Going Shogun (10 page)

“That’s an
Alice in Wonderland
reference, but I have no clue what he could mean by it.  Do you guys?  It’s too
deliberate for there not to be a connection, isn’t it?”

Forklift cracks the window and tries
to blow a smoke ring out into the night.  It gets caught in the rush of cool
air and is ripped to shreds before it even has a chance to form up.  Sort of
like our plans for the evening.  He says, “Doth appear we need to samurai the
coconut to get at the meat, friendlies.” 

Annnnd, he’s back.

Chapter
8

At this point, it’s 2AM and we’re
driving in circles, thinking, brainstorming, trying to decide what LX meant by
the
rabbit hole
.  We’re coming up with fluff, getting frustrated, and going
all Captain Testyboots on each other.  Bingo mentions she’s hungry so we go looking
for a greasy spoon to grab a snack, and thank God late night restaurants are
legal again.  The Board outlawed them in the ‘50s because eating late and
sleeping on it right after proved to have a direct correlation to the Eternal Obesity
Epidemic.  That, a thousand other reasons, and my favorite meal, cheeseburgers,
were the culprits.  The Board made it an immediate decade in prison for
restaurant owners if they were caught staying open past 9PM.

“To preserve the health of the
bloodline,” is what they said back then.  It took about fifteen years for the
average fat content of an R11 male to erode to where nature intended.  Once
homeostasis was restored, The Board opened the Law up for reconsideration and
it was overturned by a vote of 4-3.  We’ll have to wait and see how long it
takes for the EOE to make a comeback, and Dorna ain’t helping a bit to prevent
its return with the cult-like popularity of Butter Tea Brownies. 

I’m not quite familiar with where we
are, and somehow Forklift isn’t either.  Seems like an R10 block from the way
the streetlights bounce off of well-manicured brownstones and coiffed
landscaping.  Bingo looks up at a Level Marker when we cruise past and says,
“Oh, wait, Ron Paul Park is down that way about half a mile.  There’s a cool
place nearby that has super nummy noms.”

I cock an eyebrow at her.  “Super nummy
noms?  Forklift is rubbing off on you.”

He chuckles.  “Own the clone,
Name-o.  Own the clone.”

She’s right.  A half-mile down we
pull up outside of a diner called...
Diner
.  What it lacks in creative
naming, it makes up for in nostalgia.  This silver bullet, this Hulked out soda
pop can, this aluminum hunk of tornado bait, is positively glowing with happy
energy. 

Forklift parks, and I use that term
loosely, considering what he does is slide
Machine
in between two R11-1
minivans like a sheet of paper between the building blocks of what’s left of
the Great Pyramid of Zahi Hawas.  Both doors can only open about two inches
each, so we have to use the sun roof like an escape hatch.  Forklift appears to
levitate out given his agility.  Bingo climbs up after him and I happen to
catch a glimpse of her thong that matches all things purple on her person. 

Yowsa.  Super nummy noms.

Wait, stop it.  Fireball, Fireball,
Fireball.  But Bingo, man.  Her smell, her colors.  The way she moves.  She’s
lithe.  Lithe?  Is that the word I’m looking for?  Yes!  Now stop it. 
Fireball, Fireball, Fireball.  You want Fireball...don’t you?

I shake off the momentary drooling
and attempt to climb out of
Machine
, distinctly aware that I’m like a
St. Bernard trying to jam its way through a cat door.

***

Inside
Diner
, we’re pelted
with the almost palpable smells of cheeseburgers (yes!) and fries, malted
milkshakes and real java made from coffee beans grown right here in what’s left
of the States.  None of that fake-bean nonsense. 

I hear Slaughterhouse Nine-to-Five
playing an ancient jive cover of an Elvis song through the jukebox in the
corner. 

Waitresses in pink and white
uniforms buzz around the room with trays of delicious goodies.  It’s vintage
all right, and I’m a little surprised that Bingo would be into this Holiest of
Ascension Holies, this Mecca of Mindless Munchies.  I ask her what the deal is,
and she says, “Take a look at the peeps in here.  What level do you think they
are?”

Forklift looks around, says, “Radar
recon sleuths an R10 to R9 hangtown.”

