagire!” Again there was a bubbling eruption of geeky laughter from the throng, since all of them knew Qagire was a planet entirely comprised of water. “Now, in the corridors beyond, you’ll find multiple tables filled with plenty of hot Star Trek board game action. Just be sure to shower off after participating in one of those hot sessions!”
“Later tonight, we’ll have our annual “all-nighter,” where you cinema Trekkies can view all the Trek movies, as well as any episode from any of the numerous television incantations. And for the few of you who want ‘em all, simply grab a Romulan self-duplicator and watch them all simultaneously!”
The walls echoed with geeky laughter.
“Okay folks, repeat after me — Kirk to Spock!”
“Beam me up, Scotty!”
“Boldly go where no one has gone before!”
“Kirk to Enterprise!”
“Warp Factor Nine, Mr. Sulu!”
“Live long and prosper!”
“Stardate 54321!”
“Damn it, Jim, we’re doctors, not climatologists!”
“I can’t give ‘ya anymore, captain! I’ve—”
Hog “Wiley” moved up to the front of the throng, because all the machine-gun fire over the years had damaged his hearing, and he figured what this skinny little dude had to say was important to his undercover mission.
He stuffed a hot dog into his mouth and chewed. He noticed some mustard had drooped onto his hairy alien costume he wore as a disguise. Attempts to clean the mess only caused the mustard to seep more deeply into the suit’s fibers.
“Damn it…” Hog snarled, spewing out tiny pieces of hot dog. It was only at this moment that he noticed the room was as silent as a nun’s nightly bed.
Up on the stage, Charles had trailed to stuttered stop, staring in disbelief at the hairy apparition in front of him. Right there, as plain as shit on linoleum, was a…
Was a…
…A Wookie!
A Star Wars Wookie!
“Imposter!” Kitszman suddenly screamed, gesturing wildly at Hog Wiley. “Security! Security! Grab him! Call Lt. Worf this instant!”
The screaming mob of skinny, four-eyed geeks rose up with girly shrieks and tackled the cursing, farting jackass of a Wookie.
May 24, 2009, 817 standard
Somewhere in a bright but dark CIA office in Virginia
“We’ve got a problem,” Hal said, chewing on an unlit cigar. “A big problem.”
“So what the hell else is new?” Hillary crabbed with a drawn-out sigh.
“No,” Hal said with a shake of his head. “A big problem!”
“How big?” Carl asked.
“Bigger than the biggest thing,” Hal answered with a grave look.
“Bigger than the time you sent us against that alien spacecraft looking to turn us all into human cattle?” Carl asked innocently.
“Bigger than the time,” Hillary added, “you had us go to the center of the Earth to defeat those Atlantis dudes?”
“Bigger than the time, you bastard, you made us wipe out my brothers and sisters in Queer Nation?” Frenchie snarled.
“Bigger than me?” Little Boy squeaked.
“Trust me, it’s bigger than all of those things — yes, even you Little Boy. In fact, it’s the mother of bigness.”
“So… what is it?”
Hal took in a huge swell of breath. (Insert some scary music here) “There’s an evil religion spreading like a cancerous growth across America. This religion — this cult — is recruiting people — the young and the old, the sick and the insane — to help do its evil bidding. It’s got to be put down.”
“Put down?” Carl asked. “You mean kill?”
Hal rolled his eyes. “That’ll be your task.”
“A religion?” Hillary muttered to herself.
“Who?” Little Boy added.
“The Baptists, maybe?” Hillary said suddenly, with a knowing nod of her head.
“No,” Carl countered. “I bet it’s those damn Jehovah Witnesses!”
“Satanists!”
“Hare Krishna’s!”
“Scientologists!”
Hal shook his head. “No. It’s none of those things.”
“Then what?” Hillary asked.
“Trekkies!”
DA DA DA DUM
All activity ceased.
“What the fuck is a trekkie?” Hillary asked.
“Are they… like Methodists?” Little Boy pondered aloud.
Hal just rolled his eyes.
“They don’t declare jihads, do they?” Carl had had his fill with those kooky Islamic good-for-nothing bastards.
“Jesus,” Hal said with disgust. “The show. Haven’t you asses ever heard of Star Trek?”
They all shook their heads no.
Hal cradled his head in his hands for a second or two, cursing beneath his breath.
“Is it one of those new reality shows?” Frenchie asked.
“No, Frenchie, it’s not — far from it, in fact. It’s a science-fiction show. Or was. And a shitload of really bad movies, too. So listen up. Hog’s already on a solo mission down in Florida, infiltrating the bastards for some needed Intel. You guys are the fire team. You go in there, and you kill. But getting into their lair will be damned difficult.”
