He was outgunned sixteen to one. His shoulder was an open wound, smouldering with his own evaporating blood. A hangover that could drop a cow dead at forty paces beat within his skull and his gun was empty.
Yes, he had them right where he wanted them.
Zak Zorph smirked the smirk of a cornered rat, cleared his throat of dust and sand in a quick swallow that could’ve been mistaken for a gulp by the uncharitable, and charged up his electric pompadour.
“Oh god are you doing THIS again?”
Slew bolted into attack position as fast as possible with as little dignity as imaginable. His tail lashed, his fangs bristled, his eyes popped, and he tripped over his own feet and somehow collapsed.
“Ow,” he said, menacingly. Truly, a terrifying specimen of the Greater Western Gila Monstrosity.
“Dumbass,” said Mulch, but not fondly. “Double dumbass; you’d be dead if I were someone else. Why are you reading this crap, and why are you doing it at the bottom of a blind canyon where anyone could eat you?”
“It’s safe down here since nobody but us knows about that passage through the deadfall,” said Slew in a logical and sulky voice. “And it’s not crap.”
“Tell mom that. She said she regrets every reading one of these past the cover.”
“Well, she just didn’t find the good stuff.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mulch, eyes narrowing to dead little black glitters in her face. “And what exactly is this good stuff?”
“Nothin’.”
“Liar. You always drop your gs when you’re lying. Show me.”
“No.”
“Show me or I’ll tear off your tail and make you eat it. Again.”
Slowly, sadly, with seething fear in his eyes that wished it could muster the spine to be hate, Slew handed over the book.
“’The Quontum Jowb,’” read Mulch. “Book ten of Zak Zorph and his Electric Pompadour.”
“It’s a twelve-book series,” said Slew.
“And you’re reading twelve books of this because?”
“The important themes and stuff.”
“Like what? It’s written by a human, what sort of themes could it possibly have? If they knew what themes were and if themes were worthwhile then maybe they wouldn’t have all died.”
“Here,” said Slew, rustling through a mildewed stack of mouldy yellowed paper. “Try this one. Zak Zorph: A Wang and a Prayur. Book two.”
Mulch picked the book up on the fourth try –
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I clawed my first one in half.”
– and opened it to a random page.
“Zak, baby, those killbots are right on our heels! You gotta do something!” dithered Lorna Bumox. “The neubaddies are gonna shoot us! Why didn’t you lock the doors to the omnivault behind us?! Oh jeez, my mama was right about you!”
“Oh, you flighty dame,” chuckled Zak Zorph, giving her an affectionate pistol-whipping in the tits. “Now just settle down that cute little ass of yours, sweetheart. You know girls are scientifically proven to be incapable of rational thought when under stress. It’s just facts. Sit there and look pretty while I think this over reasonably. Maybe if you’d remembered to lock the doors to the omnivault behind us we wouldn’t be in this pickle, ya dumb broad.”“Oh gosh, don’t hit me!” squealed Lorna, but she secretly loved it, obviously. Zak Zorph knew her delicate little brain like the back of his meta-hand. But it wasn’t his meta-hand they needed now.
The neubaddies breached the corner, Lorna swooned dramatically, and Zak Zorph charged up his electric pompadour.
“Huh,” said Mulch. “I don’t get it. Why didn’t she eviscerate him with her hindclaws?”
“Female humans didn’t have hindclaws,” said Slew.
“How ‘bout her foreclaws?”
“No.”
“Teeth?”
“None worth noticing.”
“How the hell did they defend their nests?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It sure looks like the guys didn’t help them. Is this that deep theme you were telling me about?”
“Look, the series is a bit rough at the start,” pleaded Slew. “Here, try this one: The Corpilix Caypur. Book six, so it’s later on and he really hits his stride as a writer. The emotional depth is a lot deeper and such.”
