Fools of us All - Chapter 31

“Cool.”

The lack of awe and the eager anticipation in Spin’s voice irked me almost as much as his little smile. Obviously he had no understanding of the difficulty of the mission ahead of us. Luckily I was able to keep a clearer perspective. “Okay, I think I’ve got it,” I said testily. “We can head back down.”

As I had half expected, Spin resisted. “Why bother?” he asked, taking a step outside of the tunnel door. He turned and shivered slightly. “I need to see the sunshine, at least for a little while. It’s so dark and grim down there.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not much better up here,” I snapped. “The world sucks, Spin, and there isn’t much we can do about it. No one’s happy anymore, no one’s satisfied. People live, work, and die, and that’s it. If you’re lucky, you don’t lose your job and you can die with some dignity, but most of us get thrown out on the street at the slightest provocation, and that’s the end of that.”

A sceptical look replaced the grin. “It can’t be that bad,” he said naively, crossing his arms and leaning against a wall. The tunnel door had opened at the end of a dead end alleyway which happened to frame the religious archival building perfectly. I was starting to get nervous about being spotted.

I was also getting angry with my new friend. “Look at me,” I said, indicating my clothing. My pants were ripped, my shoes had holes in them, and my sweater was dirty, ragged and threadbare, barely covering my grimy t-shirt that was underneath. My hair hadn’t been washed since before this entire ordeal began and was cut unevenly from doing it myself without a mirror a couple of weeks ago. “I’m not atypical. And, as we’ve just discovered, I’m not even the worst that the world has to offer.” I waved my hand at the tunnel. “There’s a whole world down there that is worse off than me!” I put my hands on my hips. “Now are you coming, or do I have to drag you back down the tunnel!”

He regarded me seriously for a long time before half-turning to gaze at the archival building. “If it’s so bad, if nothing can be changed, then what are we doing?” he finally asked.

“We are…” I began, but I couldn’t find an answer. “I don’t know,” I finally said miserably. “I guess I just want answers, even if they don’t change anything. The past year has kept changing, and each change has been worse than before. A year ago I had a small apartment, a cat, a job, friends, and a regular life. Sure, I ignored most of the bad things that were around me, but I had succeeded. I could afford to have an actual marker at my father’s grave instead of number.

“And then someone snatched the rug right out from under my feet and I found myself living on the street, eating worse food than my cat could catch on its own, struggling to survive, only to find out that things were worse than I thought. I find a family but have to start fighting everything I once held dear because it was all built on a lie!” The words were tumbling out of me. I knew I should stop, that every moment exposed was another moment closer to discovery and death, but it was as though I was no longer in control.

“And then, just when I think that I am doing fine again, that I have purpose, I am told that there is this goddamned prophecy about me suddenly everyone I know is killed because of it. And to top it all off, after risking my life and nearly dying to get you here, I find out that everything I knew was a lie, that everyone I knew was a lie.”

The words stopped suddenly and my mouth snapped shut with an audible click. I was breathing hard, clenching my jaw to keep the tears at bay. I had cried enough. “I just need to know some truth, any truth, even if it’s hard to accept.”

Spin turned to look at me again. “Fair enough,” he said mildly. He took a step towards the tunnel, and then stopped. “Just give me another second,” he said, turning to look at the building again, and to breathe the fresh air deeply. “What’s that beeping sound?” he wondered aloud.

I was curious as well. A soft beeping had started, quickening pace as it rang. I looked around, finally letting my eyes rest on the door, which had swung inwards to rest against the tunnel wall. I stepped over to it, placing my ear against it before stepping further into the tunnel so I could look behind it at the wall. “I think it’s coming from the door,” I said, slightly disappointed that there was no corresponding light as I had expected, though why there would be I was not sure.

“I wonder what it means,” mused Spin. As though it were waiting for that exact phrase, the door suddenly slammed shut, moving faster than I had thought possible for such a large and thick door. An ominous sounding series of clicks and similar sounds came from the now shut door.

I blinked a time or two to get my eyes used to the dim light. Stepping cautiously forward, I grabbed the handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. Frantically, I began to pull harder, alternating between twisting, pulling, and kicking the door, but nothing would make it move. Hitting the door one final time, I took a deep breath and turned around to face the inky darkness. There was nothing to do but continue on and hope to find him later.