“How so? What’s the proper procedure?”
Hal looked at him. “You open a door.”
Carl nodded sagely. The others went “ooohhhh!”
“But before you open that door, you’ll have to know a greeting to get inside,” Hal finished.
“A greeting?” Carl asked.
“What’s the greeting?” Hillary wanted to know.
“Roark a morph-mif-mok,” Hal said.
“Excuse you,” Hillary said, reaching for a tissue.
Killer frowned. “What the hell you’d just do, boss-man?”
Hal grinned at their confused looks. “It’s the greeting, but in another language — Klingon. And only by reciting the phrase at the door will they let you in.”
“And if we don’t?” Carl asked.
“…Or we get it wrong?” Frenchie chimed in.
Hal shrugged. “Then you get a photon torpedo shoved up your ass.”
Frenchie squealed with glee.
“Jesus,” Hillary whispered.
“What?” Hal asked.
“Nothing. Just a damn good defense. A door, a secret greeting — that’s way better than an armed guard.”
“Or a claymore mine,” Little Boy added.
Carl nodded. “Better than a dozen claymores. Hell, better than a dozen F-15 fighters flying CAP.”
“No no no,” Little Boy added enthusiastically, “Better than the Death Star!”
“Better,” Hillary said, “than the—”
“ENOUGH!” Hal screamed, a tiny lock of hair falling across his eyes. “Enough already! Listen, there’s a super-secret big-ass convention the Trekkies are holding this week. That can’t take place. You hear me? It cannot take place.”
“Where’s the convention?”
Hal sighed. “We don’t know. Not even satellite imagery is helping us here.”
Hillary kicked aside her chair.
“However,” Hal continued, “There will be an ‘Ass-friendly contact to meet you in Miami. Find him at Gellapo’s Pizzeria. Talk to him. He’ll have a British accent, and a mystical love for cucumber pizzas. He should know the location of the Trekkie convention. And if he doesn’t, he’ll know somebody else who does. Understand?”
“Crystal-clear, boss-man,” Little Boy said.
“We done?” Carl was rising to his feet.
“Almost,” Hal said. He brought out a manila folder, handing one to each human jackass. “In each of these folders are your personal disguises, to help you infiltrate the Trekkie convention. All other particulars will be handed over to you en-route. Carl? You’ll be a mundane Federation officer. Hillary? A Klingon female warrior. Little Boy? You’ll be a Tribble. Fren—”
“What’s a tribble?” Little Boy asked.
“A little ball of fur.”
“Oh.”
Hal turned to Frenchie. “You’ll be Captain Kirk.”
The French-born warrior looked pleased. “Tiberius Kirk, eh? He was my first masturbation, you know — back when I was fourteen and living in Paris.”
“Jesus,” Carl said in disgust. “Way too much information there.” He nodded toward Hal, a pleading look in his eyes. “Are we done here?”
“I suppose….”
“Good. We’ll go and get this done, Hal. No worries.”
Hal nodded. “Good. Now get the fuck outta my office, will ‘ya? Y’ll startin’ to make me choke on my own vomit.”
May 24, 2009, 1923 standard
Somewhere in a bright but stupid Florida interrogation room
“I’ll never join you!” Hog screamed, trying but failing to break free from the chains binding him to his chair. “Nooooo!”
“Yessssss… you will, you hairy beast! Now! Who are you?”
“I’m Hog, you fucks.”
“No! You’re Lt. Worf of the Starship Enterprise!”
“No… no, God no, I’m Hog, of the Starship Jackass and — damn it, of the anti-evil group J.A.C.K.A.S.S.!”
With a sigh, a pencil-thin interrogator in a Starfleet tunic turned away from the trussed-up Hog as a tall man moved up from behind, staring at Hog through a bulletproof window.
“Mr. Gaunt sir, uh… it’s worked — to an extent, that is. But this bastard of a man yonder is a strong one. He’s a Cardassian in every capacity, except maybe for his physical looks and body odor. I suggest we move on to the physical optical portion of the testing to ensure the overall mental transplant is completed without too many defects.”
Gaunt just stared at him. He finally stirred and shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.” He hadn’t understood a word the man had said. Gaunt was the leader of the Trekkie splinter group, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was a very smart man. “Just don’t hurt him. He’s valuable to us.”
The man nodded and flicked a few switches over here, a few over there. He then jammed a thumb down atop a flickering red light. In front of Hog flashed a 120-inch television screen. Hog screamed when William Shatner’s face appeared there.
