The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (17 page)

“That’s it,” said John O’Connor. “These are the coordinates.”

Bigbooté slowed the car and shook his head in response to an offer of a dry-cell battery from John Gomez. “No, thanks,” he said. “I’m trying to quit.”

John Gomez shrugged and raised the battery to his mouth, touching both poles with his tongue. His eyes rolled up with pleasure, and there was the faint odor of burning carbon.

“There it is!” exclaimed John O’Connor, having caught sight of the pod in the tree. “It’s the Nova Police, all right! Look—human hunters.”

“We’ll have to kill them,” said Bigbooté, parking the van behind the state police car. “We’ll have to kill them all.”

“No survivors,” seconded John O’Connor.

After a quick check of the crate containing Professor Hikita in the rear of the van, they got out of the vehicle and walked toward the space pod despite the warnings of the state trooper to stay back. Bigbooté, his murderous confidence growing, merely produced his Yoyodyne ID card.

“Yoyodyne, officer,” he said jauntily, to gain the poor fellow’s trust. “I think she’s one of our birds.”

The officer approached skeptically until he saw Bigbooté’s identification. “Bigbooté?” he said, pronouncing it Big Booty.

“Bigbooté,” Bigbooté corrected. “Chief Executive Officer, Yoyodyne Propulsion. And these are my assistants, John O’Connor and John Gomez. What happened here?”

Behind the lawman, the Lectroids could see the hunters still in a state of shock, standing near the grotesque body of the Adder. Gomez decided to walk over to look for himself.

“The duck hunters evidently shot the thing down,” the officer said, again glancing at the plastic ID cards. “Yoyodyne, huh? That big aerospace outfit?”

Bigbooté nodded. “Yeah, we were doing a little testing of a sensitive nature—I can’t tell you exactly what—there must have been trouble with the guidance system. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“It inconvenienced that fellow,” said the officer, indicating the dead Adder who at that precise moment was being kicked ruthlessly by John Gomez. Caught in the act, Gomez backed off. “What do you think you’re doing?” the officer shouted at him.

Bigbooté caught Gomez’s attention and gave him a signal as evanescent as lightning. “It’s okay, officer, it’s just one of our ’droids. We have some tools in the truck. We’ll chop down that tree and get everything out of here right away. John Gomez, why don’t you go back to the van and notify headquarters that the situation is under control—?”

The officer, by now totally off balance despite beginning to sense the menace of the three so-called business executives, protested feebly that nothing should be touched, but was outnumbered, as John Gomez went briefly back to the van and returned with a power saw. In the meantime, Bigbooté had called the hunters over on the pretense of questioning them so that they stood with the patrolman, Bigbooté and John O’Connor flanking them. None apparently had any idea of the peril they were in, Bigbooté’s mirthfulness having its desired effect in disarming them.

“Yeah, that’s one of our ’droids,” Bigbooté joked. “Must have been flying north for the winter.”

“You mean south,” replied one of the hunters.

“South,” laughed Bigbooté, his fearsome stare lingering on the quaintly dressed hunter who had caught his small mistake. “That’s why it was lost.”

“Looks like no ’droid I’ve ever seen,” said the hunter. “The other one ran so fast my dog couldn’t catch him.”

This was the first Bigbooté had heard of a second Adder, and it betokened trouble. By some odd conceit it had not occurred to him that a second Adder might have evacuated the craft. It was unlike Adders to move on foot. He conferred quickly with John O’Connor and dispatched him to scout the area. Where would a single Adder go? he wondered. Why were they out here in the middle of nowhere in the first place?

What he could not know, of course, was that the thermopod had been on its way to Buckaroo Banzai, following the azimuthal beam from the father ship detected earlier by Big Norse. What he also could not know was that my gallant chief B. Banzai was at that instant less than fifty yards from him, observing events from inside the van, where he had already freed Professor Hikita from the crate and informed him of the strange phone call enabling him to see Lectroids in their true form.

In addition, he had shown Professor Hikita the odd markings he had written in ink on the palm of his hand, as the phone call had “dictated” them to him. He had had no time to analyze them, did not even understand why he had scribbled them, except that in some manner or other they represented something of staggering importance. Having no time to copy them, he moistened his hand and pressed his palm to Hikita’s forehead, leaving behind an electrical shock and the symbols intact and legible, albeit reversed.

“There’s a motorcycle behind those bushes,” Buckaroo said. “Ride it to the Institute and get busy on these formulae. For some reason I feel we haven’t much time.”