If either of us survived.

Thunderfunk the Superchicken - Chapter 30

Background on the Back Grounds

“Well, that was embarrassing,” huffed Thunderfunk the Superchicken as he and Straw Daq exited Cornelius J Breadbuuter’s house. “You had to scream like a terrified child, didn’t you.”

Straw shrugged helplessly. “You never have to deal with Tom and his sock puppet. It’s unnerving.” He ducked a hail of arrows, likely poison tipped, that thunked solidly into the wall of the house.

“Unnerving or not,” replied Thunder as he hopped gracefully over the logs rolling down the lawn, “you should be more polite. I can’t afford to lose face against Breadbuuter, not when the competition is so close.” He swung a fist, knocking back the attacking gorilla, making it think twice about attacking again.

Straw leapt, grabbing the giant scythe is it swung by, riding it to the top of its arc before jumping onto a nearby tree to disable the laser that was coming dangerously close to scoring a direct hit on his boss. “What’s up with the whole ‘keeping score’ thing anyway?” He clambered back to the ground, bopping a pair of assassin squirrels on the head on the way. “I’ve never quite understood that whole concept.”

“It began when we were both much younger and committing dastardly acts on a small scale.” Thunder, in an amazing display of agility and speed took out five ninjas with ease. “We weren’t always rivals. At one point we were good friends, willing to work together to (nice kick) carry out our plots. However, he began to think that he was better than I at planning heists and performing acts of evil which led to a falling out.” He paused for a moment, watching his young friend wrestle a tiger for a few moments, thinking of times gone by. “We would have killed each other long ago were it not for our competition. And, I suppose, there is a modicum of respect between the two of us.” He kicked the small dog across the lawn, smiling at its yapping.

“You realise that the dog wasn’t attacking us.”

Thunder shrugged. “I regret nothing,” he replied. A snake fell on his head, only to be seized by the neck and used as a whip against the two pirates that charged out of the trees to his right.

Straw had his hands full avoiding the blasts from a particularly aggressive robot. Finally he managed to get behind it and pull out some essential wires, leaving it free to rampage at random, destroying the giant boulder that was hurtling towards them. Some of the pieces of the boulder smashed into the hidden machine gun bunkers, eliminating yet another threat. “Why does he always wait until we leave to attack us?” mused Straw.

“He likes to lure us into a false sense of security,” replied Thunder. Nothing else seemed to be coming their way, so he straightened up, dusting off his jacket, and strode forward.

Straw followed, watching behind them to keep an eye out for last ditch efforts at eviscerating them.

“Lava Crocodiles,” said Thunder mildly.

Straw’s head whipped around. “For the last time,” he began, “there are no such things...” He stopped suddenly, waving his arms to regain his balance. His toes were hanging over the edge of the lava pit and he could feel the heat radiating upwards. Swallowing hard, he stepped back and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Walking carefully around the pit towards the Harrier Jet, he began muttering to himself. “I don’t see why anyone would even need lava crocodiles. Isn’t lava deadly enough on its own? It’s just redundant is what it is. It’s like putting poison on a guillotine. Once your head is chopped off, the poison isn’t going to do much. It’s excessive is what it is. And in tough economic times like this, isn’t it prudent to keep things simple? Sheesh...”

Thunder merely smiled.

An evil smile, of course.

Fools of us All - Chapter 30

I stood behind Caz for a long time, yawning and stretching, wishing we had spent more time sleeping. The past few days had been hectic and I was starting to lose energy. It eventually dawned on me that we had been standing in the same spot for a long time. I looked at her and noticed that she was hugging herself, rocking back and forth on her feet. Her shoulders were hunched and seemed to be shaking a bit. I stepped closer and realised that she was crying for some reason. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she replied tearily.

I stepped around so that I was facing her. I felt this was important, even though I could not see her face in the dim light. “Nice to know that even in the future women are still the same. Now tell me the truth, what’s wrong?”

“We’re lost,” she said simply, sniffling softly.