“Nope,” she says, grinning.  “You
can’t tell by looking at it, but this place is Rescinder friendly.  I’d be
surprised if anybody in here is over 11-1.”

Ah, blue sky.  That’s how Bingo even
knows this place exists.  I ask, “How come it looks so nice?  This place is way
beyond 11-1.”

We walk up to the hostess stand and
Wait to Be Seated, Please. 

Bingo dishes more about our
surroundings.  She says, “The owner Rescinded back to R10 from R5 about three
or four years ago.  He would’ve gone further but the Permits and Rules and
Regulations Office wouldn’t let him and still have a place like this while
sitting at R11-1.”

“There’s no danger of being in here
with them, is there?” I ask.  “We don’t want any more attention from the BAs if
they get bored and decide to hassle some dropdown punks, right?”

“No, don’t be silly,” Bingo says. 
“The R10 Rebel keeps it kosher in here.  I’ve never seen any
White Hearts
wannabes around.  Wait, no.  Just once.  But they were off duty.”

Forklift shows a moment of concern
that’s as rare as a coelacanth sighting by furrowing his coolest of cool
brows.   “Are you Punchline City, Bingaling?”

Bingo chuckles.  “Good God, listen
to you guys.  Both of you should be shooting babies out of your vaginas like
cannonballs.  Relax.  We’ll dine on the best burger you’ve ever had, mainline
some caffeine and be on our way in half an hour.  Forty-five minutes, tops.”

“Aight,” he says.  Shoulder shrug. 
“Let’s chow cow.”

I’m not convinced this is a good
idea, but I trust Bingo, and Forklift’s gut instincts are reliable, to a
point.  I decide to leave this one up to the gods for now, because I’m getting
a little delirious from hunger.  Plus, I haven’t had an old-fashioned plain
cheeseburger in ages.  I’ve gotten used to eating what’s headed to Wishful
Thinking’s trash bin at the end of my night shifts, so my stomach could use
some normal food for once.

I’ve had enough Fruitcake Baked
Ziti, Eggplant Brûlée, and Artichoke Cookies to satisfy me for the next
Election Cycle, which is a
long
time.  (Board Members serve six-year
terms, but the Re-Election Process starts about six months after they enter
office.  So between the Ascension Memorandums, the Apply Yourself brochures,
and the constant campaign sequence, we’re inundated with an oligarchical
marketing nightmare.  At least you can pay a fee to have their mudslinging
removed from your television but it costs so damn much that only R3s and up can
afford it.)

A big-bouffant blonde waitress
strolls up, cheerily popping her bubblegum.  Her nametag reads
Flo
.  How
relevant.  She asks if it’s just the three of us, then guides Forklift, Bingo
and me over to a four-top table in the center of the restaurant.  We’re way too
exposed here, and my back is to the door.  I can feel my heart rate rising. 
Bingo senses something is wrong, so she reaches over and puts a hand on my
thigh, gives it a small squeeze and then looks at me as if to say, “It’s okay,
tighten up your man-lady balls and enjoy yourself for a bit.”

I concede and try to relax. 

What’s the worst that could happen? 
Famous last words for some, but seriously, we’re sitting in a crowded, happy-camper
restaurant at 2AM, miles away from LX’s apartment and The Minotaur’s compound. 
We’re hiding in plain sight.  We’re goldfish in a koi pond, we’re daisies in a
field of roses, we’re dogs running in a wolf pack.  We’re the same, but
different.

Deep breath in, full exhale out. 
Deep breath in, full exhale out.  Nothing to worry about.

I’m ripped out of my fear cage when I
glance over the menu and see real food.  And no, I mean that. 
Food
. 

Food that R11-2s like me
should
be eating.  Hamburgers, steaks, vegetable dishes.  Actual, real, full-on
vegetable dishes like Buttered Peas and Carrots.  Not some crazy kooked-out
concoction that no normal human being should be eating like the hoodoo that
Dorna whips up in her visionary world of culinary delights. 

The concept of delivering something
unique to the masses, but remaining normal all the same is what Dream Chasers
is supposed to be about. 

