Nuklear Age (35 page)

“She, she’s got a point,” Rachel murmured. “We all die alone, so terribly alone.”

“What?” Atomik Lad shook. There was a squeaking in the back of his mind, persistent like a leaky faucet. “But...” He looked to Sorrow, to Rachel, down at the radiation hazard symbol on his chest. “Even if I do make a difference, even if I change every life on Earth for the better, it won’t bring back my parents, it won’t matter. Eventually, no matter what I do, no one will remember me. I am nothing waiting to unrealize myself.”

Still semi-shrouded in shadow, Sorrow’s black lips flowed into a devious grin.
I have you now
, she thought.

“HEY, SARAH!” a familiar voice boomed in the distance.

Sorrow’s victory smile shattered. “I told you to call me Sorrow!”

“WENCH! AND I TOLD YOU THAT TRUE SORROW IS THE EMPTINESS OF LIVING WITHOUT MIGHTY GULTANG TO GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE BATTLEFIELD OF LIFE, SLAYING THE UNDEAD MINIONS OF COWARDICE, RAZING THE CASTLES OF FEAR, RUNNING THROUGH THE KNIGHTS OF LONELINESS—”

“Can we not have this discussion again?”

“Wah, what’s happening?” Atomik Lad asked, feeling like he just woke up from a nap.

“I felt like listening to androgynous Euro-trash synth bands from the ‘80s. Kinda woozy,” Rachel said as she blinked away the grogginess.

“Look at what you did, Henry! I nearly had them and you burst in and ruined everything.”

“WENCH! I CANNOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR INABILITY TO INDOCTRINATE THIS PAIR INTO YOUR GOTHIC CABAL OF THE DISPOSSESSED!”

“And you were doing such a swell job of enlisting them into the Unholy Order of Gultang’s Living Vengeance, weren’t you?”

“WENCH! WHEN YOU MENTION THE ORDER’S NAME, YOU WILL DO SO WITH FEELING, FROM THE DIAPHRAGM! BESIDES, I WAS IN THE PROCESS OF HUNTING THEM DOWN AS THE EVER-VIGILANT BLOOD WOLVES OF DARKWOOD FOREST STALK THE WILY AND NIMBLE DEERKIN OF ELFINDRA WHEN THEY TARRY TOO LONG IN THE WOODS. THEN YOU FOUND THEM BY MERE HAPPENSTANCE AND SCREWED UP MY CHASE WORSE THAN A ZOMBIE WHORE OF RANKARNIA!”

“You know, Henry, you play too many roleplaying games.”

He fumed. “WENCH! AGAIN SAYS I, WENCH! AND ONCE MORE:
WENCH!”

Rachel and Atomik Lad watched as their religious persecutors quarrel. “Maybe we can get away,” Rachel suggested. Atomik Lad silently nodded and nearly made a motion.

“AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING, GULTANG-FODDER? HMM?”

“I suppose this is where I say ‘Nowhere,’ right?”

“UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH MR. CHAINSAW!” It blubbered into silence. “ER. IN THAT CASE, MAYBE YOU’D LIKE TO GET A WARM WELCOME FROM MR. FLAMETHROWER!” The flame flickered away impotently.

“Just like last week,” Sorrow muttered.

“HEY! I TOLD YOU! THE GULTANGIAN PURIFICATION RITUALS MADE ME TIRED AND—”

“Wait a second,” Atomik Lad interrupted.

“You’re
dating?”
Rachel finished.

“We’ve got common interests, rhetorical techniques, and career goals.”

“WENCH! I SPEAK FOR US, AS THE DOGMA OF GULTANG DEMANDS—”

“Henry, you don’t even own the Gultangian Ravager’s Handbook yet, so lay off quoting from it, hm?”

“WENCH! GRRR!”

“Look, maybe we should leave you two to work this out,” Rachel said.

“Yeah, this really isn’t any of our business,” Atomik Lad agreed, standing up. “You can get back with us later.”

“Honest,” Rachel lied.

A small army of robed fanatics marched onto the scene, led by the Zarnakian Zealot Atomik Lad and Rachel had the misfortune to meet earlier. “Peace be with you, and let the blood of heretics drown their families in the streets!” he demanded.

Henry turned around, “I THOUGHT WE GOT RID OF YOU, FRED!”

“You did. But I’m back. And now I’m gonna rain some righteousness.”

“YOU AND WHAT ARMY?”

“Zarnak’s Loyal Host of Pacifists!”

Henry was unimpressed. “FEH! I’LL ‘PASS A FIST’ RIGHT THROUGH EACH ONE OF THEIR DAMN SKULLS!”