“Oh.” I looked around intensely until I remembered that I had never been in this year before and was of little help. “Well, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we sneak back to the surface and scope things out. It might be nice to see the sun again.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “I think we both need that right now. It’s been a tough few days.”

She nodded, but didn’t reply. Silently, she turned around, heading in the direction we came. I could tell by how she was carrying herself that she was still extremely unhappy.

We headed back up the tunnel until we reached the nearest offshoot. I followed Caz, not saying much, wondering what was really bothering her. Sure we were lost, but that was not overly surprising. Neither of us had been in these tunnels before and there were no landmarks to help us on our way.

I was so lost in my musings that I almost ran into Caz, dancing to the side at the last second. She had stopped at a bend in the tunnel, the first we had come to. She was peering around the corner. I stepped back, hoping that there had been no one around to see me. Caz looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Smooth,” she said.

I stood behind her and looked around the corner myself. The tunnel came to an abrupt end ten feet away, but there was a glowing outline of a door in the wall. We watched and listened for a long time, but heard and saw nothing. Finally I whispered to Caz. “What’s the plan?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Ah.” I waited for a moment and then came to a decision. Moving quickly, before Caz could stop me, I walked up to the door and flung it open, stepping to the side to avoid the hale of bullets I was sure was coming my way. When nothing happened, I peeked around the corner and had trouble coming up with words to say. A building was perfectly framed in the door, far enough away to be seen completely was one of the most impressive buildings I had ever seen. It stretched into the sky, it’s shape vaguely reminiscent of an ancient ziggurat. The building looked as though it were composed of gold. A huge staircase led up to a massive set of heavy looking doors. The building was surrounded by a ten foot high fence topped with razor wire. Guards patrolled the grounds and stood their post at the doors. A massive statue of a mysterious figure topped the building.

Caz stood beside me, not saying anything.

“Is that where we’re headed?” I asked, my voice quiet with awe.

“Yeah.”

A small grin touched my face. “Cool.”

Thunderfunk the Superchicken - Chapter 29

Keeping Tally

“So, as you can see, my latest scheme is worth a great deal of points, perhaps as many as nine?” Thunderfunk the Superchicken noted his charge’s entrance into the room behind Cornelius J Breadbuuter’s assistant who appeared to be wearing a sock on his hand. “It was a masterstroke of evil, dealing with my nuisances in one fell swoop. And,” he continued, stroking his chin, “I dealt with a number of your nuisances as well. That should entitle me to a bonus of QR points.”

Breadbuuter stamped the floor with a cane that he had not had a moment before. After pronouncing “Bah!” and “Poppycock!” to Thunder’s suggestion of a bonus, he waved his hand dismissively. “You did not ‘deal’ with the problem so much as delay it. These heroes have a nasty habit of surviving defeats and coming back to fight stronger than before. You have only succeeded in making them angry. Feh. A bonus, he says.”

The two villains settled into a spirited discussion on the merit of a bonus and the possibility of a penalty for leaving the heroes alive, though depowered. As they argued, Straw turned to his counterpart. “What’s the score at the moment?” Realising that he had just addressed the sock puppet, he closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He needed a vacation away from this madness. Opening his eyes, he spoke to Tom, making eye contact. “What is the score anyway?”

Slowly, Tom reached into his back pocket and pulled out a book. With exaggerated leisure and the occasional sidelong glance, he flipped through the pages until he came to the most recent update. “Well, pending the outcome of their current argument, Cornelius is leading by a score of Q12 to Sheep.”

“It’s pretty close.”

“Mm-hmm.”

...

“Do you have any idea how they keep score?”

Tom’s sock puppet slowly turned to face Straw. “Not a clue.” Straw was not sure who had answered, Tom or the puppet. When the thought that maybe Tom was the puppet ran through his head, he decided that was a good indication that he was on vacation as of that moment. Throwing his hands up in the air, he walked out of the room, feeling the eyes of the puppet following him as he left.

A final maddening thought struck him: Where had the cane gone?

The two arguing villains paused for a moment at the bloodcurdling scream of anguish that came from the front entrance. Thunder smiled. “Cornelius, you sly dog. You failed to mention that you were currently in the midst of torturing a prisoner.”