Forklift and I agreed on that back
when the idea was a tadpole in the right hemisphere of our gray matter.  We’ve
yet to decide on what our specialty is going to be.  Forklift thinks it should
be Mom’s Homemade Fried Chicken and I think it should be Cheeseburger Variety
Hour, of course.  Nothing says we can’t do both and I keep trying to push that
on him.  He thinks it should be a constant theme so the customers always know
what they’re getting.  This is a huge contradiction in The World of Forklift,
since he’s continuously reinventing his own realm.

Another idea we’d love to try involves
heading down to the junkyard on the southern end of the city and buying an old
railway car, one of the ones that used to run on actual rails back in the day. 
We’d park it in a vacant lot, fix it up, and call it The Gravy Train, where we would
serve nothing but different varietals of biscuits and gravy.  But, direct
injection of gravy is so against what remains of The Board’s EOE Memorandums
that we’d be locked up before we even got the dust off the countertops. 

Plenty of time to figure that out. 
It’s not like we’re
completely
unprepared.

We’ve taken the steps to plot out a
highly sophisticated crime, which is one of the essential building blocks of
any successful corporate endeavor.  I’m convinced that half of all Ascension
happens that way, so why not us, right?

***

Forklift, Bingo, and I are still
looking over the menus when a different waitress, a big butterball blonde with
a nametag that also reads
Flo
, waddles over with lipstick as red as
Wishful Thinking’s Red Bell Pepper Pie and a smile as bright as the moon after
an Atmosphere Cleanse every third Thursday.  I like her immediately.  She reminds
me of my grandmother.  Her accent is thick, speech unhurried.  There’s no doubt
she’s from South Virginia, which is where I grew up.

She dubs each of us “Honey,” which
sounds like
Huh-neh,
as she takes our orders.  I get a Double-Patty Cheese
Beast with fries.  Bingo orders a light salad, dressing on the side, which
undoubtedly keeps her slender form in the toppest of notches, and as per
standard operating procedure,
Flo
has trouble understanding what
Forklift is trying to say.  Between the two of us we eventually decipher that
all he wants is a BLT and a coffee.

Flo
smiles away the awkward moment,
takes the menus, and trundles off.

I say, “Ok, Fork, we
have
to
figure out where LX might be and we don’t have time to translate the
razzle-dazzle, so keep it straight for a bit, dig?”

He rolls his eyes, sighs, and nods
in agreement like it pains him, like I’m stealing his humanity, stealing his
essence as a human Rubik’s Cube. 

I try to speak his language by
picking a few random words out of the dictionary in my head, in an effort to
humor him.  I say, “Sorry, buddy, we’re going porkchop on a hammer house with
some sunbeam freefallers and need oxygenated brain roads.” 

Bingo looks at me sideways with a
smirk. 

I have no idea what I said, nor did
I intend for it to mean anything, so I’m surprised when Forklift replies,
“Yeah, I know.”

Okay...
  “Good.  Now what the hell could
‘down the rabbit hole’ mean?  We know it’s
Alice in Wonderland
but
that’s about all we have.  I watch way too much television and way too many
movies and have gallons of useless trivia in my head, and I can’t think of what
he might mean.  He’s going somewhere, he’s gone somewhere, whatever, it’s a
clue, blah blah.  No idea.  You and Bingo seem to know every person and place
in this city between the two of you.  Are there any clubs that reference
Alice
? 
Any person he may know that has a nickname like The Mad Hatter?  And we have to
face the fact that he might’ve meant absolutely nothing at all by it.  I mean,
you said so yourself, Forky.  He jazzed the monkey and was trying to get the
hell out of his apartment in a hurry.”

“Nah,” Forklift says, “LX nails his
Ninety-Five Theses to the wooden door—” catching himself halfway through his
sentence.  “Sorry, I meant to say that he’s deliberate.  If he said it, it had
a purpose.”

Bingo leans up on the table and
rests her arm against mine.  The contact sends a little river of
woohoo!
up through my forearm, my bicep, down through my chest and into the other leg
of the tripod.

Good God, stop it!  Fireball,
Fireball, Fireball.  Concentrate!

She says, “What exactly happens in
the book?  I remember some of it.  She meets the White Rabbit, falls down the
hole.  Then some doors are locked, right?”