The Search for Ball Zero (29 page)

Tony, L and Perry approached the guest room
and saw smoke coming from

where the door used to be. They all ran up
to the room. There was no signs of life. Perry’s clone and
girlfriend were dead, burned in the bed. They looked like they were
sleeping. Perry’s girlfriend’s perfectly cloned ass was sticking
out of her robe, course.

“
Fozzie!?” L yelled! They
looked around, there was no sign of her. “Foz!” L called out again
and Fozzie trotted out from underneath a bed. “Ohh my God!” She
said and hugged the dog.

Perry ran past his burned clone and
ex-girlfriend, ducked behind his bed and grabbed at something.
“Thank God!” He said, holding up his drug suitcase.

Their stuff was mostly there. It seemed like
the robots just burned the two

clones. The Humans got their stuff, and got
ready to leave. Tony loaded his guns, he looked up with his serious
face on at L and Perry. They did the same. They used to keep their
guns in their pack, not anymore. They were packed and locked and
loaded. Leaving their new room possibly for the last time. Perry
was the last to leave and said, “I’ll miss you.” as he patted his
exes exposed ass on the way out. They made their way to the
garage.

As they approached the garage location,
they passed many of the hollowed out

trees that used to be the tribe hallways and
homes, destroyed, knocked over and burnt. The massive warstore was
parked next to the garage, sitting awkwardly out in the open.

There were less than 30 of the tribe that
survived. King stood in front of the

survivors in the garage, next to a destroyed
Tall and Short. Slash was there. L ran up and hugged Janis, who was
running to meet her. Bob Marley made it. Perry looked everywhere,
Candy wasn’t there. Moon sat sadly in a corner, next to one of his
drums. Many of the tribe were injured, with makeshift walking canes
and splints made of branches.

“
They attack us!” King
said loudly. “We kill robots!” He pointed to the smashed robots
next to him, and continued louder,”We take big machine!”, King
announced and pounded his chest, building up to a yell,“We kill
Company!”

The small group cheered, it was
enthusiastic, they were upset, injured and angry, but it was a
meager cheer compared to the 1000 members the tribe had before.

King invited Tony up with him. “You tell.”
King said.

“
Well, they’ve been
releasing a new warstore every week. Tonight is the 7th

day, a new war machine will roll out
tonight.” Tony explained. “We have this one, it’s not very damaged
and is in working order.” Tony looked down at Bob Marley,”Bob and I
both know how to pilot the machine. Bob is very good. We’ll be on
equal ground with

The Company. I think we can defeat any
warstore one on one.”

The tribe looked around at each other, one
chimp patted Bob on the shoulder and said something.

Tony continued, motioning towards
King,”Plus, King and a few others took the giant machine all by
themselves! I think we have the advantage.”

King took over,”Rest today. Leave tonight.
Ready battle tonight!”

The group relaxed and started talking
amongst themselves. Tony hopped down and walked up to Bob, and they
both walked towards the warstore.

Tony and Bob went up the warstore cockpit.
There was a lot of blood in the hallways. Bob leaned over and
picked up something like a tooth, then figured out it was a tooth,
and threw it down.

Bob sat down in the pilot seat. He had been
playing that warstore simulator ever since Tony discovered it a few
days ago, things seemed familiar to him. Tony looked over his
shoulder and they talked, pointing at the screen every once in a
while.

“
I can drive dis ting
mon.” Bob was confident.

“
Yea, but what about the
guns? You can’t shoot them from here.” Tony questioned.

They looked around the cockpit at the
different stations and monitors. “Here mon.” Bob said,”We need
anoder rasta over here.” All the guns, canons and even the Scorpion
missile were controlled at another station. It wasn’t too far away.
Bob sat at the pilot’s station and reached his feet and tail over
towards the weapons station. He laughed knowing his feet wouldn’t
reach,“Damn mon.”

“
Is that it?” Tony asked
out loud. There were around 20 different stations scattered
throughout the cockpit. Tony and Bob scouted each
station.

