Born Hard Again: Book Three of the Future Remembered Chronicles (24 page)

"Y-yuh-you can't f-fuh-fire m-muh-me," he crossed his arms.

I pulled Koochy aside.

"We need a new plan," I told him.  "They're going to kill us if we don't deliver on the taco salads you promised!  Argh!  Why did I let you talk me into this in the first place?  I should've just called in a miracle and said 'fuck it!'"

"Whachu talkin' 'bout, Willis?  I ain't said shit.  I say we fight those football headed motha fuckas," Koochy clenched his fists. 

"I don't like our odds.  It's us versus the whole city," I realized we had switched roles as I spoke what had been his advice just hours ago.

"Damn, P!  Ain't you good fo' nothin'?  Ain't you got like a whole shitload of jive ass tribes and shit?  Son, you 'posed to be a damn god or somethin' ya know what I'm sayin'?" he yelled back at me, clearly frustrated.

"Hmmm..." I stroked my bearded chin.  Maybe he was right.  I did have the twelve tribes of Boojina at my disposal.  Surely they could be of some use.

"I don't know that they would be good in a fight," I told him after a moment of contemplation.  "They haven't eaten in days.  They'd probably fall over if a stiff wind blew.  It would be a massacre."

"Ay, I got it.  Check dis," Koochy's face lit up.  "Put dem bitches ta work!"

"What?"

"Ay, yeah!  Yeah, dis some shit righ'chere!" he became more excited about his idea as he explained it to me.  "Dey hongry and shit, right?"

"Right..."

"Dey cold and homeless and shit, right?"

"Right..."

"And our bidness fixin' ta go tits up 'cause minimum wage so high, right?"

"I don't get it," I admitted.

"P!  Tell yo' boys ta work fo' dis here Taco Bell!" he revealed.

"What?"

"Tell yo' boys ta work fo' dis here Taco Bell, son!" he repeated himself word for word, but much more slowly this time.  "
Dey
goan make dem damn taco salads!"

"They're not going to want to work at Taco Bell.  Are you high?"

"Who give a shit what dey want?  You dey god!  Command dey asses!"  Koochy softened his voice significantly.  "Yo, it's good for dem, mane.  Dey need some jobs.  How you 'posed ta feed dem all?  Wit' yo' fucked up backfiring ass miracles?"

"Hmmmm..." I again stroked my immense beard.

It was my turn to have an idea.

"Maybe I could also use this to bargain with Ms. Dewey for the scroll," I told him.  "I'll trade her the promise of a veritable nation of fast food employees in exchange for my holy manuscript."

Marcus' jaw dropped and his eyes got immense.

"Damn, P!  Dat's da smartest shit you eva said," he shook his head in disbelief.  "Maybe you
is
a god!"

I turned to the terrified executive, who had not moved an inch since I pulled Marcus away.

"Tell Ms. Dewey I want a meeting," I told him with steel in my tone.

"H-huh-how am I s-suh-suh-suh-suh-suh-supp-suppuh-suppuh-supposed to d-duh-duh-do that?" he struggled.

"What?  I don't know.  Fucking carrier pigeon?  Figure it out!  Aren't you an executive?" I demanded.

The young man attempted no further speech and instead scurried off to do our bidding.

***

"Let me get this straight," Ms. Dewey said, her face projected onto the large screen in the executive conference penthouse suite.  Andar, our suave-haired Executive Executor, had managed to secure a tele-meeting with Ms. Dewey after all.

"You want to sell your people into slavery... in exchange for this one old scroll?"  she continued.  "A whole nation of people, for this one old dusty thing?"

I hesitated.  I hadn't thought of it like that.

"Uh, it's not exactly slavery," I told her.  "Andar said that minimum wage was higher than his salary."

"Andar, old chap, is a government employee," Ms. Dewey explained.  "He works for me.  And while he does get paid, his email alias is prefixed with an s-."

That didn't mean anything to me, but I pretended like I understood.

"And besides," Ms. Dewey went on.  "The whole botch job is that we can't afford to pay the blokes in the first place.  Your precious lil' buggers would have to work for free!"

I grimaced.  This was not the deliverance I had pictured myself providing so proudly.  Koochy picked up on my reluctance and jumped in to the conversation.

"Ay, ay Ms. Ladyparts!" he addressed Ms. Dewey.