“But what will you do?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Buckaroo replied. “I’d like to get a peek at Yoyodyne and see what we’re up against.”

“What do you mean, Buckaroo?”

“There isn’t time to explain. Just go . . . quietly.”

Without delay the professor slipped from the van to the bushes where the motorcycle was hidden, raising the heavy machine and pushing it some distance down the road before starting it. Buckaroo Banzai meanwhile worked his way closer to the thermopod in the tree. To say that he had never seen anything like it is tautological. Striving for a better look at it and the dead Adder, he circumambulated the field before finding a shallow pit ideal for his purposes. There, slightly below the general level of the ground and hidden by a copse of small cedars, he was afforded a straightaway look at all that was about to happen. Unfortunately for the hunters and the state policeman, however, his presence could not bias events. I will give the gruesome particulars.

While John Gomez pulled the crank on the gasoline-powered saw and prepared to cut down the tree holding the thermopod, the patrolman took it upon himself to intervene. Aware that state police reinforcements had been radioed for and believing John Gomez in fact to be a sensible corporate executive, the officer did not realize until too late that he was in mortal danger. Holding up his hands as if to say “that’s enough,” he stepped toward John Gomez and was quickly sliced in half by the marauder’s power saw.

At this, the hunters ejaculated in horror and were just as rapidly slain by John Bigbooté’s Herculean bare hands, as he banged their skulls together with a sickening thud. An attitude of professional and utter cold-bloodedness attended the entire operation, which took less than five seconds
in toto.
In that interval, three innocent men had been executed, and John Gomez turned matter-of-factly to saw the tree.

From behind his hillock, if I may call it that, B. Banzai gaped punily, for that was all he could do, given the speed of events. He lay in this state of great churning agitation, his chest heaving with thoughts of revenge, when he heard a sound behind him.

Nimbly reaching for his pistol and turning in one move, he found himself confronted by the snide smile of John O’Connor, the Lectroid which Buckaroo had lost track of, O’Connor having been sent to prowl the woods in search of the Adder John Parker. If the sight of the drawn pistol was intended to frighten O’Connor, it did not. (The Lectroid has no such reasoning. They are bred as fighters pure and simple, like the pit bulldog.) He merely looked at B. Banzai as if much acquaintance already existed between them and said, “Buckaroo Banzai. I can’t think of a fitter moment to kill you.”

And then he at once proceeded to attempt to make good his words, lunging powerfully but clumsily in Buckaroo’s direction, Buckaroo deftly sidestepping him and then planting a swift northeast foot in his groin. The kick was not without effect, momentarily doubling O’Connor over, although it would have put any “normal” man, i.e., a human being, in a hospital for a week. Still, the consequence of the blow was to provide Buckaroo an avenue of escape past the confounded beast who for a period of seconds could only shriek at a fraction of his normal volume. “Buckaroo Banzai!” he screamed, his usual basso profundo a profound treble.

Bigbooté and Gomez, of course, came running to join in pursuit of the hero with singleness of heart. Like canines, there was a plainness and simplicity to their thinking which permitted them to tear a man limb from limb in one breath and go romping off merrily like children in the next. Naturally, this was no consolation to B. Banzai at that moment, the Lectroids’ grunts and heavy tread so close behind; the fact that they would kill him in good fun detracted not at all from his dilemma.

As he ran, he urgently searched his pockets for his Go-Phone. I should add “with vigor” since the ungainly creatures, like heavy trucks, tended to be tireless and not at all slow once they had gathered momentum. Their kangaroolike jumping ability in addition enabled them to hurdle minor barriers that a man would run around, thus shortening B. Banzai’s already slim lead. Still patting his pockets, feeling every ply and folding of his jacket, still empty-handed, he reached another road—or perhaps the same, he couldn’t be sure—just in time to see a truck lumbering toward him. Outstretching his arms, B. Banzai charged the vehicle, thinking it might prove his deliverance when in reality it came exceedingly close to doing him in; sufficient reason for this could be drawn from the fact that the driver of the truck was Lectroid and “YOYODYNE” was emblazoned across the cab. Nearly too late did Buckaroo dodge the onrushing tons of steel and leap for the ditch, and by then the trio of Lectroids on foot were almost upon him.

