The Search for Ball Zero (27 page)

Perry came back to reality and looked
around, no one had noticed. The band just finished Super Freak and
he stood up, he was now a Super Freak of his own. He kissed her
cheek and reached for the glass of Monkey Juice.

The third set was just as amazing as the
first two. They injected some funk in the third set with some
Bootsie Collins and Kool and the Gang, every funk song tinged with
at least some heavy metal. The played Kool and the Gang’s “Misled”.
Tony thought that was a rare Kool and the Gang song, one of his
favorites, but not a “greatest hit”. Tony always thought it would
make a good funk metal song and it did. They were going deep.

After that they switched back to metal with
an epic 16 minute cover of Stoned Jesus' “I'm the Mountain.”

Including the first, second and third hour
long sets, the entire show setlist consisted of something like
this, not in order: “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath, “Waffle” and
“Black” by Sevendust, “Dopes to Infinity” and “Space Lord” from
Monster Magnet, many songs off the first Rage album, “Forty Six and
Two”, “Eulogy” and “Vicarious” from Tool, “Zombie Eaters”,
“Surprise You’re Dead” and “Jizzlobber” from Faith No More, Guns
& Roses songs “Welcome to the Jungle”, “Mr Brownstone”, “Night
Train” and “Out ta get Me”. “Redefine” by Incubus, “Milk” by
Jimmie’s Chicken Shack, “What’s up People?” by Maximum the Hormone,
“Time” by the Deli Creeps,“Fight for your Right” by Beastie Boys,
“Electric Reckoning” by Lionize, “Too Many Puppies” by Primus and a
sweet extra pirate-y version of “Coattails of a Deadman”. The band
all wore pirate hats for that song and threw a bunch into the
crowd. They played a number of Clutch songs, “Soapmakers”, “Earth
Rocker”, “Spacegrass.”

They played a few slower songs for fun
throughout the night: “Edge of the

World” by Faith No More, “Dope Show” by
Marilyn Manson, “Been Caught Stealin’” by Jane’s Addiction, “Fat”
by Weird Al. Axl even put on a makeshift fat suit for Fat, it only
made him have a beer belly, but he shook and bounced his beer belly
off everything around during that song.

The theme of their massive setlist was
definitely rebellion based, but also they liked to have fun. Taking
yourself too seriously is the rabbit hole you go down when you want
to stop having fun.

And in a rare pre-song talk, Axl said to the
crowd,”I hope this next song comes true in some way. Last song.”
The whole arena went ape shit, they must’ve known what the last
song was going to be. King looked down at the Humans,”This is our
favorite song!” They unleashed an extended rocking cover of
Clutch’s “Escape From the Prison Planet.” A song about escaping a
prison planet, it meant alot to all of these Primates and monkeys,
who were essentially living on a prison planet. During the chorus
of “Get out. Eject!” Axl didn’t even sing, he just held out the mic
as the entire arena sang it for him. They obviously also liked the
second chorus when they all got to sing “Escape from the planet of
the Apes!” They brought the house down in a big epic finale.

Not too far away…

Inside the cockpit of an Elohssa warstore,
Mosh Tree is on the main screen,

numbers change and scroll by in a little
windows on the edges of the screen. A

“
Whoosh” sound is heard
and everyone snaps to attention. Then the clicking of the Captain’s
shoes and his guards.

“
That’s where they are?”
The Captain asked.

“
That’s what clone 40269
reported.” A supervisor reported.

“
Send out two pairs of
Tall and Short. Have them kill any survivors who try to escape.”
The Captain ordered.

In another part of the warstore, far from
the cockpit, the IG88-like eyes of Tall

the robot and Short the wheeled robot lit
up. Hooks unlatched, a door grinded open and they took off. Shortly
after, another 2 pairs of eyes lit up and another pair of Tall and
Short took off into the night.

“
Well?” The Captain
asked.

“
Two pairs of Tall and
Short have been deployed.” A non-supervisor replied.

The Captain looked over at one of his
guards, twisted his mouth and pointed at the crew member who just
talked out of line. Both guards rushed over, grabbed him and began
dragging him out of the office, kicking and screaming.

