Nuklear Age (34 page)

“Zarnak will still love you though. He will heal any wounds this windbag’s god can dish out.”

“HEY, LOVE-FEST, WHALE-SUCKIN’, FLOWER-GROWIN’, TREE-HUGGIN’, HASHISH-SMOKIN’, HIPPY-BOY! IT’S CALLED SHUTTIN’ UP, LOOK INTO IT!”

“Do not anger the god of unconditional love,” he warned.

“AH, UNCONDITIONAL
THIS!”
Henry swung a hitherto unseen mace with motorized spinning razors doused in some sort of hyperactive napalm at the Zarnakian Zealot who, as his religion demanded, turned the other cheek and ran to fetch reinforcements.

“NOW THAT WE’RE FREE OF HIS MEDDLING—” Henry realized his quarry had scrammed as well. He sniffed the air. “THE HUNT IS ON!” He dashed after them, clanging like an exploding junk heap with every step.

__________

“Do you think we lost them?” Rachel said between deep gasps for air. They paused behind a large tree some distance away. If not for the old academic buildings of the university that surrounded them, the area could have very easily been mistaken for a park.

Atomik Lad leaned over, catching his breath. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about any more religious freaks today.”

“That is true,” a mysterious voice agreed from behind them.

“Verily, for our gods are true and pure.”

Atomik Lad and Rachel groaned as their new prophets posed in order to clearly distinguish themselves from the ordinary riffraff. Amongst their number was an Indian, an Indian from India, a large Nordic gentleman, and a particularly angsty gothic chic.

“This is hell,” Rachel observed.

Atomik Lad steeled his already steely nerves. “Run. Save yourself. Warn the others. Remember me fondly, try not to think about the morbid nature of my demise.”

She gripped his hand tightly. “We’re in this together.”

__________

Nuklear Man dashed into his room with his usual heroic flare. So, of course, he tripped over a coat that had been carelessly cast across the Danger: Floor. He floated up and disentangled himself from the clothing conundrum, dropping the “Lousy backstabbing coat” to the ground. Pookaboo rolled out of the inside pocket. Since its optical sensors had automatically gone to infrared upon entering the deep, pocket, its eyes glowed a maniacal red—as no other color truly captures the idiom of maniacal. Due to this, and the horrendous lack of any Danger: Labels, not to mention Nuklear Man’s inherent lack of recollection regarding anything but himself, he Freaked Out. “Eeeek! A pocket monster!”

“What iz that fool babbling about now?” Dr. Menace asked the computer screen.

“Kill it! Kill it!” Nuklear Man shrieked while trying to stomp the vicious red-eyed Pookaboo doll of infinite evil. But, thanks to Dr. Menace’s brilliance, the autodefense.exe program easily maneuvered the Fubar out of harm’s way while forcing Nuklear Man into a one-man mambo.

“That idiot must have stumbled onto my scheme. No matter. Fubar, disengage surveillance, activate escape plan Omega!”

Pookaboo zipped out of Danger: Nuke’s Room into the more expansive Danger: Living Room. Nuklear Man leapt to the doorway, but alas, Pookaboo had already made it to the Danger: Launch Pad.

Being a strategic genius has its advantages
, Nuklear Man thought to himself. “Katkat! Thunder Pounce Attack!” The feline nearly awoke from his perch next to the Danger: Supercomputer. “Accursed, yet snuggily cat!” He blindly reached toward the dresser next to the door for any loose object to hurl at Katkat, and hurl he did. A little ping-pong ball bounced off Katkat’s furry scalp. One eye cracked open then shut even tighter than before as he yawned and recharged his cat-batteries from the exhausting effort of sleep.

__________

Dr. Menace growled as she pushed the Launch button for the tenth time. “This iz the last time I use those inferior Bolivian ignition switches.”

Meanwhile, Pookaboo, the source of all evil now and forever, made cute little hops in its futile attempts at blasting off. Around the globe, eighty-three percent of the world’s Fubar population rocketed themselves around the house at speeds in excess of 200 mph. Only a young boy, Edward, was injured during this escapade, but that was on completely unrelated matters involving a bowl of wax fruit and a bowling trophy.

“Now’s your chance, Katkat! Thunder Pounce Attack!”

Katkat washed his face.

“That doesn’t look like—hey! You’re not doing it, are you?”

“Mreow.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid of battling a pocket monster. No one ever got hurt fighting. Honest.”

“Meowr?”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt me. I’m pretty typical, I think. Other than the being superior to everything part.”