Cornelius shook his head. “My dungeon is empty at the moment. I just assumed you had brought me a present.”

The two looked at each other and then together they looked at Tom, who merely offered a wan smile before going back to petting his sock puppet.

Or was the sock puppet petting him....

Fools of us All - Chapter 29

We walked for a few more hours in the dim light, occasionally coming across other people, but for the most part we were left alone. I wondered about that briefly, curious to know how many people lived underground and used these tunnels. There was evidence that the number was relatively significant, and yet we had hardly seen anyone thus far.

Eventually, at Spin’s insistence, we stopped to rest again. A small depression in the wall gave us a place to settle for a bit of shut eye. The previous night had been long and the walk had been difficult…

I awoke with a start at the sound of voices coming down the tunnel. Instinctively I pushed myself back into the shadows. A group of four or five people came walking by, talking quietly to themselves. I was sure that they would see us, but if they did, they paid us no mind. Perhaps we blended in with what people expected to see down in the underground, or maybe they didn’t perceive us as a threat. Or perhaps they just did not care any longer. Whatever the case, they walked by, their voices echoing in the dimness, too indistinct to be understood. Soon they were gone.

Shaking Spin by the shoulder to wake him up, I got to my feet, stretching my stiff muscles. “This is no time to sleep,” I said, keeping my voice low like those who had passed by. “We have an archive to break into.”

Yawning, Spin rose to his feet as well, stretching and rubbing his eyes. “Do we have a plan yet?”

I headed back into the tunnel. “We have the start of a plan. If I’m right, we are nearing the religious archives. It’s my guess that one of these tunnels will lead to a secret entrance to the building. We’ll have to sneak in and then figure out a way to move around unnoticed.” We rounded a corner, and my heart sank. The tunnel, which had been running straight with the occasional side passage running across it, much like streets crossing each other in the city above, had suddenly opened into a large room that had five separate tunnels branching out from it. A quick study of the tunnels showed that they all turned in different ways. I knew approximately which way we had to go, but I wasn’t sure which tunnel to take to get there.

My heart sank to my knees. We were lost.

Thunderfunk the Superchicken - Chapter 28

Mr. Googly is Pleased to Make Your Acquaintance

After lying on the floor screaming for a long time, Straw let his voice trail off to nothing. Picking himself up, he dusted some imaginary dirt from his shirt. A terribly realistic painting of a young man holding a knife was on the wall, the evil grin on the face seeming to mock him. Taking a deep breath he turned around and stumbled back in fright, crying out at the sight of a shadow directly behind him.

“Is there a problem with the young sir?” asked Butler, the butler.

Rising to his feet once again, Straw shook his finger. “Don’t go around scaring people like that. I think that violates the butler code!”

“Very good, sir,” was the only reply. The butler stood motionless, saying nothing more.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” snapped Straw. “I’m fine. Get out of here.”

“As you wish, sir,” came the slow, dry reply. “But I feel I must warn you...”

“Just go!” interrupted Straw, pointing the way.

The Butler nodded and walked away to do his buttling. Satisfied, Straw turned around and screamed in terror at the young man lurking behind him. He backed up a few steps and leaned against the wall, trying to get his breath back. “My heart,” he gasped, clutching his chest.

“You don’t look so well,” said the other man, a sickly looking smile on his face.

“I’m fine,” said Straw testily through gasps for air. Every time he came here he hoped he wouldn’t run into Tom, but it seemed like, without fail, Tom would show up and make him feel...uncomfortable. The man just wasn’t right.

“That’s good, that you’re good,” said Tom, still half hidden by shadow. Somehow he managed to lurk just by standing there. It was unsettling. “I would hate for anyone to be a guest in our home and to be anything less than good.” The smile stayed frozen in place even as he spoke. His hands were crossed behind his back, his heels together, a slight bow to his legs that was not noticeable beneath his pants. Straw had seen him in shorts a time or two and that was the only reason he knew. Tom was wearing a stylish suit that was a half size...wrong for his frame. It somehow managed to hang awkwardly without looking conspicuously too large or too small.