The interrogator grinned and motioned for a black man sitting behind a control board to flip a switch. “Give ‘em the bloopers,” he mouthed to him.
Up on the screen, a black screen appeared —
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #1
“Spock,” Captain Kirk whispered in his now infamous breathless voice. “Spock! How could you? How could you kill Bones and Scotty and the others? And now our warp drive system is no longer operative. How could you—” Rising up from his commander’s chair, he stubbed his big toe against a metal strut. “Oh SHIT FIRE!”
Laughter exploded off-camera.
Hog wept uncontrollably. “Noooo! Oh God, my mind…”
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #2
The scene showed stars, as the bone-white USS Enterprise model on several strings streaked through space at Warp something-or-other. Suddenly, one of those not-very-invisible strings snapped with an audible twang. The domed ship fell off-screen.
Hog wiped at some tears but remained quiet and relatively still.
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #3
A woman walked in through the sliding “whooshing” door, carrying a tray of food and juice for Kirk and a group of Romulans. As Kirk opened his mouth to speak his rehearsed lines, the woman’s tunic split open and out spilled her ample breasts.
“Oops,” the actress said, blushing.
Hog lost his hurt expression and began picking his nose. “Kooks!” he whispered to himself.
‘60s Star Trek Blooper #4
“Captain,” Spock said, stepping away from his station toward the Captain’s famous swivel chair. Kirk was there, listening, hanging as he did half-in, half-out of the throne-like perch. “Captain. External starboard sensors have detected a strange (Faaaaart….)
Hog chuckled. Not bad. Not bad at all, particularly from this skinny little Nimoy character. He wouldn’t go as far as rating the butt ‘plosion a ‘7’, but a ‘4’ might just do it. Maybe even a ‘5’, if the little bastard squeezed up those cheeks a bit more tightly ‘round the edges next time. Cripes, this was kinda’ getting fun now!
The interrogator turned and flashed Gaunt a shit-eating grin, who nodded in return.
“Now,” Gaunt said, spinning around, “Finally! His ASS is ours’!”
He cackled.
“And we’ll use this ‘Ass as our weapon against our mortal enemies! The East Bay Star Wars Fan Club!”
He laughed like a madman for at least a minute, until he grew bored and left the control room.
May 25, 2009, 0823 standard
Somewhere in a sunny but smelly Miami pizzeria
“So, who is our contact?”
They scanned the restaurant’s interior. There were about twenty people slurping down slices of pizza. Most of ‘em were pimply-faced teens. There were a few adults present, though. Most were dressed in shorts and T-shirts. One pasty-faced man was wearing a three-piece brown suit, with a cane, and sipped steaming tea from an expensive china cup.
“Don’t know,” Carl said.
“He’s a Brit, correct?” Little Boy asked.
Carl nodded.
“How the hell we supposed to find a Brit? They’re like Canadians! They all blend in together.”
“Fan out,” Carl barked. Each began moving over to various tables, trying to hide their various weapons as they asked each man, woman and child if they were a jackass or knew of a jackass. Most scowled at these inquiries, or told ‘em to go fuck themselves. But one of ‘em didn’t do that. He, in fact, nodded enthusiastically.
“I’m an ‘ass,” the three-piece suit man with a British accent said. “Have a seat. Took you chaps bloody long enough to get here!”
Little Boy leaned over to Carl. “Accent sounds cheesy. Brits don’t sound like that. They sound more like Chinese.”
“Are you our contact?” Carl asked.
“I am,” he said, nodding.
“How can we be sure?”
The man gave him a queer look.
“Who’s our boss?” Hillary asked the alleged SAS agent.
The man swiveled to peer at the penis-sporting bald bitch. “Hal — chap’s an old college buddy of mine. How is he doing by the way, that shaggy ‘ol dog?”
“He was a dog?” Little Boy said.
Hillary turned to tug at the contact’s sleeve. “Who are you with? What outfit, I mean?”
“Her majesty’s SAS, I should say!”
“Never heard of them,” Frenchie whispered to Carl.
“Hullo?” the man asked, confused.
“What’s your name?”
“Edmunds. Cheerio!” he extended a hand toward Carl, who gripped it. “And you must be S.T.U.P.I.D.A.S.S.”
“Um…” Hillary said.
“I’m your contact,” Edmunds said, beaming.
Carl nodded. “We were told you had directions to this convention place thing.”
Edmunds shook his head no. “Apologies mate. No such thing. I have been instructed to say you should travel to a downtown supermarket on 33rd street. Talk to a sacker there named Ben. Understand?”
Carl shrugged. “No.”