"Excuse me, you cheeky bastard!" she retorted frostily.  "That's Ms. Dewey."

"Ay, girl.  You too fly to not be on no first name basis wit' da Kooch-Kooch!  Whass yo' name, gurl?  Yo fo' rea' name!" he cooed.  "What's yo' reee-al name, and not yo' kiiick-er name?" Koochy sang.

I could never understand Koochy's magic power over women.  It seemed any woman he set his sights on would eventually swoon under his spell.  Ms. Dewey appeared to be no different.  She blushed and giggled, which was very out of character for her.

"Hee hee," she raised a shoulder coyly.  "Cor blimey.  You
are
the cute one, aren't you!  Well, I'll tell you.  My name really
is
Ms. Dewey.  Ferrilamoy Stan Dewey... the third."

"The third?" I blurted out.

She looked annoyed I had interrupted her conversation with Koochy.  "Yes.  My mother was a Three Star General: Evamore Moiztann Dewey."

"Ain't you 'posed ta have tha same name if you tha third?" Koochy was puzzled.

Stifling a chuckle, I took command of the conversation again.  I had come too far to leave empty handed.  I had to have the scroll!

"Do we have a deal?" I demanded of her big face on the screen.

She seemed surprised at my directness.

"Oh.  Why, yes.  Yes, we have a deal," she laughed.  "You drive a hard bargain, young bloke.  Andar, see that our new employees are put to work. 
All
of them!  I want those assembly lines running at full capacity by this afternoon!"

"Y-yuh-yuh-yuh-yuh-y-yuh-yes, m-muh-muh-ma'am," Andar said and scurried off again.

Ms. Dewey opened her mouth to continue the conversation but before she could speak, the video signal became scrambled and distorted.  The screen turned to static and a harsh screech came from the speakers.

“Aww, sheeit!” Koochy yelled, covering his ears.  “Fuck like wha?”

The static resolved and revealed a familiar face.

“Felix!” I gasped in recognition.

“Yes,” declared Felix Navi Dod, amused.  “We meet again.”

“Mutha fucka sucka-ass fucka sucka…” Koochy murmured to himself.  He quickly turned to his compute pad with a funny expression and then winced, smacking his lips.  “I ain’t even hungry.  Cain’t goan eat my peta-bite chips.  Dey worst than olestra.”

“Your information security is already compromised, Marcus,” Felix’s gravelly voice intoned.  “Destroying your hardware would get you nowhere.  I hacked you in the clud.  Now listen to what I have to say.”

“I ain’t gots to listen to yo’ raspy dumb ass neither,” Koochy coolly replied.  “Look at yo’ stupid face.  Still hidin’ behind sum ‘in da clud’ shit, cain’t neva come face Big Kooch, numba one stunna!  Kooch still undefea’ed, son!  Best belee dat, come and front on me in person, show yo’ ass what fo’.  Unnngh!”

“I no longer want to challenge you to some petty hackathon, Marcus.  Haven’t you seen the big picture yet?”  Felix tented his fingers, pensively.

“Big pictcha?  Like yo’ ugly mug fillin’ up dis hurr screen?”  Koochy laughed at his own joke.  I was still concerned though.  Felix was the only hackmaster I’d ever known who could worry my best friend, and we still hadn’t even gotten a set of glasses for Marcus’s new face yet.  If this came down to a hackathon, I didn’t know if Marcus would come through.

“Marcus, Marcus.  Look at you,” Felix sneered.  “You had so much potential, and now it’s squandered helping some two-bit charlatan start a cult.  Pathetic.  If you’d joined up with the winning side, we could have worked together.”

“Mu’fuckin’ sellout yellow-hat honky!  I ain’t workin’ for da Good Man witchu!” Koochy yelled back.

“You never thought big enough, I knew this about you since we trained back in the temple.  Look at the recent advances in teleportation technology.  What did you use it for?  Marijuana.  And what did I use it for?  Developing secure computer communications.”  Felix smiled with both mirth and malice.

“But dat kush was dank, son,” Marcus recalled.

“Then there was the dark energy research behind Directive 34,” continued Felix in his criticism.  “I fostered the idea for Clarabelle69 and he developed it into an energy source with almost limitless power.  And you?  After all you’ve seen and learned from Directive 34, in the end the lasting change in your life is that you’re hanging out with some hairy midget with a penis sticking out of his chest.”