Pushing away from the wall, Straw tried to collect his dignity - even the bits that had crawled into the corner for a bit of a nap. “I’m going back to the sitting room,” he said with false bluster. “I think Thunderfunk is going to need me.”

“I’ll come along,” said Tom, his smile broadening and remaining frozen at the same time. As he stepped forward, his left arm came up until his hand was about chin level. Covering the hand was a sock puppet. The googly eyes had crude eyebrows that were drawn downward in an angry position. Around where the mouth should be a thin red tongue hung, swaying slightly with the motion of the hand. “Shall we?” said Tom, leading the way.

As Straw walked behind Tom, he noticed the sock puppet slowly inch above Tom’s right shoulder until it was resting there, staring at him. The googly eyes bounced with every step, but somehow always seemed to remain focused on Straw. The most massive chill that Straw had ever experienced ran up and down his spine. He hated this house.

Fools of us All - Chapter 28

“I have no idea what to do now,” I muttered in the darkness, “or where we’re going.” We had been walking for what felt like hours in the dim light of the tunnel. Caz had been leading us down path after path, taking seemingly random turns until I was thoroughly lost. Truthfully, I was lost after the first turn, but that situation did not improve as we continued.

Caz had said nothing to me the entire time we were walking. As we walked, she had stopped frequently, peering up, staring at the ceiling, speaking to herself under her breath. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she seemed very adamant about something.

Suddenly she stopped and looked back at me. “Did you say something?” she asked.

I nodded, a futile gesture in the darkness. “I was wondering what the plan was,” I replied. “Plus, I’m lost, my feet hurt, I’m hungry, and I want a break.” I cringed inwardly at how whiny that had sounded.

“Okay,” she said and sat down where she was, leaning against the wall.

Slightly taken aback, I stood for a moment longer before joining her on the slightly damp floor. We sat without speaking for five minutes, her leaning back, her head tilted to face the ceiling; me leaning forward to play with the laces on my shoes. I had meant to ask her about the plan, but another thought struck me and almost asked itself. “Have you found alien life yet?”

I could almost hear her blinking with surprise. Slowly her face swung to look at me. “Me personally?” She sounded confused.

“No. I mean in general. Back in the present…I mean past…your past, that is…my present…” I rubbed my face, the lack of sleep obviously catching up to me. I tried again. “In my day, people theorised about the possibility of alien life, but no one had ever been able to prove anything. Has that changed?”

“Ah.” Her eyes drifted back to the ceiling. “Well, nothing official. They’ve started mining other planets, specifically the moons of Jupiter, and the asteroid belt, but no aliens have been reported. There’s talk, of course, about government conspiracies and cover ups, but that’s nothing new.” She shrugged. “I guess things haven’t changed. Although, I like to think that my dad saw something amazing out there before he died.” I couldn’t help but hear the sadness in her voice.

Wanting to distract her from the sadness I knew lived just beneath her surface, I started to regale her with stories of my youth, of times with my friends doing things that were, frankly, stupid. I often wonder how me and my friends stayed alive through high school. She laughed at my antics, making me repeat a few things that she found somewhat less than completely believable.

After the stories ran out, and the tears had been wiped from our eyes, I leaned my head against the wall, doing my best to ignore what was going to end up in my hair. “Seriously though, what’s the plan here? Are we just going to wander underground for the rest of our lives? Because I like the sun and want to see it again before I die.”

“There is a plan,” she replied. I sensed a bit of hesitation, but I didn’t interrupt. “It involves the prophecy that brought you here.”

“Damn,” I said. I hated that thing.

“I know. I never told you what Dun said to me before you killed him. There was more to the prophecy than he had told me. There was more than one prophecy. I don’t know what the truth is anymore.” She turned to face me. “I’m tired of only knowing what other people have told me. It’s time to learn for myself. We’re going to break into the religious archives and read the prophecy for ourselves.”

“The religious archives? Like, a church?”

I could hear the smile in her voice. “Kind of. But imagine the best guarded place in your world. Now imagine that it is guarded twice as well. Now imagine that instead of guarding gold or money, it is instead guarding ancient religious artefacts and writings.”

I swallowed hard. “I knew there was a catch.”