“Ta ta!” The British agent tipped his hat, rose from the table, nearly tripped over a nearby wooden chair, snagged up a piece of pizza and took a huge hunk of it in his mouth, then leaped through the front window.
“That was informative,” Carl quipped sarcastically. Hillary just shrugged.
Fifteen minutes later…
Due to the M-60 machine gun and various rocket launchers thrown over their shoulders or clinging to their backs, most of those waiting to check out had left the store in droves, screaming, hysterically leaving behind their food-encrusted carts.
“Nice,” A skinny blonde-haired sacker said, untying his apron and shaking Carl’s hands. “Love the M-16, by the way.”
“Thanks. It was a Christmas gift,” Carl said. “We’re J.A.C.K.A.S.S., see, and we’re here for some information concerning the Trekkies. You do know something about the Trekkies, don’t you?”
The boy shook his head no. “Sorry. Don’t have the location. I do have a code for y’ll, though.”
“A code?”
The boy nodded. “You bet.”
“Then give us the fuckin’ code,” Hillary snarled. She was getting pissed, puffing out little clouds of enamel from her teeth grinding.
“Here goes. Cold blue a no no go. Dog shat in water cup. Bird flew north while an ape walks south. I eat cat shit. President Jimmy Carter was a gay wad. Fingers are doorways to the soul.” Here, the boy stopped and looked expectantly at the four anti-evil warriors. You got that? Understand?”
“Hunh?” Little Boy squeaked from atop Carl’s shoulder.
“Run that by me again, would ‘ya?” Carl asked helplessly.
“Code blue?” Hillary whispered to herself, hairless brows furrowed in concentration.
“He is?” Frenchie asked the boy in disbelief. “He was gay?”
The boy held up his hands. “That’s all I know. Really. They only tell me what y’ll need to know, but they never tell me what the heck it all means.”
“Great,” Carl said, throwing up his hands in surrender.
“To understand the code, go talk to Chung, over at Chews Chews Chinese Take-out.”
Seven minutes later…
“No unnerstand,” a crotchety Chung griped, working to prep orders of steaming hot Chinese slop for waiting customers out in the dining room beyond them. He slapped Carl aside to stir up a bowl of steamed, spicy chicken. “CIA giva’ new code. Eat at Joes. Hmmm? Unnerstand? Eat at Joes.”
“This is fuckin’ ridiculous,” Hillary bellowed.
Chung slapped at her with his spatula. “Unnerstand. New code — Eat at Joes. If know you more, talk to pimp Jarvis down street corner for more unnerstanding. Unnerstand?”
Carl growled and turned away.
“Wait! Sale on chicken rice! Great deal. Chow main, anyone?”
Nineteen minutes later…
“Yo’ trip,” Jarvis said, hefting his pimp cane and gesturing at the four warriors. Sunlight glinted from his purple and fur-lined caddy. “Shit’s on. Nuttin’ skip but a big-o bangin’ bip! Solid rush gone down the groun’, fuck slip to a daisy-may dip!”
“Um…” Carl said. He turned to his ‘Ass mates with a wobbly grin. “Guys?”
“Can anyone speak jive?” Carl asked.
“Wait…” Hillary bellowed, pulling out a thick, leather-bound book. She began flipping through it.
“What the hell’s that?” Carl asked her, staring at the leather-bound book.
“Nat Bo X’s best seller, dumbass — “How to Speak Nigga’. I always keep it in my fanny pack, just in case.”
“Oh,” Carl said. “Good thinking.”
“Okay, okay, okay…” Hillary said to herself. “Um…” she got the pimp’s attention. Her brow was sweaty and drenched. “Uh… yo bro. Shit’s dissin’ up a… a storm. Things be lookin’ duff, ready to puff, fuckin’ tuff, you ready for my stuff?”
The man grinned, showing gold teeth. “Honkin’s a-tonkin.’”
Like a live tennis match, the rest of the jackasses now swiveled their heads between Jarvis and Hillary.
“I… shit.” She threw aside the book. Then she eyed the pimp. “What the hell does the code mean?”
The muscular black man frowned. He reached into his back pocket and whipped out a tattered paperback. It was R.J. Rutherford’s best seller, “How to Speak Honky.”
He tried to speak, stopped, started again, stopped, and then sighed. “Um… yes. Salutations. Uh… the code that you all desire and seek with such fervent fury usually means to…” he flipped through some pages. He flipped through some more. He finally snarled and threw aside the book. “Fuck it. Jig-jag ‘til ‘ya splig-splag.”
Hillary furiously flipped through the pages of the “Nigga’” book. “Um… No mo croe?”
The pimp nodded, leaning against his white pimpin’ cane. “No no mo.” He shrugged, again flashing gold.
