Not Everything Brainless is Dead (3 page)

Honking erupted from behind the two vehicles. The other commuters felt that a staring contest, no matter how epic, should not hold up traffic. Confused, Captain Rescue glanced around. He was too enamored with the gift given to him to notice that the getaway van was, well, getting away. After enough honking had transpired to break the trance that had befallen the hero, he put the pedal to the metal. However, that was what he normally did to attain the blazing speed of 27 miles-per-hour. Once The Rescue Machine had caught back up with the getaway van, their struggle continued.

The pursuit lasted for miles as sky rise after sky rise inched by and commuters released their anger in the form of honks and shouts. Inside the van, as all this action morphed quickly to monotony, Boris drifted off and began fantasizing about a hot red fox he met the weekend before. The two shared some lovely moments. They laughed and they giggled. They bumped their plush little bottoms together and danced the polka until the wee hours of the morning—a happy-go-lucky pair of larger-than-life animals. The night ended with a moonlit walk along the beach, red and blue hands intertwined. A fantasy to trump all fantasies, but like all fantasies, this one had to end.

Boris found his thoughts too enthralling to be bothered with the fact that he was drifting into oncoming traffic, and Dr. Malevolent remained oddly calm as the sea of vehicles parted for the getaway van. She believed her status as a super villain (a self-granted status at that) made her all but invincible, although up until now she had been, so you never know. She turned to face Boris, who still had a glazed look of joy over his face—behind each of his eyes, a miniature Charlie and his fox friend beat helplessly upon the lenses. Their inaudible screams persisted as they pointed frantically at the road ahead. Eventually, they admitted defeat and threw their hands up before wandering into the recesses of Boris’s head.

Dr. Malevolent cleared her throat with the hopes of drawing his attention. After the first cough had no effect, she did it again—louder than the last time. Still nothing. When the final cough failed too, the super villain smacked her right hand man upside the head, pulling the man back into reality and away from his alter ego, Charlie. Boris rapidly swerved back into his own lane just in time for their little joy ride to come to a crashing end. Just ahead, a curve approached, and the careening van made no apparent attempt to avoid it.

As Boris realized the shenanigans about to transpire, he smiled. The man had two main aspirations in life: one was furry stardom, an aspiration very nearing its zenith. The other dream, one that had accompanied him since childhood, was to be a stunt car driver; an unfulfilled goal that sat nicely wedged in the back of his mind. As he approached that curve, the little boy deep within took over, the one that dreamed of sending flaming muscle cars flying through locomotives. The world around Boris faded away as he gunned the van, which was in no way a muscle car of any kind. Nevertheless, it sure did smash into the curb like one. Time dilated as the force of the impact sent the van rocketing through the air.

As the seconds elapsed, the projectile’s destination became painfully clear: a parked car. That was not even the bad news. One simple fact made a three-ton van crashing head first into a parked vehicle much worse: the parked vehicle just so happened to be a police cruiser. Yet another simple fact made the previous fact more terrible still: someone, possibly a police officer, left the cruiser parked outside a police station. Time came to a halt inside the cab as Boris and Dr. Malevolent locked eyes. Boris’s mouth started to say “sorry”, but her rod interrupted him before the word could find a way out. Then the getaway van ceased its getaway in a spectacular metal-twisting feat. The nose of the van smashed head first into the police cruiser and the back bounced high into the air. The cruiser’s sirens started to wail, assuring the commotion pulled the police officers away from their donut dinners. After spinning around like a giant top, the van finally came to a rest on its side.

The wreck left Dr. Malevolent and Boris pressed together against the driver side window, miraculously unscathed. She made quite the face at him, part disgusted, part excited, and part happy to be alive. As she became increasingly aware of where they were and what they had crashed into, the super villain started to beat her driver and partner in crime repeatedly with her inanimate carbon rod. Since Dr. Malevolent paled in comparison to Boris, even with her rod in hand, he decided to let her assault him in order to relieve her stress. She even took off her white lab coat in order to attain better movement in her arms. The coat was just for show, anyway. No one in his or her right mind would be foolish to give the woman an actual doctorate. She just ran across the coat one day and decided it looked fashionable.

