Born Hard Again: Book Three of the Future Remembered Chronicles (21 page)

"Don't talk about TK like that!  Wait, so you're saying we have some scum of the earth socialist soccer hooligans coming at us now?"  I looked closer and could tell they were indeed wearing soccer cleats and swastika patches.  "Because we ruined their neighborhood or something?  It sucked anyway!  Fuck!  Alphonso, shoot those assholes!"

"Preston, are you sure?" Alphonso queried.  "Remember the last time?  You got mad at me!  You hurt my feelings.  I was sad, you kno--"

"Shut yo' sucka-ass sucka mouf!" Koochy interrupted, grabbing at the weapons joystick and squeezing off a long burst of automatic explosive shells.

Even though he meant to shoot the assholes in their dumb faces, Koochy's impromptu gunfire ended up strafing the ground in front of the approaching mass of soccer players instead.  Nothing but a few puffs of harmless dust and dirt hit the first row of our attackers.

I was amazed at the impact this had, though.  Nearly all of the members of the threatening mob immediately fell over, clutching at their shins or heads.  A swell of noise came from the crowd.

"Are those boos?  They're booing us?  Really?" I groaned, flabbergasted.

I watched two men roll around on the ground in exaggerated pain until they bumped gently into each other, then after reflexively doing a straight-armed salute with their red-banded right arms, they belatedly screamed in agony and flopped on their backs.

"Yellow card!" one screamed through gritted teeth.

"This is what we're up against?" I lamented.  Surely there must be some trick, something I was missing.  "Why am I always up against nameless hordes?"  My life's ongoing challenges were truly Sisyphean.  At least I hadn't tasted shit yet today.  This was a metaphor for something, I was sure of it... 
The prophecy?
  I shook my head to get back to the problem at hand.

I peered out the side of the cockpit to look behind our hovering ship.  Even in their weariness, my large army of followers had a hardened, menacing look about them.  They had come all the way from Old Cleveland on this pilgrimage so I could deliver them to their holy scroll, and they were obviously not going to put up with any shit here.

"What tha fuck, mane," Koochy brought my attention back to the encroaching soccer mob.

They had forked their ranks in a split down the middle.  This allowed a gang of uniformed men to come jogging out to the front line.  They began moving their arms repeatedly in a diagonal direction toward the ground.

"They're signaling... something," I thought aloud.

"Ay, hol' up," Koochy was holding his compute-pad up.  "I jes got dis hype ass SCCR app.  Lessee what dis bitch can do for muh!  Work for muh, you ol' crap ass, app ass, app."

He paused for a moment, waiting on the device to be ready.

"Motherfuck!  What tha fuck is yo problem, thang?" Koochy smacked his compute-pad against the cockpit dashboard.  "Hell naw, I don't wanna update now.  Do it look like now is a good time ta update ta you?  Goddammit!  Fuckin' auto-update bullshit!"

I shook my head.  This was getting us nowhere.

"Try again, Alphonso," I encouraged him.

"Urm... the guns aren't responding, Preston,"  Alphonso confessed.  "I think they might be overheated."

"How can they be overheated?  We only fired like three shots!" I complained. 

"Something's wrong with the cooling system, I think," he shrugged.  "I got this notice about
In-Ship Purchases
being available.  Maybe they didn't unlock the cooling features on this GMS?"

I groaned, reminded of the controversial commercialization of our country's military supply chain.  After decades of protest, the Good Man raised the pay for enlisted citizens to sky-high values.  The catch?  They had to buy all of their own equipment and health care.  Nowadays, new recruits got a pair of skivvies and a roll of toilet paper on their first day in the armed forces, but everything from that point on was their financial responsibility.  Of course, advertisers and tech start ups rushed in to monetize the troops and everything went to shit after that.  The Good Man's forces spent most of their time consuming advertising and playing first person shooters on their VAGs.

"What are we going to do, Preston?" TK asked, curiously. 

I knew what I was going to do.

"Gods gonna god," I said grimly, then emerged from the GMS-KJH86.