“Shit,” Hillary said. She pocketed her book.
“What did he say?” Carl asked.
“He doesn’t know.”
Suddenly, the pimp came back to life, gesturing at Hillary.
“Yes?”
“Hangin’ and trippin’ with the spic-matic at the wash-o-rama…” he snapped his fingers and pointed both hands at her, pistol-style. “No no mo.”
She nodded.
“Huh?” Little Boy asked.
Carl nudged her. “Now what?”
Hillary shrugged. “He said he doesn’t know what the hell we’re talking about, but he thinks a Mexican-American could probably tell us.”
“Where?”
“Just down the road,” she said, pointing south. “Inside a Laundromat.”
“Okay, we’re outta here,” Carl hissed.
Hillary nodded, then turned to the pimp. “Thank you, sir.”
“Ain’t no thang.”
May 25, 2009, 1056 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright room aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
“Art thou cometh?”
Ben Gaunt absently scratched at his rubber Vulcan ears. He turned to his second-in-command, Bob, who was frowning. “What?”
“Prithee thy enemy cometh to meeteth useth in battleth for theireth ultimath destruction-eth.” Bob wiped away the spittle.
Ben rolled his eyes. “George, you do know Vulcan’s don’t talk like Shakespearean characters.”
“They don’t?”
“They don’t.” Gaunt sighed. “Listen, I know you’re new to this whole Star Trek thing, Bob, and I really appreciate your enthusiasm, but maybe — you know — maybe you should be something besides a Vulcan. Maybe a Cardassian, or a Ferengi? They like to manage money, just like you do.”
“But I like Vulcans, Ben. They’re smart and tough.”
Gaunt shrugged, turning his attention back to the computer in front of him. “Anything new with our enemy?”
“No, sire — nothing. According to our Tribble spies, these government group sent against us are still trying to ascertain the exact location of our hideout.”
Gaunt chuckled. “The idiots.”
“It appears so, sir.”
“Why is it taking them so long?”
Bob shrugged. “No one really knows.”
“How hard can it be?” Gaunt said. He sounded almost disappointed. “I have these wonderful traps planned for these ‘Asses, and their stupidity is actually saving their lives right now. That really disappoints me!”
Bob nodded sympathetically. “Apparently H.O.R.S.E.A.S.S. isn’t what we’ve been led to believe by our Google search and that long Wikipedia entry.”
Gaunt growled, scratching at his rubber ears. The things sometimes broke his face out in hives.
“True,” he said moments later, absently nodding. “Too true — and that’s J.A.C.K.A.S.S., by the way. Actually, these asses may be more intelligent than I’ve given them credit for.”
“How so?”
“Think of it. We’d all anticipated them storming in here like a bunch of drunken Klingons, but they’ve done nothing of the sort. They’re staying low, near cover — hidden, making us all wonder what their next move will be. Hell, I’m wondering. Are you wondering?”
“I’m wondering,” Bob obediently muttered.
Gaunt nodded. “We’re all wondering.”
“It’s almost cunning — if I may say so, sir.”
“You may.”
Bob grinned. “It scares me.”
“No need to be scared. We just need to be prepared — that’s the ticket. We need to be wise. Wise to their ways, you know? We need to use this up here,” he said, tapping his skull, accidentally dislodging one of his fake ears. He took a few seconds to straighten it.
“It scares me, sir,” Bob continued, “because none of the moves made by L.A.R.D.A.S.S. makes a heap of sense. They are bumbling about like keystone kops on Meth. I dunno…”
“That’s J.A.C.K.A.S.S., Bob, and rest assure, I have a plan to end their bumbling and stumbling.”
Bob nodded. “How so?”
“Ever read an action/adventure novel?”
The man shook his head no.
Gaunt rose to his feet and strolled around the room, deep in thought. “I’ve read plenty of ‘em. Most of ‘em are cookie cutters — the same read, just different stories and different guns. But several things always happen. It usually takes three days for the good guys to sniff out the so-called bad guys — that’s one. Two — there are at least two major battles and one major car chase in each book.”
“And three?”
“Three is… well here, read it for yourself. Out loud.”
Bob cleared his throat, opening up a dog-eared paperback — Kickin’ Ass Force #35 — somewhere in its center.
“Rising up from the leather couch, Commander Falcon Hawk reached for Susan’s breasts, pawing at the nipple with his thumb.
“Oh Falcon, you tried to kill me,” the woman said. “Now you defile me.”
“You’re a Communist Al-Qaida. But you have nice tits.”
“Oh, your touch is so vile to my flesh. Yet you have me near orgasm.”