“C’mon, Zak, just pay the flubbing ticket,” wheedled El Slinkle in his indecipherable accent. “You parked your ultracruuzer in a handicapped megaspot fair and square, there’s no need to take this to court, not with TimeJudge Quinklemaxx in that court. You know he’s been looking for you ever since you burned down his mansion in the Hindlebur Affayr!”
“Fat chance!” said Zak Zorph. “Maybe your people have no spines, but humans are made of sterner stuff. I’ll be damned if I let those federalism fat cybercats steal a nova-nickel of my hard-earned wages through their trumped-up bionicbureucracy.”“At least take on a public defender,” simpered El Slinkle. “You owe yourself some degree of legal assistance, and they’re there to assist you.”
“You can go grozz yourself Slinkle, you low-life fatbelly,” scorned Zak Zorph. “I’ve lived my whole life as an honest criminal, and I’ll never take up government handouts. The real heroes are out there paying taxes, and I’d sooner shoot myself in the head than seize any of their hard-earned dollars for my own use. Actually, when you think about it, I’m not a criminal at all – I steal from the government, which is illegal. I’m a hero of purest justice. Every man should take it upon himself to live and act utterly alone along with his harem of space-wives.”
“That sounds individualist,” whimpered El Slinkle.
Zak Zorph had heard more than any red-blooded future-American man could stand. His pulse roared in his ears and his eyes bulged with rage as he charged up his electric pompadour.
“What’s a government?” asked Mulch.
“Not sure.”
“What’s a criminal?”
“Not sure.”
“What’s an American?”
“Uhhh…”
“This emotional depth is too deep for me to understand,” said Mulch. Her tail flicked in irritation. “I think he’s just making shit up. Can’t believe you’re wasting your time on this deerpucky – and after mom warned us about it, no less. I bet if she knew you were down here repeating her sister’s mistakes she’d cannibalize you on the spot.”
“No, wait, it gets better!”
“Oh really? When? When does it get better?”
“Later!”
“How ‘later’? Is this the sort of ‘later’ that is never actually ‘now’, or the kind of ‘later’ that actually exists.”
“Well, it’s here. Book eleven.”
“’The Stoonmakker Shodown’? Shall I open a page at random again? Want me to find something stupid at random, or is there one sentence in here that saves it?”
Slew flipped through the book furiously for six minutes, then handed it over with slumped shoulders.
“Thought so,” said Mulch in satisfaction. “Let’s take a peek.”
“Death!” bayed the ravenous hordes of UnHumans outside the spaceskyscraper. “Death! Death!”
Inside, Zak Zorph cradled his wounded leg, incurred while heroically bludgeoning an UnHuman infant to death, and weighed his odds. He was outgunned sixteen hundred to one, even accounting for the feeble and pathetic power of the UnHumans that could allow a fit and cunning man to easily kill ten of them with his bare hands before being overwhelmed by their disgusting numbers since they bred like two-legged giga-rats. His heart was still a-aching with sorrow for the loss of the babe of his life, Mindy Milker, to a gang of sneering, degenerate cosmothugs. And his trusty gun had blown up in his palm and snapped his arm in half.
Little did the pathetic scum outside know that he had them aall right where he wanted them.
Zak Zorph smirked the smirk of a cornered rat, thought upon all the good things he’d done in his life, and spat on the graves of the scum who’d stood in the way of those things. And he charged up his electric pompadour.
There was a long and awkward silence that stretched far after Mulch had dropped the book like a skeletonized rat.
“You know,” she mused aloud, “there’s one thing about these that does interest me.”
“Oh?” asked Slew meekly.
“What the fuck is a pompadour?”
“A kind of hairstyle.”
“And a hairstyle is…?
Slew scratched his forehead. “Like the bristly stuff that deer are covered in.”
“Are you telling me,” asked Mulch, in the flat and dead voice of the Extremely Tired Of This,
“that this guy had a deer following him around for twelve books and never ate it?”
Slew shrugged.
“Don’t you dare shrug at me. Use your words or I use my hindclaws. Yes or no?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Mom was right: books are for nerds. Eat the stupid things for fiber like a reasonable person and let’s go home.”