“
Dis radar.”

“
Yea, most of this is BS.
Communications. Shopping monitor. Inventory control.” Tony listed
off the monitors as he walked by them. Many of the cockpit stations
had to do with the selling part, the “Store” part of the
warstore.

“
Don need dose to kick ass
mon.” Bob said.

“
Haha, yep.” Tony
laughed.

Tony stopped at a station,”This one looks
like fuel or something.” He looked down, reading and opening menus.
“Nuke?” He said questioning.

“
Wat dat?” Bob
asked.

“
Wow. Okay.” He said as
he read. He kept reading and touching the screen, “This thing is
powered by a nuclear engine.”
“
Wat dat?” Bob asked
again.

“
If it blows up.” Tony
answered, then used exaggerated arm movements to

illustrate his next point,”Big Booooom!
Everyone around it will die.”

“
Also,” He kept
reading,”it will never run out of power. For ten years.”

Bob stared at him and didn’t say anything
for a while, then,”Damn mon.” Then

continued to explore the stations.

A beep came from a station. They both ran
over and looked. It was some sort of messaging. It was from Elohssa
HQ. The screen said one word,”Report?”

Bob went over and started typing,”F. U. C.
K. Y. O.”

Tony interrupted,”Wait!”

Bob looked over at him, “Wat mon?” and typed
“U”, then hit send.

After a short silence another beeping
started. This time from down the hall in

the Captain’s office. They ran over, almost
slipping on the bloody floor and through the bullet riddled door
hanging off the hinges. Tony hit answer and the speaker phone
turned on with some static.

“
Hello?” A weasle-y
speaker asked.

Tony answered in a deep strange voice, in
some weak attempt to disguise his voice,“Hello?”

“
Who is this?” The speaker
asked again.

Tony attempted his best Rambo
impression,”I’m your worst nightmare.”

“
What? Who?” The speaker
said. “What?” Tony turned off the mic, Bob and him both
laughing.

“
Hilarious mon.” Bob
slapped him some skin, even though he had never seen
Rambo.

Tony sat in the Captain’s office chair.
There was a pistol laying on the ground. Tony grabbed it and threw
it to Bob. He opened the Captain’s top desk drawer. A pencil rolled
from the back to the front of the drawer. It was mostly empty, like
it hadn’t been used much or was brand new. In the next drawer was a
phat stack of cash and a bunch of old pictures held together with
rubber bands. Tony grabbed the pics, grimaced in disgust and
quickly dropped it back in the drawer.

They figured out how two people could pilot
the warstore. It wouldn’t have all

of its functionality, but they didn’t need
most of it. They needed to move and shoot. One combat feature they
needed another person for was to launch the drones and give them
commands. They were pretty much ready to go. The simulator had
taught them a lot.

As they were leaving they noticed a giant
pile of what could only be described

as stuff behind the warstore. The tribe was
going through the “Store” part of the warstore. There was clothing
of all types, games, toys, knick knacks, tons of food. It was like
Christmas back there.

One chimp held up a blue women’s top, it was
mostly lace and had two tassels to cover nipples. “Human wear?” the
chimp asked.

Tony shook his head in agreement,”Yep.” The
chimps laughed. One held up the top like he was wearing it and did
a bad imitation of a human walking.

L and Janis were at the pile of stuff,
eagerly going through the clothes. Janis

was finding a lot of stuff she liked. L
waved Tony over. She had a big pile of boxes next to her that
looked like remote control cars. Tony looked closer, they were toy
drones, dozens of them.

“
Starting a collection?”
Tony asked.

“
I just thought maybe they
could help.” L said.

“
With what?”

“
The fight.” She replied.
She didn’t sound confident,”I don’t know, maybe a distraction or
something. Remember when the two warstores fought, that one used a
lot of drones.”

She was right Tony thought, “Yea, and those
drones that were flying around

burning things.” He said to her. “It could
probably distract those things. That’s a damn good idea.”