“It’s what I do.”
Their lips met.
“I’m coming…” the girl moaned seconds later. Freedom intoxicated her.
“Kickin’ ass,” Falcon mouthed his famous saying, and then slid inside for the orgasmic kill.
Later, Falcon and—
“What the hell are you reading?” Gaunt asked Bob.
“Um…” he flipped the book around. “Kickin’ Ass Force #35. And—”
“Jesus, go on to another section.”
“Wait, sir… I uh… I think if I keep reading this particular section, it will—”
“Bob…” his boss said, tapping his foot.
The second-in-command hung his head. “Yes sir.” He flipped forward thirty or so pages forward.
“Read aloud, please” Gaunt said, gesturing to the book in Bob’s hands.
“Okay…”
Bob spent the next two minutes reading about Kickin’ Ass Force, led by Commander Falcon Hawk, killing sixty-three terrorists in a hail of bullets and explosions. Done, he closed the book.
“Get it?” Gaunt prodded moments later.
Bob shook his head no.
“Jesus, Bob! Action/adventure novels average a battle roughly every eighteen or so pages, give or take. How many pages comprise this stupid story so far?”
Bob squinted up at the center of this page. “Looks like we’re moving on twenty pages now, boss.”
“Exactly! Twenty pages without a juicy bloody battle.”
Suddenly all the lights came on upstairs. “Ohhhhh,” Bob said, his eyes wide and shiny.
“There you go. Gather up the troops. We attack their asses within the hour.”
May 25, 2009, 1256 standard
Somewhere inside Stately Wayne Manor… Oops, I mean a Dodge van…
“We’re being followed.”
Carl was up front, eyes rarely moving from the rearview mirror.
Hillary cocked her AR-17 machine gun rifle. “What the hell is it? Cars? Some vans?”
“Uh… no. Some kind of flying thing.”
She squinted way up in the sky, and there she saw a plane. Yet it wasn’t a plane. It was… something else. A boxy shuttle type something. No visible engines or propellers, yet it flew. It had a cockpit, and a large door on its ass end. At its sides were two long, metal tube tanks, but they weren’t exactly tanks, because each glowed a blue color. Were they the thing’s propulsion units?
“You’re right. I don’t know what they are.”
“There’s more than one of ‘em now,” Little Boy said.
“Three of them,” Frenchie said, squinting through his sniper scope. “And they’re lining up for an attack!”
“And here they come!” Carl screamed seconds later.
The first of the three Star Trek shuttles swooped down on them, like a robotic bird of prey. From indentions set into the side of the ship’s fuselage spat bolts of reddish energy. They slapped the pavement, sizzling off the highway’s painted lane markers. A lucky few smeared the roof. There was a loud sizzling as metal liquefied. Smoke and stench filled the van’s interior.
“Who farted?” Carl screamed.
“Open a window!” Hillary bellowed.
“Little Boy,” Carl thundered. “Get behind the wheel!”
Carl was a much better gunner than he was a driver, while Little Boy could win a NASCAR race atop a toy plastic tractor.
Soon, his tiny body came bumping and bouncing forward, and the two anti-evil dudes quickly swapped positions.
Running into the back of the van, Carl smashed a big fat red button near the side sliding door. Above him, a section of the vehicle’s roof popped off like a burned pop tart. Carl leaped up, caught the edges of the hole, and pulled himself up onto the roof. Next to him sat what appeared to be an ordinary satellite dish. In actuality, the dish was an armor-plated shield, while the antenna receiver served as the barrel of a .50-caliber machine gun.
“Comin’ ‘round again!” Little Boy screamed. He began tossing and turning the van all across the highway. Sweating to swerve the sizzling bolts of death from high above, the dwarf/midget accidentally bumped aside a Ford Focus filled with a young couple and their three blonde-haired, blue-eyed children. The vehicle careened beneath a passing diesel semi and burst into a fireball of death.
“We’re not out of this yet.” Hillary yelped. She glanced over at Frenchie. “Help Little Boy up front!”
The sniper nodded, threw aside his sniper rifle and climbed up to the front of the vehicle, strapping into the passenger seat and pausing to carefully check his hair in the side mirror.
“Hillary, man the other gun!” Carl screamed down from the roof. Grumbling, Hillary unbolted a belted .50 caliber from the side of the wall, swung it out, locked it into place in front of her, then kicked open the van’s two back doors. Both she and Carl slipped on their 1970s bubble-beaded microphone headsets.
“You copying me?” Carl asked.
“Fuck off,” Hillary replied with a snarl.
Carl grinned. “Roger that.”