This time slower and longer the Captain
asked,”Weeelll?”

The supervisor touched the shoulder of a
crew member in front of him, who moved a few windows on his
screen.

The warstore sat in an open field in the
quiet night. It was about a quarter mile away from Mosh Tree. Four
sets of red eyes scurried along the ground between the warstore and
Mosh Tree. Suddenly the warstores machine guns lit up the night
with rapid fire. It had 4 sets of front facing machine guns, they
ripped into Mosh Tree.

It was the end of their last song, the crowd
was giving a standing ovation. It was very loud in Mosh Tree. Axl
was holding up the mic, pointing to the crowd. They all began
seeing little scattered dots, the dots became little pops. A monkey
dropped from the ceiling, limp. A lot of people started looking
around. The mic got knocked out of Axl’s hand. He looked left and
right like, “What the fuck?” Then his face got ripped apart as a
wave of bullets crossed his head. One second Axl was on top of the
world, the next his face looked like a red abstract painting. His
body fell backwards, instantly dead. The place panicked.

Some of them hit the floor, most ran for the
exit. There was only one exit, Mosh Tree had a lot of fire hazards,
and only one door being the entrance and exit was a pretty bad
one.

Luckily for the Humans, being in a panicking
crowd with Monkeys and

Primates, they can panic and run up the
walls, not everyone was running on the ground. But there was a bad
traffic jam at the door. Tony, L and Perry hit the ground. Tony
looked up to try and see what was shooting, but saw nothing.

“
We need to get the fuck
outta here!” Perry yelled.

Back in the warstore cockpit, they watched
on the main screen as Mosh Tree was ripped with the machine guns.
They started to see a few bodies escaping from inside and crawling
on the outside of Mosh Tree.

The Captain was getting bored,”Enough
playing around. Use the big gun. Nuke

that shit hole.”

Primates and Monkeys scattered in Mosh Tree.
The ground was now littered

with dozens of dead bodies and injured.

Jimi ignored the chaos, he walked across the
stage,”Man.” He leaned over Axl’s body, looked to the sky, and with
his miniature high voice yelled,”Noooo!”

The 3 humans scurried for the door in a sea
of chimps and gorillas.

In the dark night, King hit the ground like
a superhero. He was one of the first

out of Mosh Tree, and he wasn’t running for
his life. He was on his way to solve the problem. He was The
Silverback of this tribe after all. King looked out into the dark
and charged in the direction of the warstore. An 800 pound gorilla
charging a million ton war machine.

King’s attention quickly changed to the four
sets of red eyes in the darkness, two

sliding along the ground, the other two sets
bounding next to them. He roared and changed direction toward them.
The eyes’ vectors altered to match his.

He stopped and jumped in the air, slamming
the ground as hard as he could when he landed. The eyes approached,
King only saw the redness of their eyes, he had no idea what they
actually were. He pounded the ground with his massive arms and
roared again, to a Human, he would’ve looked like King Kong.

The small robot charged, seeming like it hit
a bump again, it jumped into the air

and wooshed as it launched a volley three
taser darts. King dodged the volley like Neo and snatched the small
robot out of the air. He began crushing it in his grip. He felt
metal bending in his rage filled grip. “Machine”, King thought.
Just as he crushed the life out of the lifeless machine it spurted
three more taser darts into King’s chest. He shook with electricity
and dropped the dead machine as he fell backwards. The other three
sets of eyes closed in on his stunned body.

Just as the bounding red eyes turned into a
dark silhouette right on top of King,

two gorillas slid in between them. It was
Big Flea and Les. They roared in unison, like two King Kongs. The
tall robot stepped at them confidently, it’s long spikey tipped
legs sticking in the dirt with each step. The other pair of Tall
and Short were closing in fast. Big Flea did a short charge, like
gorillas do to test their opponent, he was seeing if he could scare
the robot even though he knew he couldn’t. He was still a gorilla
after all. Big Flea looked back at King, he was still down, King
shook his head trying shake out the cobwebs.