“Zarnak’s love is endless,” Fred preached. “Perhaps you should take it up with him in the Afterlife!”

Atomik Lad snatched Rachel away as the war broke out. The Zarnakians hollered their menacing battlecries of “Love and kill thy enemy!” and “Life without pain knows not happiness: enjoy!” and “May death bring you the peace that we could not!” Sorrow sat on Henry’s massive armored shoulders high above the marauding throng of robes. As for Gultang’s ardent follower, he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

“HA-HA! PUNY WORMS! LOOK UPON MY SPIKY ARMOR AND BE AFRAID! I AM RAVAGER, HEAR ME BELLOW! WITH GULTANG IN MY HEART AND HATRED IN MY SOUL, I AM INVINCI—OUCH!”

__________

Rachel and Atomik Lad stood outside Wayne Hall as a slight wind toyed with her hair. “Well, thanks for having lunch with me,” Atomik Lad said.

She curtseyed. “Why of course, Mr. Atomik. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Atomik Lad countered with a bow. “The pleasure is all mine, Lady Rachel.”

“Not if you stay like that,” she said with a crooked smile.

“Oh my,” he uttered while standing erect—no—straight. Whew.

“But I’ve really got to get some work done.”

“
Dammit!”
it echoed against the brick building’s facade. “Uh, I mean. Oh. What do you have to do?”

She giggled at him. “Just some sketches for class. It wouldn’t take long, but I’ve been putting it off and I have no idea what I’m going to do. So I’ll probably spend most of the weekend throwing away a dozen crappy sketches before settling for a nice little still life.”

“Still life?”

“Eh, stupid professor doesn’t have much of an imagination. I keep coming back to Eastern styles and themes, ancient mythological, historical, modern, pop, you name it. Anyway, he hates it.”

“Moron.”

“Yeah, but a moron who can give me an F in the class, so I’d better start churning out some soulless garbage.”

“Have fun.”

“You too, hon.”

“Probably not. I’ve got to hit the sack pretty early tonight. Nuke and I have an appointment at Überdyne first thing tomorrow morning for our monthly checkups to make sure we aren’t going to explode or something.”

“Ah. In that case, be sure to dream of me.”

“But if I do that, then what’s a heaven for?”

She tried to hide a smile. “You really are silly, you know.”

“Could be.”

Rachel leaned close and gave Atomik Lad a quick peck on the cheek. “Gimme a call when you boys get back.”

“Huffalabbawa,” was his only response.

Rachel walked up the steps to Wayne Hall, unlocked its giant door, and disappeared inside. It took the sidekick several minutes to convince his legs to get movin’ again.

__________

Nothing interesting happened the rest of the day to anyone in the whole world. Just one of those things, I guess. But then Night, not paying attention to where she was going, fell.

The Silo of Solitude was quiet in the still darkness despite the presence of Nuklear Man, Atomik Lad, the Nukebots, Danger: Computer Lady, and Katkat. Also, the Silo’s nomenclature remained as unchanging as ever even though it had
always
had at least two residents and was itself composed of hundreds of billions of nanoscopic entities. But that’s not the point. The
point
is that the Silo was dark, still, and quiet save for the even breaths of those resting within it and the low, droning hum that emanated from every square inch of the Silo which isn’t very quiet at all now that I think about it. Okay, scratch quiet. The Silo was dark and still except for a commotion coming from the Danger: Religious Differences—fuck! Sorry. All right, seriously this time. The Silo was dark other than the areas illuminated by the Danger: Nightlights and randomly the blinking lights that adorned nearly everything from actual computer consoles to bookshelves.

I want to start again.

It was night time and everyone was asleep—Katkat was awake—I’m not listening to you! But, if Katkat was indeed awake, he would have found his new Danger: Katkat Bed to be very comfortable and spacious. Atomik Lad snoozed soundly in Danger: Nukie’s Room while Nuklear Man covered the Danger: Living Room Danger: Couch like a slain king snoring loudly. While slain? I quit. New story:

__________

Issue 29 – The Ravages of War

The Ancient Books told of a time of Unity, Purity, and Wholeness. All was One and One was All and it made sense when they said it. This was Perfection, Paradise. But then came the Sundering. The One was shattered into the Countless. Facets, each new and autonomous unto itself, each an individual alone and separate in a world which now flourished with suffering and death. But they could not take the memory of Paradise from their broken souls. Though independent, each strove to unite with the others, to destroy the barriers that kept them apart, to re-enter a state of endless bliss, dancing for eternity with all creation. But division begat division. The Countless were torn again in their desperate search for Unity. Lo, the irony! A duality had been reached. There were those who believed only the destruction of Evil’s Source could mend their wayward souls. Alternately, some believed that only by purifying each of the Countless by deep, personal, introspective self-analysis and discipline could they attain a state of consciousness which would allow them to ascend into one another once more. How such similar views could lead to such horrific bloodshed throughout a hundred generations is the tragedy of this race. Endless loss and sacrifice in the name of an idea. So noble, and yet so narrow-minded and unflinching.