The van continued to motor down the highway, making spectacular twists and turns — at one point even roping up on two wheels to avoid a man bumping along atop a moped.
Carl adjusted his headset, gripping the gun’s twin trigger handles. “Still with me, bitch?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Hillary responded. Her voice sounded scratchy.
“Okay. Stay sharp.”
Up front, Little Boy and Frenchie searched the heavens for the attacking Trek shuttles. The dwarf eased back on the gas pedal as the van bounced all across the congested Interstate.
Carl reached toward his control, turning a knob. Beneath him, Hillary sat in readiness for the expected attack, hands resting tensely on the cannon’s twin triggers.
Little Boy spotted the enemy.
“I see them!”
The Federation shuttle craft sliced through the air toward the ‘Ass van, one veering off to the left, the other one off to the right. Their passing wakes dangerously rocked the van, now speeding well above 100 mph.
Cursing, Carl swiveled the gun to follow the craft, yet the crafts were mockingly too quick to track.
The third shuttle raced past the van, firing dozens of laser beams. It passed in front of Hillary, who followed and fired at it with her big-ass machine gun. Above, Carl did the same. The shuttle suffered a minor hit, bouncing slightly, trailing a thin trace of smoke.
Carl cackled.
Two other shuttles swooped around and dove — plastering the area with heated death.
Hillary shot at one of the assailants with a long burst — missing. “They’re coming in too fast!”
Laser bolts sizzled past the windshield, impacting and cratering the roadway around them.
“Left!” Frenchie screamed. “Right! LEFT AGAIN!”
The van shuddered as a lucky stray bolt hit close to the cockpit, taking off one of their side mirrors and the portable CB antenna. Mopping sweat from his face, Little Boy glanced over at Frenchie. “Too close.”
Another craft dove at them. The thing grew to almost gigantic proportions in the windshield before Little Boy bounced from its path at the very last instant. The bolts intended for them consumed a nearby Greyhound bus instead.
“Great move!” Frenchie screamed.
But again the van lurched dangerously from side to side, throwing Frenchie against the dashboard.
“Hey!” Little Boy screamed over his shoulders. “You guys humpin’ back there or something. Start killin’ some!”
“I’m the boss,” Carl scolded him from atop the roof. “I make the orders.” Nonetheless, he let go a long, 20-second burst.
He missed.
“Fuck!”
The van lurched again as a bolt splattered the side paneling.
“Hey!” Frenchie yelled. “We just lost lateral control!”
Lateral control? Did he mean the van’s anti-brake system?
“Don’t worry!” Little Boy yelled back. “She’ll hold together!”
Another nearby flash of laser fire caused the dashboard to flicker and darken momentarily, while little sperm-like waves of blue energy played hide-n-seek across the steering wheel.
“You hear me, baby?” Little Boy whispered, looking around at the van’s interior. “Hold together!”
Above Little Boy and Frenchie, Carl swiveled his gun mount around, tracking a shuttle with his cannon. He squinted, belched and let loose a long and grinding spray of lead across his field of fire, watching the bullets bounce off the craft with little firecracker flashes of flame. Seconds later, the spaceship exploded in a dazzling display of orgasmic violence.
Hunter cackled hysterically, pumping his fists in glee.
Below, Hillary spied the burst of flame and smiled to herself. She just made sure he didn’t see her look of approval.
But the two other shuttles were still up and out there, and they swooped in from behind them this time, unleashing a barrage of laser bolts. But Hillary, hanging out the opened back door, was more than prepared. Smiling grimly, she lined up the top of the barrel with the swooping spaceship and scored a spectacular direct hit.
“I got him!” Hillary screamed hysterically. “I got him!”
Carl leaned down and gave Hillary a victory wave. “Great bitch! Just don’t get cocky!” He turned back to the gun controls. “Still one more of ‘em out there.”
Angling low to the ground, it appeared the craft was lining up for a potential suicide run. Above, Carl sprayed fire as it crossed his target area, tracking it as it speared its way across the sky. Below, Hillary acted in the same manner, picking up the craft in her zone of fire and laying heavy on the trigger.
“Don’t cross the streams!” Little Boy bellowed up from the front of the van.
The combined lines of lead met in the middle, and the third Trek craft exploded high in the muggy Florida skies.
“That’s it,” Hillary screamed.
Above, Carl let out a huge whoosh of stale air and threw aside the headset. He glanced back down the freeway, at all the burning holes, the crashed cars, and the dead corpses. Shrugging, he carefully climbed back down from the roof, where he met Hillary.
“We DID it!”
The two embraced. They then kissed. Carl was going for a breast when Hillary pushed him away, her face flushed, her nipples hard. Carl smoothed out his clothes self-consciously. Hillary slapped him.