“Ay, dat’s on him.  I ain’t got no extra dicks,” said Koochy.  “’Sides, jus’ lookit Clara-belle six-ni’ now, kid.  He be pushin’ up daisies.  Big Kooch pushin’ stacks!  Unngh!”

“And now you think I would stoop to your level and enter into hackathon?  Hah,” Felix concluded.  He stared intently through the screen, taunting Marcus to make the next move in this chess game.

“Ay, hackathon be sum honor-a-burr shit, fo’ rea’!  Fuckin’ code o’ Dijkstra!”  Koochy spoke earnestly without his usual inanity, his brow furrowing in painful memories.  “Sensei Bob cain’t die for nuthin’!  You fuckin’ chump ass sucka!  I know yo’ ass din’t beat him furr and squrr!  Whatchu do behind tha shed dat one night?”

Koochy had often reminisced about his hackmaster training, but when he mentioned the shed I finally pieced together some of the stories and selfies he’d shared with me.  I realized Marcus had subconsciously tried to avoid mentioning Felix by name, but Felix’s dark presence was always there in the retelling of the past.  On quiet evenings after a few taco salads, Koochy’s tales would tend to return to that tragic night, sometimes soberly, many more times while he was higher than an orbital transport.

Marcus had first met his sometimes-accomplice, sometimes-rival back on the anti-Government message boards shortly after he’d met me.  Marcus and I had an immediate kinship, a strong bond formed from fending off rival high school gangs in drive-bys and also sharing tips about how to deal with gastrointestinal issues.

But when it came to hacking, I was no match for the likes of Marcus.  Koochy sought to practice his skills in friendly sparring matches.  I remembered having to help Marcus scrounge around for spare compute-pads behind the dumpsters at the DQ after hacking skirmishes had reduced his own to smoking ruins.  I realized these contests must have been with the younger Felix Navi Dod.

Both Marcus and Felix must have known that they would devote their lives to their art.  Koochy followed his rival to train in the hackmaster temple on the island of Shao-bin.  There they spent their days and nights in endless practice, repeating the basics of hacking until they were second nature and almost instinctive.  I remembered the first time Koochy had shown me the thick calluses he’d acquired on his hacking fingers; I admired the physical manifestation of his hacking experience as he twisted them up into a combination gang sign and explicit gesture implicating my mom in carnal acts.

After three years of relentless devotion and ritualistic purification, Felix and Koochy were admitted into the thirty-seventh chamber.  Most hacking acolytes didn’t even know such a chamber existed within the Shao-bin temple.  There in that hallowed ground they studied under the legendary Sensei Bob.

Unlike his taciturn recollection of Felix, Koochy had often regaled me with tales of Sensei Bob.  He was like a father to Marcus, a patient mentor who'd gifted him his first pair of glasses and enlightened him with the secret techniques of 2048-bit encryption.  I smiled, thinking of how Koochy lit up when discussing his teacher.

As with all hackmasters, their study revolved around the ancient and honorable tradition of the hackathon.  The utmost pinnacle of hacking technique, hackathons were violent and often to the death: a dangerous contest of pure will and zero-day exploits, wherein the truest hackmasters would rather die than yield their root certs or renege on their honor.

I’d seen Koochy easily dispatch one challenger in a hackathon before, when we traversed the desert expanse of New New Jersey.  That yellow-hat was just a junior student of Felix and had met a most disgraceful end.  Felix himself would not be so easy.

I then frowned as my wandering recollections led me to think of a video, the one I’d been reminded of when Koochy mentioned the infamous shed.  Marcus had showed it to me only once while drunk on something.

It began like any other video Marcus took: a close-up of himself doing duck-face selfie poses.
“Ay!” Marcus had said on the recording.  “My boy be challengin’ Sensei Bob, like BLAOW BLAOW!  Haah!  Peeps gotta challenge dey masta sometime but he ain’t ready fo’ dat, Fee-fee’s gonna get dropped!  Hackathon like whaa?  Hashtag hack, hashtag gettin’ scraight em-burr-assed!  Follow hashtag Big Kooch, kid!”

Marcus had then turned his compute-pad around to film the festive occasion: a student challenging his master to a hackathon for the first time.  Typically these sorts of friendly duels ended only in a few bruises and a hurt ego as the student learned from the harsh real-world lessons.