Born Hard Again: Book Three of the Future Remembered Chronicles (22 page)

"Uhh, don't they need to move that?" I leaned over and whispered to Koochy.  "I don't think Alphonso can fit around it."

"Ain't muh problem," Koochy voiced his lack of concern and strode on past it.

"Ohhhkay," I guessed I would follow his lead. 

When I reached the imposing steel structure, however, the slave girls quickly came together, shoulder to shoulder, to block my route.

"Uh, excuse me?" I tried to no avail.

"Penalty kick!  Taco salad!  Penalty kick!  Penalty salad!" the crowd became confused by multiple chants.

"Damn, P!  Don't be a pussy!  You scurred of a damn socca ball?  Shit ain't hard, son!  Man up!" Koochy looked over his shoulder and teased me.

I considered his advice.  He was probably right.  I wasn't sure what a "penalty kick" was, but I did have faith in my powers of the future remembered.  I was slowly learning that if something truly terrible was about to befall me, I would likely be able to avoid it.  Could this be the dawn of a new era?  Were the worst parts of my life behind me now?

Deciding to submit to the crowd's call, I dropped to my knees on the snow, bowed my head and raised my palms to the sky.  A cheer erupted from the soccer fans; the silence of grim acceptance was all that could be heard behind me.

The lithe slave girls came over to accept my surrender.  Despite their grimy demeanor, they were astonishingly beautiful.  As they smiled and nodded in welcome of me, I recoiled at their unsightly teeth.  How could people this beautiful on the outside have such hideous dental deformities?  I imagined it would take evolution more than a millennia of poor oral hygiene and terrible genetics to produce chompers that looked like these.

They led me atop the platform that supported the weight of the heavy net.  A couple of the slave girls clasped the dangling manacles around my limbs; they even had a shackle for Bronson, who seemed dejected to be constrained.

"Brrronnnnsssssonnnn,"
he hissed in despair.

The girls that had bound me hopped down from the platform, leaving me alone and spread-eagled hanging in front of the net.  The acclamation from the soccer fans became deafening as the slaves re-took their positions at the base of the structure.  They began trying to push me back towards the city they had come from.

"Whoa, hey, wait a minute," I objected.  "Aren't you guys supposed to hit me with a ball or something?  Where are we going?"

My words of concern were wasted in the cacophony surrounding me.  The starving and dirty slave girls found purchase on the slippery earth beneath them and very gradually, painstakingly, we began to inch forward.  I continued to yell for answers, but to no avail.  It became clear that whatever "penalty kick" meant, it was not going to happen before we reached the city. 

Koochy was walking proudly in front of me, waving to the crowd as if they were here to see him.  I could see the individual sports fans comprising the mob very clearly now, much better than before.  They were predominantly young people.  They looked normal enough and could have originated from any post-modern city on the planet.

"Oh man, their teeth..." I mumbled to myself as I realized that no matter how they looked in other aspects of their person, their teeth were similarly warped and snaggled. 

"Dat's right!  A'ight den, ho!  Stay fly!  Whoa, shut yo mouth, girl!  Damn!  Ay, you too, son.  Stop smilin' at me like dat!"  Koochy was having fun with the crowd, who seemed fixated on our bizarre procession.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw that Alphonso and TK were closely following us in the GMS-KJH86.  Behind them, Aoas and his robed guardians led the rest of the tribes.  Slowly, we all made our way towards the glimmering skyline of New London and our future history.

***

Shortly after entering New London, we reached a wall made of heavily armed and uniformed men.  At first, I thought them to be a barricade meant to block our further progression into the city.  Upon taking a closer look, I realized they were protecting someone they were clustered around.  An important political figure, perhaps? 

It seemed I would soon find out, as the slave girls heaved and hoed me towards the military forces.

"What?  Ho, shit!" Koochy exclaimed. "'phonso!" he yelled into his compute-pad.  "Get that ship outta here.  Good fuckin' Men, yo!"

"Those guys aren't with the Good Man," I overheard Alphonso respond with certainty.  "They might be a local militia?"