Carl looked sheepish. “Sorry.”
The victorious van moved majestically off into the early evening downtown traffic, still in search of its elusive prey.
May 25, 2009, 1345 standard
Somewhere in a dark but bright room aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
“We failed.”
“No shit,” Gaunt hissed, slamming a fist against the back of the couch. “Where are those Asses now?”
“Not sure. They’re headed for a convention hall near here.
“A convention hall?”
“Obviously they have updated Intel. on our secret convention gathering, and they’ve surmised it’ll be held inside a regular convention hall. So they’re going to Miami’s largest convention hall to crash the party.”
“Idiots. So they don’t know our true location here?” He chuckled. “Must we draw a dotted line for them?”
Bob shrugged.
“What’s the convention hosting? Not one of those stupid-ass bass master tournaments, I hope.”
“Uh… no, sir, nothing of the sort. It’s uh…” he leaned in and whispered a couple dozen words into his bosses’ ear. Seconds later, Gaunt exploded with laughter.
“Oh Spock! A suicidal Romulan in the Neutral Zone couldn’t have thought up a better death scenario than that! And you say they’re still dressed in Federation uniforms?”
“Our spy in the Pentagon confirmed the ‘Asses plan to infiltrate our ranks by posing as Federation officers.”
Gaunt walked over to a window and stood looking out over the bay, still hooting with glee. “Okay. Tell our forces to stand back. Let the ‘Asses go to the convention hall unmolested. Their deaths by our mortal enemies will be a perfect ending to a perfectly splendid operation. Meanwhile, we’ll turn our resources toward dominating the known universe and creating a REAL Earth Federation up in Earth orbit!”
Bob grinned and nodded.
“Then get it done,” Gaunt said, tightening back on his rubber Vulcan ears.
May 25, 2009, 1515 standard
Somewhere outside a rather hot and dirty Interstate 10-laner
J.A.C.K.A.S.S. had been searching — searching rather unsuccessfully, that is — for a Star Trek convention for more than four hours now. Even if the battle back at the freeway hadn’t taken place, the four ‘Asses would have been nearing the point of exhaustion by now.
Poor Carl, blonde hair pulled from their roots and drooling unchecked, was even now teetering on the precarious edge of insanity.
“How? How? Huh? How?” he yelped to himself, leaning over the steering wheel, the hot Florida sun baking his flesh. “Hog was able to find it. Hell, Hoggie can’t even find his own shit in a stool, yet he found the convention hall lickety-split! Geeks are flockin’ to it by the hour, relishing inside it. But we can’t. How? Why? How?”
Sitting in the passenger seat beside Carl, Hillary’s head suddenly jerked to the side. She groaned and slapped her forehead.
“The hell?” Little Boy asked her.
“What’s the secret code word to get in?”
Silence.
“Er,” ventured Little Boy. “Was it… muff duff something?”
“Excuse you,” Frenchie said.
Carl thought for a moment, and then spoke. Instead of words, he spat forth a large, purple goober, which growled and oozed off beneath the driver’s seat. “At least,” Carl said moments later, blushing, “it sounded something like that.”
“No, no, no,” Little Boy scolded. “It was… like, morph or something. Or something.”
“Or something…” Hillary growled, glaring at the bearded dwarf/midget.
“Mif-muf-morth?” Carl ventured.
“Muf-muf-morph,” Hillary countered with a shake of her bald head.
“Didn’t anybody write the damn thing down?” Little Boy wanted to know.
Frenchie began to sob.
“Maybe,” Carl said, his voice hesitant, “maybe we oughta head back to headquarters and see if Hal would—”
(Author’s note: Hey. It’s me, the writer. Aren’t these jackasses a bunch of… well — jackasses? Their stupidity has surprised even me. Me! Their creator! So I’ll just help ‘em out by creating a convention hall right here. (POOF!) Ahhh… there it is. Okay, back to the story, and sorry for the intrusion!)
“THERE IT IS!” Carl screeched, scaring the hell out of the other three ‘Asses. He slammed on the brakes to slow down the wobbly van, then pumped the accelerator and charged across several lanes of traffic, swerving onto a side road on just two wheels.
And there it was, sure enough. See it? A nice structure. Great brick cropping. Plenty of parking. Wonderful storage space for those hot summer days and—
“What does the sign say?” Hillary asked, squinting.
MORRIS AUDITORIUM, STAR —- CONVENTION! ALL WEEK!
“Wait,” Hillary barked out, grabbing Carl’s shoulder.
“Wha’?”
“I can’t read