***

Attracted by the bright lights and sirens, Captain Rescue waited patiently at a turning lane while munching on a hot dog he procured from a roadside vendor. Hunger was an injustice greater than any Dr. Malevolent could commit (a statement written in bold in almost any superhero manual, and he had skimmed them all). A look of utmost horror appeared across his face as he cruised into the parking lot. He missed a tremendously exciting car crash. The price of hunger was high. He looked down at his hotdog. His eyes then traveled to the crash and then back to the hotdog. Eventually he decided that yes, it was worth it.

Captain Rescue, never one to miss an opportunity to strut his stuff, hopped out of The Rescue Machine and looked at himself in its side view mirror. Kneeling down and juggling his hot dog between his hands, he brushed his hair and smiled widely, on the lookout for any stowaways between his teeth. After assuring himself that everything was in proper order, and that he was as pretty as he could possibly be (not at all), Captain Rescue thrust his chest out and swaggered over to the police officers.

The hero cleared his throat with a load cough and grinned at the officers. “I see you found the present I left you fine boys!”

“Another job well done, hero!” one of the officers said as he patted Captain Rescue on the shoulder.

Dr. Malevolent’s voice emanated from the cab, “Listen here, copper, that halfwit had nothing to do with our unfortunate luck. My very own halfwit was apparently daydreaming while driving.”

“Would you stop hitting me already?” Boris whined as he tried to push her off him.

 “Alright, get those sorry criminals outta there,” one of the cops said, “and thanks again, Captain Rescue, for all your hard work!”

“Just doing my part to make the world a better place!” the hero said with his hands planted firmly on his waist and the hot dog squished between him and his belt.

“Just how do you do it?” a police officer, who was obviously a fan, asked.

“Do what?” Captain Rescue replied, clueless.

“Selflessly protecting the innocent and bringing dangerous criminals to justice day in and day out.”

Captain Rescue placed a hand upon his shoulder, smearing the hotdog into the officer’s uniform. “It’s just what I was bred for.”

One of the other police officers grabbed Captain Rescue’s number one fan and led him away. They had work to do. The police, unsure of what awaited them inside, hugged the cold steel of the getaway van and prepared to open the back doors. One brave officer lifted the latch and pulled open the pair of large metal doors. Inside, the crooks—still faintly green from skunkification and covered in vomit—posed little threat, unless you considered projectile vomiting a threat, and in many ways, it probably was. The police kept their guns on the criminals as they led them out one by one.

“How many times will I have to single handedly bring you simple minded crooks to justice before you finally learn that crime
doesn’t
pay?” mocked Captain Rescue as he paced back and forth near the van.

Dr. Malevolent only rolled her eyes at his act.

“Get out of the van or we’ll fill you with lead!” one of the cops ordered.

Since the passenger side door towered above the duo’s heads, and the driver’s side had a window full of concrete, it was a task more easily said than done. Inside the cab of the van, she and Boris rested snugly on top of each other. Slowly, Dr. Malevolent glanced down to Boris and shrugged ominously. In her eyes, a faint glimmer of remorse appeared and then disappeared just as quickly. After taking a deep breath, Dr. Malevolent repurposed Boris’s face as a stepping stool and pressed her heel into it.

As the weight bore down, his cheeks collapsed into some amazing fish-lips. With this fact not lost to him, he mimicked a fish opening and closing its mouth in its search for yummy krill. This went on for a few seconds, but since Boris had only so much patience for fish tales and face massages, he grabbed both of Dr. Malevolent’s feet and launched her out of the cabin.

With arms flailing, she tumbled through the air and landed at Captain Rescue’s feet. He smirked down at the super villain, and then held his hand out to help her up. With her pride tucked deep within her bosom, she rose to her feet, lifted her hands into the air, and surrendered to her higher power. The super villain looked around; every police officer in the area had their guns fixated on her. From the look of things, the cops were all too ready to make Swiss cheese of her.

“Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!” one of the voices shouted from cluster of police officers.