Koochy looked at me with a concerned expression on his face.  Then he stepped forward to address the armed forces in front of us.  The slave girls must have reached their destination because they ceased their exertions and scattered into the crowd. 

After a moment of pregnant silence, a tall and voluptuous dark skinned woman emerged from behind the line of soldiers.  She looked to be from the middle-east area of the planet Earth; perhaps she was Indian.

She walked confidently and powerfully along the row of armed men.

"Who are you?" she said in a thick British accent.  "Crikey.  Who... are all of you?" she gestured broadly to the twelve tribes that lay beyond me.

"I... I..." I hung my head, my muscles aching from hours of being stretched out on the iron net.  "I am Cleveland Jesus," I admitted.

"Indeed you are," the exotic beauty commented.  "And... them blokes?"  She bared her teeth as she gazed upon my flock.  I noticed that unlike her countrymen, her dental work was pristine.

"My followers," I said proudly, straightening up to my full midget height, as best I could within my restraints.  "They are my disciples.  And with whom do I myself have the pleasure of speaking with me?  …  err, with whom?  Do I?" I tried and failed to construct my sentence appropriately.  She seemed really sophisticated and my command of the English language wilted in front of her worldly, refined demeanor.

"You may address me as Ms. Dewey," she said, her accent giving her words an elegant lilt.  I noticed she was carrying a coiled whip and she smacked it on her hands for emphasis as she spoke, pacing back and forth in black patent leather high heels.  "You know why you are here, do you not?  Your trial of contrition?  Your penalty kicks of atonement?"

That didn't sound good.  I cringed, awaiting a vision from my future remembered.  Even with my fear of pain, I simultaneously felt Bronson get engorged at the thought of Ms. Dewey punishing me.  He strained against his manacle.

"Preston Chesticles!" TK's thought came unbidden into my mind.  "Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"

"God dammit TK, I'm a god, you can't just barge in like that, Jesus!" I responded, blaspheming against myself.  "I'm still busy doing god things, okay?"

I sensed that TK was at least mollified.  I couldn't play the god card too often though.

"Yes, I am willing to face the endeavors that were foretold," I announced.  "But tell me, Ms. Dewey.  In truth, are you in possession of the scroll?"

She deliberately paused for a minute.  The look on her face told me she was toying with me. 

"I have many scrolls.  And I have a brilliant system of organizing them that I created myself," she lectured as she paced.  "I know what you want, Mr. Jesus.  What I don't know is whether you are worthy to receive it yet."

"I'm not worthy enough to receive my own prophecy?" I asked, incredulously. 

"Hey!" a shout rang out from the crowd of New Londoners encircling us.  "Where's our taco salad!  Taco salad!  Ta-co sal-ad!  Ta-co sal-ad!"  It was obvious the soccer people were most comfortable when mindlessly following along in chant.  The thought crossed my mind as to whether I could convince them to follow me instead of their meaningless athletic competition.  I allowed myself a slight smirk; I was getting the hang of this god shit.

Ms. Dewey smiled broadly, brandishing her gleaming white teeth.  The effect was both beautiful and terrifying.

"You seem to have a promise to fulfill," she used both arms to refer my gaze to the demanding citizens of New London. 

"I didn't make that promise," I said without thinking.  "He did!" I implicated the nearby Koochy who seemed to be wearing an expression that said "
who, me?"

"
Ah!" her eyes grew wide as she looked at my tall, black friend for the first time.  "And who are you?"

"Bitch, I be Koochy," Koochy spat, with contempt. 

Instead of becoming indignant, Ms. Dewey blushed and smiled coyly. 

"So... you promised my people taco salad?" she continued, striding closer to him.

Koochy nodded.

"Ho, I run Taco Bell wit' my boy here," he gestured to me with a lean of his head.  "Ain't no thang.  We ballin'.  We gen'rous," he concluded.

Her smile took on a knowing quality.  Instead of responding to Koochy or myself, she turned her presence to the crowd around us.