"Wait, what?  Where are you going?" TK called after me, but didn't follow me out onto the snow.

Even though I possessed only the weight of a baby, the sound of my landing on the frosty ground was a deafening thud.  It shook the horizon and immediately brought a hush over the crowds, both of them.

We stood there for a moment, under the ageless sky; two enormous hordes of people standing face to face.  Separated only by a hairy baby Jesus with a ten foot penis arm snaking lazily in the air.  Strained faces tensely awaited my next move.

I opened my mouth to speak, with no idea what I was going to say.

***

Before I could say anything, I saw Koochy trying to get my attention from inside the ship's cockpit.  I didn't have a compute-pad, or any other kind of micro-com, so I couldn't hear what he was trying to communicate to me.  Turning my torso to him, I shrugged with all three of my shoulders. 

"Fuck you,"
I could clearly read at least this phrase on his lips.  He pointed back behind me to where the twelve tribes of Boojina stood.

"Oh,"
I silently mimed back with my mouth. 

Looking behind me, I saw that Aoas had separated from his five remaining guardians and was quietly and slowly floating over to me.

"Aoas," I greeted him.

When he arrived beside me, he stopped. 

"Это было все, предсказанное , милорд," he said, flatly.

"Argh," I shook my head.

I made the international sign for "just one second" by holding up my index finger to the dark mass of soccer hooligans.  The crowd of disheveled football fans, as well as the uniformed men who were previously hand-signaling in unison, had remained still and quiet after my dramatic exit from the GMS-KJH86.  Now, upon seeing my request to delay, they came back to life; resuming their booing and synchronized gesturing.

I was just about to beckon to Koochy to join me out on the ice when he hopped out of the ship of his own volition.

"Thanks, man," I told him as he came to stand beside me.  "Need your compute-pad."

"Ain't no thang," Koochy shrugged and tossed me the handheld electronic. 

I loaded the translator app, dismissed a few unwanted ads for penis enlargement, then prompted Aoas to repeat himself.

"Just as it was foretold, my lord," he spoke.

"You mean,
this
is part of the prophecy?" I asked, motioning towards the band of sports fanatics.

"Yes, my lord.  It is foretold that you will be persecuted by cretins, idiots.  Those who cling to the perishable avarice which is hierarchical human competition for no sake other than their own entertainment.  This is the first trial on the path to establishing your eternal kingdom," he explained.  At that moment, I was incredibly grateful that Aoas was such an expository speaker.  He made my role of fulfilling prophecies I knew nothing about much easier than it would have been otherwise.

"The
first
trial?" I hoped I had heard him wrong.  It felt like I had faced a lot of trials already.

He nodded with his burning eyes.

"Yes, lord.  It is foretold that you will submit to suffering at their sinful hands.  They are the defilers!  Everything they touch is stained," he warned.

"I'm not feeling up for being their plaything," I whispered to Koochy.  I had experienced enough death and resurrection already.  "We need a better plan."

"Why don't you flex yo' powers, son?  Yo ass all miraculous and shit," Koochy counselled quietly at my side.

I hesitated.

"Every time I call on my name, it goes a little screwy," I explained in a whisper.  "This is case in point.  How did we end up in New London instead of Detroit?"

"Quit lettin' yo'se'f down, sucka," he reprimanded me.  "Yo ass deserve betta."

"...than myself?" I made his implication explicit.

He shrugged.  "If da shoe fit," he stated.

"You must submit to their persecutions!" Aoas interjected, more forcefully than I had come to expect from him.  When I looked to the mob of hooligans, I saw why.

The crowd had again split down the middle as it had when the uniformed squad of gesturers had come forward.  This time, however, a raggedy group of slave women were advancing a large netted contraption to the fore of the group.  The structure was not enormous, but was much larger than me.  Rectangular in form, the iron frame was propped up on its side.  The netting was stretched between the metal beams and billowed in the frigid breeze.  The frame and netting were fixed to a heavy platform made of wooden planks that was being pushed through the snow like an oversized sled by the naked and filthy slave girls surrounding it.

A sinister chill rang up my spine as I realized that there were shackles hanging in the center of the overall structure.