She did as ordered, and the police officers rushed in. Unknown to Dr. Malevolent, Freight—a nickname given to the biggest officer on the force—crept up behind her. The giant man smacked her in the back of the head with the butt of his shotgun, and the super villain fell forward, quite unconscious. Freight used the butt of his gun only because it was far less damaging than his sledgehammer of a fist. This man had won the award for Police Brutality Picture Boy of the Month six times running. Despite this, knocking super villains over the head was normal police procedure. These blows were probably the main reason criminals had an inability to turn from a life of crime, although no research had linked the factors together, yet.

The police officers carried Dr. Malevolent and led her lackeys into the police station one by one, manhandling them along the way. Inside, inundated by a slew of smelly and sick crooks, the front desk began booking everyone. After putting
another
set of her fingerprints on file, the Police officers led Dr. Malevolent and the others to a large open cell where they could freely mingle with each other to talk about the fun times they had tonight as well plan for their escape.

Chapter 5: There’s No Place like Home

Captain Rescue suddenly remembered the hotdog still squished between his waist and hand. The meaty treat rose victoriously to his face, and he proceeded to make oral love to it, a sight nobody in his or her right mind wanted to see. The experience ushered onto him a euphoric daze just as any good hotdog should. As the last bite slid down his gullet, he glanced around and saw that he stood alone in the parking lot. Loneliness: the only state worse than hunger. Or, maybe they were tied. Immediately, the tears began to well in his eyes. He shivered, wiped them clean, and shuffled towards The Rescue Machine, head hung low.

As he walked, he thought back to his butler and longtime friend, Alfredo, who was still back at his super-secret base. He took Captain Rescue under his wing after his parents died during a scuba diving vacation. A group of dolphins randomly attacked and killed them both. The act was unprecedented and shrouded in mystery. Never before had dolphins killed humans so viciously and without provocation. This left Captain Rescue wielding a lifelong grudge against the creatures. So much so, that he abandoned his former life and changed his name to Captain Rescue. Now, he hoped to rescue any other humans from the wrath of the dolphins. When he realized that most dolphins were, in fact, quite docile creatures, he turned his focus towards being a superhero.

Obviously, there were many similarities to make between the famous Batman, and the not-so-famous Captain Rescue. Hell, he could have very well been Batman had his life taken a different route, a route with a quality education and strict self-discipline, instead of a route with snack foods and 8-bit video games. Both Captain Rescue and Batman were the only child of wealthy parents who died when they were young. Both had family butlers that cared for and looked after them during their time of need, and both wanted nothing more than to avenge their parents’ deaths. While the world’s greatest detective manufactured his persona to strike fear in the heart of criminals, the world’s worst superhero found his purple spandex suit cheap at a garage sale.

The man, defeated by loneliness, climbed back into The Rescue Machine and sped off into the sunset. As the glare singed his retinas, he suddenly realized that his super-secret hideout was, in fact, in the other direction. Over a decade ago, after Captain Rescue finally determined that being a superhero was a full time gig, he went about trying to find the perfect place to build his base of operations. After an exhaustive search one Friday afternoon, the hero finally found just the spot: an unknown cave beneath a urinal cake factory. It was the perfect cover. No one that worked there bothered with the place even if it did offer free tours. In addition, these workers were not in a rush to explore everything the factory grounds had to offer; whether it be the 250 different types of urinal cakes, or the hidden underground base of a superhero.

As Captain Rescue neared the urinal cake factory, he turned down a rarely used back road and pressed a large purple button underneath the dashboard. Nothing happened. Perturbed, he tapped the button again. Still, nothing happened. Captain Rescue pulled the vehicle over, pushed the seat as far back as it would go, got to his knees, and started slamming his forehead against the button. It still refused to cooperate. He pressed another button on the dashboard, one that functioned properly. The cockpit to The Rescue Machine released with a rush of air as the pressure normalized. Why the vehicle was even pressurized was anyone’s guess. It would have definitely
not
been at home on sea, or in space, and calling it a street worthy vehicle was a stretch. Captain Rescue hopped out of the hardly worthy vessel and stepped onto the road.