"So then it shall be!" she boomed, her voice becoming far more commanding in tone and projection.  "Let us eat taco salad!  Our great taco famine will soon... be...
ooooooverrrrrrrrr!
"

The soccer fans began cheering again.  Koochy and I shared a confused look.  The crowd was clearly completely on her side now, she'd somehow taken our PR stunt and turned it around on us, using it to her advantage.  I had to respect her marketing and branding prowess.

"But, first!" she slowly and menacingly turned her attention back to me.  "Penalty kick!"

I grimaced and tensed my body in preparation to receive whatever blow was coming.  However, nothing immediately followed her declaration.  What happened instead is that the slave girls, who had been providing the locomotion for the platform that held me, moved quickly to swarm Ms. Dewey.  Somehow there were so many of them that I lost sight of Ms. Dewey's smooth, dark skin and gleaming white teeth beneath the fury of limbs and movements.  After a few minutes of this, they abruptly stopped and disappeared back into the crowd.

Ms. Dewey had been completely remade, visually.  She was now wearing a beautiful and unwieldy red gown.  Three huge, bouffant roses made from creatively scrunched fabric decorated the dress and would have made it impossible to sit down while wearing it, I thought.  Her shoes were perhaps the most striking part of her outfit.  The heels were easily three feet tall.  The rest of the shoe body was covered in what looked like rusty iron spikes and a myriad tiny needles.  There was a discernable ruddy color to them, and I recognized it instantly as dried blood. 

"So,
this
is the penalty kick," I allowed myself a slight smile at the relief that it wasn't some fate far worse than this.  I could handle getting kicked with those shoes. 

Ms. Dewey began to approach me, malice in her eyes.  She enjoyed doing this, I could tell.

"Where's the vision?" I thought to myself.  With every step she took towards me, I became  more concerned that I was not remembering a terrible future that involved me being kicked.

"Wait!" TK's voice caught me by surprise.  It somehow rang out over the din of the mindlessly chanting sports fans and ushered in a period of silence. 

Ms. Dewey's eyes were beyond me now; fixed on TK, I presumed.  I tried to look back at her as well, but couldn't find the degrees of freedom needed to do so. 

"And who... are you?" Ms. Dewey asked, skeptically.

"Never mind who I am," TK said.  She had left the confines of the GMS-KJH86 and was standing on the snow next to me.  "I will not let you hurt my precious Preston.  He's done nothing wrong.  In fact, he's been more helpful to these people than any other large group of people I've seen!  And Marcus even promised you all taco salad.  Why do you want to hurt us?"

"You are a bold, beautiful woman," Ms. Dewey checked out TK with a lurid gaze that roved from head to toe.  After a moment of contemplation, she continued.  "I'll make you an offer.  Either you can take his place in the net," she motioned to me.  "Or, you can take your place in my harem!" 

My eyes grew large in surprise.  That was why I hadn't seen a vision.

"Ohh shit!" Koochy howled.  "Ol' girl down wit' da pus'!"

"Kick me," TK answered without flinching.  "I'll take his place in the net."

A gasp went up from the crowd.

Ms. Dewey cocked her head to the side.  That was clearly not the answer she had anticipated.  She took a second to squint her eyes and look over TK again.

"I misjudged you," she said finally.  "Interesting.  Are you... sure... this is what you want?"

TK nodded, her eyes closed and lips pressed firmly together.

"Yes, just fucking do it already," she committed.

"Then it shall be so!  Penalty kiiiiiiick!" Ms. Dewey announced, whipping her followers into a frenzy.

My followers watched morosely as their prophecies were fulfilled.  The slave girls reappeared and began unshackling Bronson and I.

"TK!  What are you doing?" I hissed at her once I was free and she was on the planked stage.

"Don’t worry about me, Preston," she consoled.  "My body has seen far worse.  Anyway, I can heal on my own.  We'd have to find you a surgipod."

My face crumpled.  This was real love.  TK was putting herself in harm's way so that I might pull myself out of it.  I didn't deserve such a beautiful, selfless companion.