With difficulty he picked himself up and continued running, but the Lectroids only redoubled their effort. They were clearly superior to any human, physically speaking, and there was no telling whether they were tiring in the slightest. What was evident was that B. Banzai was running out of time. There are a pair of maxims often heard at the Banzai Institute which come to mind here just as they doubtless occurred to Buckaroo in those last tense moments: “A thousand pities cannot undo one thoughtless act.” and “A fool can throw a stone into the water which ten wise men cannot recover.” I mention these here not to moralize but simply to illustrate that B. Banzai is merely human like the rest of us and fully capable of carelessness. In this case, losing his Go-Phone could have proven costly in the extreme. Were it not for organizational safeguards designed for just this sort of emergency, the world might have lost Buckaroo Banzai and in the greater sweep of things lost itself shortly thereafter, as I will show.

Out of breath, out of hope, having sprinted by now the greater part of a mile, B. Banzai determined to stand and fight. He withdrew his pistol, and as the three monstrous Lectroids came closer, he began to squeeze off shots, finding his mark repeatedly, and yet barely slowing them. Shots to the head fazed them apparently not in the least, likewise shots to the abdominal area. They kept coming, now joined by the truck, which had turned around.

Now out of bullets as well as the two commodities I have just cited above, B. Banzai prepared to defend himself barehanded. But if bullets had been of such little use, of what good were fists and kicks against these insensible brutes? If Buckaroo Banzai had ofttimes whistled at death, he now heard it laughing back and drawing nearer. And yet greatness in a man can be in some way measured by how little alteration the approach of death makes in him. B. Banzai took a slight step back to plant his feet more firmly and assumed a fighting crouch, when suddenly . . . How many times do we humble journalists employ that word and others as dismally frayed—“suddenly,” “without warning,” “all of a sudden”? How many times do we insert them to bestow drama upon the undramatic, excitement to the ordinary? But in this instance, the circumstances warrant them all, and more, for B. Banzai stood in the jaws of death, the Devil’s own breath upon him, no guardian angel, friendly spirit, or agent of nature apparently able to save him now . . . when all of a sudden, without warning, suddenly a ladder fell from heaven and snatched him from his enemies’ midst! Buckaroo himself could not conceive of it, having no time even to utter an exclamation of surprise at it, as Jacob’s ladder lifted him skyward and the noise of the helicopter directly above could now begin to be heard over the roar of the truck.

On the ground the Lectroids cursed in frustration (and they would curse again when they returned to the van to find their human cargo missing) at the sight of Buckaroo Banzai reaching the top of the ladder and being pulled aboard the chopper by a nine-year-old black youth wearing the familiar uniform of the Blue Blaze irregulars, that scourge upon evildoers everywhere.

“Welcome aboard,” the youth said, helping B. Banzai into the rescue craft. “Scooter Lindley reporting as ordered, Buckaroo. Pleased to meet you.”

For one of the few times in his life, I think Buckaroo must have been speechless. Anything would I have given for the pleasure of seeing his face, that huge smile of his that is so affecting at such moments, especially upon the young, who adore him.

“Very well, Scooter,” he must have said, or something of the kind, as he shook the lad’s hand. “The pleasure is mine, believe me. And who is this?”

He referred to the pilot of the craft, a handsome black helicopter jockey wearing the uniform of a gas station worker and a Blue Blaze baseball cap.

“That’s my dad,” Scooter stated proudly.

“Nice to see you again, Buckaroo,” the man said. “Remember me?”

Buckaroo, who I daresay has never forgotten a single face of the millions he has known, assented instantly. “Of course,” he replied. “Last year at the desert survival school.” The man nodded. “Your name . . . don’t tell me. It’s something unusual,” Buckaroo said, and after a moment he remembered. “Casper?”

“Casper Lindley,” said the man, astounded at Buckaroo’s memory. “That’s amazing.”

“Why?” Buckaroo asked simply. “You remembered me.”

That is the kind of man B. Banzai is. If Casper had not reported to me their exchange, I am certain Buckaroo would not have seen fit to mention it to me because he would have not thought the recollection of a man’s name at all remarkable. Never mind for a moment the fact there were at last count better than six thousand Blue Blaze irregulars world wide—men, women, and children who subscribe to the Blue Blaze newsletter; who attend selected symposia at the Banzai Institute, who submit their bodies periodically to rugged physical training at such places as the desert survival school in Nevada, the mountaineering school in Alaska, and a half dozen others around the globe; who are required yearly to make certain educational advancements; who are “on call” twenty-four hours a day to help B. Banzai in a pinch, or their neighbors in a natural disaster—it was only to be expected, B. Banzai would tell you, that he had committed to memory most, if not all, of their names. Blue Blazes were, after all, ordinary and yet extraordinary people.