She pondered this, the history of her people. A history of wars kept in a textbook of battlefields written in blood. Her cybernetically implanted sensors had not registered even the slightest disturbance on either side of the front line for days now. She had to face the truth. At last, the War of Unity was over.

And she was alone.

Hatred boiled within her. Hatred for the enemy, for her own fallen, for the Generals and Elders on both sides, but most of all, for the perpetrator of the Sundering. Finally, she spoke unto the barren and scarred field of ash and blood that surrounded her.

“I am the last of my people. We have known only war. I, Anne the III, vow on the grave of my mother, Anne the XVII—as I was named after my father’s sister whose name also happened to be Anne—to exact revenge upon The Anti-Arachnor!”

Ah ha! I tricked you, it’s still the same story, nya-ha. Thbbbbbpt. Foolish reader, you dare to believe my words.

The sleek Danger: Religious Differences door
fwoosh
ed open in the night that was not quite as dark, still, or quiet as it had initially appeared to be. Tiny metallic clicks clattered across the Danger: Floor. Anne’s little arachnid body was 83% cybernetic. It gave her everything from hover capabilities to life support, laser blasters, and energy shielding. Anne, like all good soldiers, had memorized the Ancient Scrolls of Arachnor, which spoke briefly of the outside world. She traversed its alien depths now, unafraid. Mighty Arachnor had seen fit to put her here, now on the stage of history, blazing new paths, the ultimate incarnation of her people. She had survived this long; the Great Heavenly Spider would not let her fail. She knew this. According to the Eight Paths of Enlightenment and the Books of The Web of Fate, the Anti-Arachnor could be found dwelling within the stinking bowels of the spiderverse. Anne calculated the numeric value of “Arachnor” using the Equation of Naming, but then reversed the polarity at the last second in order to ascertain the exact co-ordinates of the Anti-Arachnor whose real name could never be spoken or known.

“Just as I determined,” Anne spat. Exactly sixty-four octameters from the Danger: Religious Differences, Anne stopped and looked up at the ominous gates of Hell, or “Dangerinukiesroom” in the ancient tongue of most Holy Arachnor. Anne squared her shoulders, taking nearly a full minute to do so, and took one defiant step forward. Hell’s Gates parted.

__________

Atomik Lad slept fitfully. It was his first time on a round bed. The fact that it was symmetrical from any angle was off-putting. Still, sleep was one of his favorite things, so he ignored the instinct to be repulsed by the radial nature of his sleeping apparatus. Mentally drained from the bed issue, he didn’t even bother tackling the Danger: Wall of Accomplishments, much less the Danger: Vanity Mirror, the Danger: Other Vanity Mirror, or the Danger: Auxiliary Vanity Mirror (“Y’know, in case the other two suffer from a fatal system error,” as Nuklear Man had been known to reason). Those would have to wait for another day.

__________

Anne’s sensors were overloaded with the all-permeating aura of evil and corruption that seeped from every particle of the domain. She persevered. She had come this far, she could not be stopped. At the foot of Danger: Dreamship, or Mount Evil as Anne knew it, she could hear the beast’s low, even breaths.

“Gah! The Fiend slumbers, yet his nefariousness is so powerful that it poisons all this realm with his mere presence!”

Hover Mode engaged, Anne traversed the treacherous peak without once setting foot on it until the expansive and warped apex had been reached. The terrain here took on unnatural dimensions, hills and valleys rose and fell without reason. Ahead, though it may have simply been an optical illusion, she could have sworn the landscape actually moved, as if the land itself was breathing or a great serpent writhed under its depths. She crawled across the ever-changing world that threatened to suck her in or crush her in a great wave at any moment.

All the horrors of a lifetime of war had not prepared her. All the scriptures of the Ancient Books had not prepared her. The hideous maw of the Anti-Arachnor lay before her. The rage, the betrayal, the lives of untold millions all lost in the name of uniting what this bastard destroyed. She howled a battlecry “From Hell’s Heart, I stab at thee!”

__________

Atomik Lad dreamed. A cartoonish lobster in a bomber jacket was poking him in the face with a pencil. “Stop it!” he protested, but the lobster persisted. “Dammit, lobster. Lobster? Erg, this is a dream.”