L continued,”They even come with batteries.”
She reached down and picked up a controller and a drone took off
from the ground. “Now we just need a 1000 people to fly each of
em.”

Perry had walked up,”They must have cameras
in this fucking Walmart tank. Attach a camera to one of those
drones and boom, you can fly into any girl’s locker room!” He
laughed,”Or it could be a scout.”
“
Come on, I’ll show
you.” L said and they started walking towards the warstore.

The back customer exit door was open, they
went in. There was a conveyor

belt, like a flat escalator, that went
around 100 feet and then turned. A few feet from the conveyor belt
on both sides were walls covered in ads. Each set of ads along the
wall had a robot arm folded in front of it. L walked over and
pushed on the wall, it turned,
“
Look. Microwaves!” She
laughed.

It was kind of like Willy Wonkas chocolate
factory, but instead of candy it was

all just random products. It was also like
being in a Amusement Park after it was closed with all the rides
turned off, since nothing was moving, all the screens were off.
They could only imagine what it would be like in its full
glory.

Perry ran over to a wall and pushed it
open, it was the rainbow dildos, he ripped open a box and started
throwing them over his head like someone celebrating in a pile of
cash. “Yaay!” He yelled, “My favorite!” Then he looked around and
seemed to get sad. He looked down at a handful of rainbow
dildos,”These remind me of her.”
“
Who? The pregnant
clone chick?” Tony asked.

“
You promise not to get
mad?” Perry was looking at L.

“
Who am I, your mom?” She
replied.

Tony looked at Perry and knew that
face,”You fucked Candy didn’t you?” Perry smiled and said
nothing.

“
What?!” L and Tony
yelled.

L continued,””Ohh! My God you’re
disgusting!”

Tony made a face and asked, “Yea man, isn’t
that how AIDS started?”

“
No. I don’t think so.”
Perry denied. Then he grabbed an armful of rainbow

dildos and hugged them, looking up dreamily.
“I think she got killed in the attack.”

“
Almost everyone
did.”

“
I loved her.” Perry said
and fell back into the pile of dildos.

Tony and L looked at each other amazed.
Perry had never said that in his life.

He was anti love.

“
Dis good!” A chimp
rummaging in front of them said.

The Humans went over to where he was. It was
like a medieval armory, swords,

battle axes, morning stars, suits of
armor.

“
We could probably use
some of that.” Tony thought.

“
Medieval melee weapons versus
machine guns and robots?” Perry questioned.
“
Hahaaaa!”
L yelled, she had found an oversized Viking helmet and swung
a

way too heavy, two sided battle axe. The axe head
fell to the ground in her one arm, with her other arm she made
devil horns “METAL!” They laughed at her display.

The Humans and the chimp gathered the
weapons and armor and started taking them outside the warstore.

Some of the tribe had found a stash of
tasers and pepper spray in the warstore and had 2 piles of them
outside.

Tony looked at their war chest,”Remote
control drones, medieval weapons and armor, tasers, and pepper
spray. Elohssa better watch out!”

L looked up from under her huge helmet, like
a kid wearing a costume way too big,”Aww yeah!”

Perry added,”And rainbow dildos!” He shook
it near his face and then pretended to stab someone with it. That
devolved into a strange seductive charade that ended with Perry
having sex with the invisible person he stabbed.

That afternoon they had a meeting to discuss
strategy and prepared to leave. Before the meeting officially
started, Perry stood up. “Ok, so what the fuck are we trying to
do?”

King answered,”Kill Company.”

“
You can’t kill a
company.” Perry answered back in a high voice.

“
Kill building. Kill
company.” King answered confidently.

Tony jumped in,”You’ve seen the Elohssa
building?”

King said,”Me not see.”

“
I saw it.” Bob cut in. “I
was dere mon. We did a Jeep recon up dere.”

“
Where is it?” Tony
asked.

Bob pointed North. “It be bein huge mon.”
“
Was it like a Death Star?” Perry asked.
“
It was a building mon.” Bob answered.