Katkat was either unconvinced or had no way of comprehending what Nuklear Man was talking about. One way or the other, he stood his ground by sitting on the Danger: Supercomputer Table.

“Aww, shucks,” Nuklear Man hovered next to his new favorite sidekick.

Pookaboo, the somewhat diabolic Fubar doll, continued hopping on the Danger: Launch Pad.

“Here. Lemme help ya,” the Hero said to Katkat. “Thunder Pounce Attack!” He pointed to the hopping Fubar, made sure no one was looking, and Plazma Beamed the Fubar to slag. “You did it, Katkat! Yay!”

“Meow!”

__________

Dr. Menace stared into her giant screen. It was a blizzard of static. “On to Plan E.”

__________

Atomik Lad ran like he hadn’t run in, well, the past few minutes. He kept himself between Rachel and the pursuing prophets who couldn’t take “No” for an answer. Nor, it seemed, could they take “Get the hell away from us, you damn new-age god freaks!” in jest. Or as anything short of a reason for blood sacrifices for that matter.

“Mighty Thor! Strike down thine doubters!” the one known as Jarl Jarlson bellowed to the heavens.

A bolt of thunder crashed in front of Rachel, barely missing her by inches. “Ack!” she exclaimed in shock while falling over herself in mid-stride. Atomik Lad leapt for her and reflexively enveloped both of them in his Atomik Field. He flew them away from their antagonists almost before he realized he was airborne in the first place. The earth zoomed a few feet under his stomach while Rachel clutched to his back.

“Saddle up, baby.”

“Any time,” she said, causing Atomik Lad to almost tumble into the ground. She looked back at their hunters. “I don’t like being chased.”

“Well, neither do I.”

“No, no, no. You’re supposed to say ‘I’ll take care of that.’ Don’t you know anything about double entendre?”

The Swahili Swami shouted, “Many hands of Vishnu, grapple and capture the heretics so that we may sacrifice them to your—”

“Hey now,” Chief Silent Wind interrupted. “Who said you get to do the sacrifice? Wolf will get the sacrifice of this worthy prey.”

“Why?”

“He’s more deserving.”

“But I think Vishnu is more deserving.”

“And I think great Thor is the only god mighty enough to deserve this sacrifice.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t count because it’s not what I believe.”

“Hey, Silent Wind. Make like your name and shut yer air-hole.”

Unfortunately, the Many Hands of Vishnu sprouted from the very earth in front of Atomik Lad and his lovely passenger. He pulled up and back in a loop. The religious nuts, lacking neat powers of flight, ran headlong into their own trap without missing a beat of their divine quarrel.

Atomik Lad touched down and his field dispersed. Rachel was wrapped around him piggyback style. “You can get down now,” he said.

She leaned her cheek against his. “Do I have to?”

His entire body quivered. “Mercy.”

An black ankh the size of a pen flashed across their field of vision and pierced the earth between Atomik Lad’s feet. Instinctively analyzing, processing, and tracing the projectile’s trajectory with their eyes, both sidekick and college girl found their gazes met by a small woman with a ghastly pallor that contrasted grotesquely with her black leather, black lace, black dress, black lipstick, black fingernails, black eyeliner, and dyed black hair. Each hand held the opposite shoulder in a quasi-Egyptian mummy fashion. She fanned her fingers. A black ankh identical to the one just thrown appeared between every finger. “You’re not out of this yet. You still have to contend with me, Sorrow St. Angstie Ankhmyre!”

Rachel climbed down slowly.

Atomik Lad grumbled, “Damn.”

__________

Issue 28 – Combative Religions

Katkat slept soundly on the Danger: Coffee Table. He had to recover from the strain of waking up for a few minutes several hours earlier. He did this comfortably despite the position of his neck in relation to his spine, or his spine to his legs. Such is the power of cat. His whole body was in an impossible S shape with cute little tufts of white fur being all sticky-outy along his belly.

Nuklear Man examined Danger: Sparky’s Room’s door with careful measurements made by rough estimations. He held a Danger: T-Square in his right hand and a Danger: Blueprint in his left. He compared some figures with his Danger: Field Notes which made no sense architecturally speaking since they consisted entirely of the statement, “Gosh, I’m hungry.” He slid the Danger: T-Square around his Danger: Blueprint to convince himself that he was being professional.

“Feh. This is easy.” He gingerly approached the door, thoughtlessly tossed his Danger: Architect Gear somewhere to the side, peeled the Danger: Sparky’s Room label off with surgical patience, and replaced it with a Danger: Katkat’s Room label.

Upside down.