Tall swung at Big Flea, part of the robots
arm was now blade edge, or was it

always? Big Flea leaned back and dodged it
like a boxer. With the robot lurching at Big Flea, Les made his
move and swung a massive 2 handed bash at the robot’s head, it
connected. Les had fought many times, he knew that hit knocked out
any living creature. This time it hurt Les’ hands more than his
enemy. He did a gorilla shuffle backwards, slightly confused,
trying to get out of the long robot’s reach. The tall robot swung
one of its spiky legs at Les. He didn’t expect that, but his
backwards shuffle saved him. They both noted their enemy can attack
with its legs. The two massive gorillas and the tall robot danced,
jockeying for position and looking for an opening. The robot’s
allies would be there in a second.

From behind the two, out of the darkness
King charged through and tackled the

tall robot like a linebacker sacking a QB.
Les and Big Flea instantly moved in. The robot scrambled to get to
its feet, but King laid his weight on it. Les grabbed one of the
robots arms and pulled. There was a spark and some pieces came
apart at the robot’s shoulder. Big Flea grabbed on the same arm and
they both pulled. With a chunky ripping sound, the arm dislodged
from its socket. Les pulled and ripped the arm completely off. Long
wires pulled out like veins.

Les had seen the incoming robots and swung
the arm over his head in a downward motion at the small robot. The
arm smashed into the ground on top of the small robot, crushing it
into the dirt.

The warstore main cannon fired, it resembled
a battleship cannon. The

projectile flew over the gorillas and robot
fight with a cool sound, like out of a movie.

Mosh Tree exploded from the inside out in a
brilliant explosion that lit up the dark night.

Primate and Monkey bodies flew in every
direction with fire and debris.

Les turned and saw his favorite place
explode. For a short moment he thought

of all the amazing times they had there,
especially the show they just played. His mind came back to
reality, ready to kick ass harder now, just in time to see the 2nd
tall robot lunging at him blade first. The tall robots arm pierced
Les’ body and went all the way through, blood following the blade
out of Les’ back. The robot slid through Les’ body until it’s face
was right next to Les’. Its face of strange red lights somehow
grinned at Les. The robot reached one of its legs up and stuck the
pointy tip in the bottom of Les’ body and ripped his body in half.
He fell in the dirt in two separate 400 pound pieces, organs and
intestines between the two parts.

Big Flea and King were pounding the other
tall robot into the dirt. It didn’t die

like a living thing, it kept trying to get
up, they had to resort to ripping it into pieces. Both arms and
legs dismembered, the robot’s body jerked and the stumps that used
to be limbs flailed helplessly.

They looked to Les, it was too late, he was
in pieces. They looked and didn’t

see the tall robot. They both noticed more
pairs of red eyes in the distance. As they scanned the area looking
for the tall robot, there was a slicing sound and Big Flea’s head
neatly separated from his body. Another slicing sound and King
rolled, his honed reflexes saving his life by a millisecond. King
rolled under Big Flea’s still standing body. He used this to his
advantage, grabbed Big Flea’s body and charged the tall robot. Gore
spewed out of Big Flea’s neck as his body was compressed between
the King and the tall robot. It worked. The weight of two gorillas
fell the robot. King knew this distraction would last only moments
and jumped in the air, coming down with both feet on the robot’s
head, letting out a roar that could be heard for miles. King put
all his weight and rage into the stomp. The robot’s head crunched
into a flat pancake of metal.

King saw the other red eyes speeding towards
his tribe’s trees. He also saw the

giant mountain-like silhouette of the
warstore in his peripheral vision and put it on his kill list. He
took off towards the red eyes. King looked up at what used to be
Mosh Tree, now just a big burning tree trunk. The explosion was so
big that debris was still falling from the sky. While running at
full speed King thought of all his tribe members that must be dead
and his anger shifted his running into another gear. He imagined
stomping the heads of a million robots.

Back inside the warstore cockpit the Captain
had one of his slight smiles. “Fucking Shit Monkeys!”

A supervisor approached him,”Sir, we’ve
lost three pairs of Tall and Shorts.”
“
What?” The
Captain asked. “How?” He thought.

“
I’m not sure?” The
supervisor asked,”They must have guns, or something?”

“
Monkeys shooting guns?”
Captain said softly but irritated. “Bring up the video.”