"Penalty kick!  Penalty kick!  Penalty kick!" to my surprise, the crowd began to chant in British-accented, but otherwise perfect, English.

"Uh, nofuckingway," I muttered to no one, but Koochy heard.

"Sheit, I got dis, mane," Koochy put a hand on my chest as if to say "stay".

"What?  What do you mean?" I didn't get it.

"Jes watch me, sucka," Koochy was done explaining himself and stepped forward to face the increasingly raucous sports fans.  I noticed that numerous independent vendors had appeared and begun working the crowd.  Plastic bottles of twenty-first century beer and various stupid-looking wearable accessories were being pitched around the sea of people; all of whom were eagerly awaiting my persecution in a way that reminded me of high school.

"Ahem," Koochy raised his palms to quiet the rowdy fans.  "Bitches.  All!"

Amazingly, the crowd allowed Koochy to command its attention, and the noise quieted once again.

"Aw, yeah, dat's right!" Koochy was pleased with himself.  "Big Kooch on dis m-i-c, y'all sons-a-bitches!  Now, fo' rea', we 'bout ta do it.  Looka here, ya'll knuckle-headed snow 'groes!  So, now, pimp dis.  Y'all be likin' dat Taco Bell?"

"Your mum likes Taco Bell!" a British voice called back and laughter erupted.

"A'ight, a'ight, y'all some brave niggas.  I can see dat.  Paece!" Koochy smiled, confidently.  "But fo' real doh, I mutha fuckin'
run
Taco Bell, son!"

I could see the crowd was skeptical of this statement.  Murmurs of disbelief and cries of "bollocks!" emanated from the sports fans who were rapidly losing interest in Marcus.

"Pen-alty kick!  Pen-alty kick!" the chant began to re-emerge.

"Ay, how 'bout free Choco-Tacos for urrybody?!" Koochy quickly announced.  Cries of "Booo, we hate Choco-Tacos!" and "Fuck Choco-Tacos!" were his reward.

"Shit, a'ight den.  Y'all some picky bitches!" Koochy smiled again, pleased to still enjoy the attention of the crowd.  "How 'bout dat righteous ass Taco Salad!  Taco Salad for urrybody!"

The hooligan mob froze in place.  Even the slave girls dragging the penalty kick structure forward stopped and straightened their misshapen backs.  A single, collective gasp escaped thousands of mouths in unison.  I wasn't sure if it was the acoustics of the uncanny valley playing tricks on me, but it sounded like the gasp was shared by the twelve tribes behind me as well. 

"Taco salad!  Taco salad!  Taco salad!"  A new chant arose and grew quickly in ferocity.

"Wow," I stepped close to Koochy and muttered.  "These guys really like Taco Salad."

Koochy nodded.  "Shit, who don't?" he smacked his mouth.  "Dis goan make our shares dip, yo.  Taco salad da most bougie shit on da menu, yo.  How many mothafuckas you thank dis is?"

I was flabbergasted.

"Uh, I don't know.  Look, I don't care if we actually give them the taco salads or not.  I just don't want to be persecuted," I told him.

"So, basically, you a pussy," Koochy recast my statement.

I groaned.  "Can you just get them to let us in the city?  Maybe we can find out who runs this place and they know where my scroll is.  Plus, my followers are wrecked.  It's been days since they've eaten, right?  Let's get them some taco salad too?"

"Hell naw!  Dis ain't no motha fuckin' charity, son!  Dem lazy bitches needa work dat grind if dey wanna eat.  Dog eat dog worl', homey!" Koochy set a boundary.

Before I could challenge his logic, he sucked in a huge breath and turned to address the New Londoners.

"Ay, y'all!  Break yo'se'vs!  Run fo' tha boa'da,
mothafuckas!
" he pointed his dark and lanky arm directly at the stratoscraper brandishing the Taco Bell logo. 

The crowd cheered and again unzipped itself down the middle.  We now had a clear path into the heart of New London.  The only problem was that the penalty kick structure had not been moved, and did a solid job of obscuring our way forward.