He leaned back to review his craftsmanship. “Perfection!”

“And where will Atomik Lad reside?” Danger: Computer Lady inquired.

“Eh, he can sleep on the couch. But not when we have company.”

__________

“This alleged Atomik Field of yours is very irksome,” Rachel commented as she and Atomik Lad took cover behind a brick short wall lined with newspaper machines that were being pelted by razor sharp black ankhs.

“You cannot escape Sorrow!” their aggressor yelled. And then – silence.

“Maybe she took a wrong turn?” Rachel whispered as they huddled for cover.

“What wrong turn? We ran straight to this spot, jumped the wall, and ducked here,” he said.

“No offense, but I’ve noticed that most of these villains of yours aren’t too bright.”

“None taken, but—”

“The Queen of Anarchy, Anguish, and Angst eyed her unsuspecting prey as they clung to each other pathetically,” Sorrow’s voice seemed to radiate from everywhere.

“Not another Self-Narrator,” Atomik Lad mumbled as he eyed the high and leafy branches of the tree on the other side of their wall. “I
really
hate those.”

Sorrow continued. “Look at them, nearly as pathetic as those teenybopper kids going to the mall every weekend, tenaciously clinging to the hope that their meaningless lives have some shred of significance while they try on blouses at The Gorge and watch EMPtv for the latest edition of Real Life or Road Trip—as if there’s a difference—while debating the latest occurrences of Demographic Place. Saturating their minds with these contrived and clichéd media amalgamations designed to keep them placid and unthinking, never being aware of the maze, just rats waiting for the next New Backstreet Kids Who Sing ‘N Tandem 2U4ever video.”

“I don’t know where the hell she is, but that’s incredible lung capacity,” Rachel noted.

“Sorrow stroked the cold, hard, black metal of her ankh-darts, her weapons of choice for delivering sweet death unto the banal masses. Such bittersweet irony that the ankh, a symbol of life, should bring the sharp sting of death upon her prey!”

“Wait a second, you’ve killed people?!” Rachel blurted.

“Um, Sorrow could not hear the girl’s question, for Sorrow was drunk with the eroticism she found only in bringing death.”

“Gah,” Atomik Lad’s face twisted. “This would be morbid if she weren’t such a poser.”

“I am not a—er, Sorrow decided to strike down the brash young man first. The spark in his eyes, the luster of life which flowed through his every vein, oh, how it would make for an exquisite flame to extinguish upon the alter of my suffering!”

“She’s not even making sense now,” Rachel said with an annoyed huff.

“Sorrow gripped the ebon ankh by the flat of its razor shaft and took aim for the young man’s supple flesh.”

“Hey!” Rachel protested.

“But whether his screams of agony or the shrieks of terror would be the more pleasing, Sorrow did not yet know.”

“She sounds crazy enough to be dangerous,” Atomik Lad worried.

“Sorrow’s arm silently rose, her heartbeat quickened, oh how her blackened soul danced in these moments.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Rachel soothed.

“Easy for you to say, she’s not aiming at you!”

“Shhhh.” She held him close, and, indeed, all worry was gone.

“Sorrow could no longer hold back, she needed the sweet taste of death, the release that only oblivion’s embrace could satisfy!”

Atomik Lad cringed.

“But alas, what’s the point?” Sorrow stepped out from the shadow of the large tree, yet she still managed to stand outside of direct sunlight. “Nothing matters. I’m so angsty, no one understands me. We’re all so alone, why should I do anything? Pleasure is fleeting, a rare experience that is gone before it can flourish. It makes this dreary life all the darker once it is gone.” She slumped to the ground, pulled out a black magic maker, and began drawing ankhs on the back of her hand. Atomik Lad uncringed and noted several half-faded ankhs had been drawn up and down her arms.

Rachel leaned against the hot, coarse brick wall. “It’s not that bad,” she said.

“Oh, but it is,” Sorrow insisted. “I’m alone in a cold, godless, uncaring universe without meaning. Nothing I do matters, no one can understand my pain, no one can love this,” she motioned to her-black-garbed-self.

“There’s so much good in life, Sorrow,” Atomik Lad began before being cut off.

“What good is in pain? Hell, what good is in love? Sooner or later one of you tires of the other and there’s betrayal, pain. All life is pain. Is it so wrong to not want to be hurt? And what if it is true love? What then? Maybe it’ll last a few years before the universe perverts it into pain like everything else—or, failing that, it’ll kill off one of you leaving the other as an empty yearning shell. Pain or weakness? Give me another choice, anything but this endless sea of suffering!”