The Brothers Crunk (9 page)

“
Fire!” he commands. The LaserScope obeys. The ceiling caves in from the blast, crushing Brenner to death. Reynold collapses onto the floor, trying to catch his breath.

“
Okay, so . . . now we’re even,” Pete says, breaking the silence. Reynold’s eye opens wide and he hops to his feet.

“
Now we’re even?
Now we’re even?!
”

“
I can see that you’re upset . . .”

Reynold grabs the fish net between his fingers and slams it up against the wall. “SHUT . . . THE . . . FACK . . . UP!” he yells, beating Pete’s meat with every word.

Pete is finally quiet. Reynold drops to his knees and takes a few deep breaths before finally pulling himself to his feet. He walks over to Brenner’s buried body and grabs the Light Phaser lying on the floor. He untangles the cord, wraps it around his arm, and plugs it into his neck port. He grabs Pete on the way out the door.

Outside the door he is greeted by three men in bright red and black uniforms. Their skin is inside out, with blood seeping out through a circuit of blue vessels. Their uniforms stick to their bodies as if they forgot to dry off after they showered. There is a black car in the street with a flashing red light on top. The doors read ‘Blitzkrieg Bowsers’.

All three men speak in unison, “Is this your ostrich, sir?”

TWENTY

GOING UP

Jools Dethbryte frantically types in a numeric code on a dial-pad located in a secret location against her back wall. The dial-pad beeps and the keys glow green, releasing the lock on a secret vault door camouflaged perfectly behind a large mirror. Dethbryte pulls back the mirror revealing a small rectangle-shaped cavity inside the wall. She reaches inside and removes its contents:
a glossy bright pink hat box
.

She sets the box on top of her bed, just as the lights click off. She is in total darkness now—but only for a few seconds. The safety lights flicker on and the alarm sounds.
BLAARP, BLAARP, BLAARP, BLAARP, BLAARP!
The alarm blares like a trained seal honking a bicycle horn with metronome-like timing—except as if it were amplified through the speakers in a baseball stadium.

The faint sound of static hums from a walkie-talkie sitting on the desk in the corner of the room.
Click.
“Security has been breached! I repeat—security has been breached! Lady Dethbryte, we are sending up our men to help you evacuate the building immediately. Please remain calm. We will have the situation under control soon. Over.”
Click.

Dethbryte lifts the lid off the hat box, seemingly not too worried about the security breach. She pulls out a black velvet bag from inside.

Click.
“Lady Dethbryte, do you copy? Over.”
Click.

She reaches into the black velvet bag and pulls out a grey and black rubber glove—a Nintendo Power Glove. She puts it on over her right hand. The glove fits snug against her slimy skin.

Click.
“Lady Dethbryte?”
Click.

She plugs the cable into the port located on the fat roll underneath her chin. She inhales deeply, feeling the power of the glove surging throughout her body. She slithers over to the desk and grabs the walkie-talkie.

Click. “Don’t worry about me, blah. I can take care of myself.” Click. She tosses the walkie-talkie back on the desk and slithers over to the window, waiting.

● ● ●

With the alarms sounding and the safety lights flashing, Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils abandon their vehicles and ready their weapons. Krebb opens his glove box and removes Qoser’s cue-ball eye. He kisses it for luck and stuffs it into a small leather sack attached to his belt.

No matter how lightly they step, the broken glass underneath their feet immediately gives away their positions. Luckily there isn’t anyone within earshot that can hear it.

They spot an elevator at the end of the hall and quickly run over to it. Vega hits the call button, but the elevators have been disabled. Krebb and Gluum check the steel doors leading to the stairway, but they are locked as well.

“
I could hack into the system and override the alarm, but I’d have to find a port or a direct connection somehow,” T-Dakk says.

“
I think I can manage that,” says Vega, surveying the drop-ceiling. He reaches up and pushes aside one of the ceiling planks, revealing a series of wires stretching across. “Oh, definitely.”

Vega jumps and pulls himself up past the drop-ceiling. He removes a small blade from his belt and begins to slice through the wires, pulling and loosening them from their ties. He manages enough slack so they reach T-Dakk on the floor below. T-Dakk studies the wires, tossing aside the ones he doesn’t need and bundling up the ones he does. He strips the protective plastic from the wires about two inches back. He then twists them together along with the exposed wire of a hacking tool connected to his laptop.

As Vega prepares to hop back down to the floor, a sliver of light catches his peripherals. It appears to be coming from the top of the elevator cab. He pulls himself across the ceiling, his back to the floor, using the wires as an electric rope. The space between the ceiling and the ceiling planks is about a foot, a tight squeeze even for Vega, but he manages to make it over to the elevator shaft in no time at all. The sliver of light is actually a small door, an escape hatch for emergencies; the light from inside of the elevator illuminates the edges.

Vega peeks through the cracks. Five men are inside. Blitzkrieg Bowsers. Two of them are sitting on the floor of the elevator, one of them is standing, talking on a walkie-talkie, and the other two are messing around with the button panel, trying to get the elevator running again.

Vega twists his head and pops his neck. He smiles. He’s been waiting for this moment for what feels like centuries.

He pulls open the hatch and drops down on them. The two sitting on the floor immediately jump to their feet in surprise. The man standing drops his walkie-talkie and halfway delivers a roundhouse kick, but Vega throws out his leg and counters the attack. He then sweeps the man’s other leg out from under him, causing him to fall hard to the floor. Two other men throw punches. Vega steps back, just out of range, and grabs their bloody, veiny heads and bashes them together. Their heads collide like two blood-soaked sponges, spraying blood on the walls and ceiling of the cab. The two men by the controls break open the panel and pull out the wires by the handful. They take turns lurching out, trying to strangle Vega with the wires. Vega chops one of them in the throat with the blade of his hand and flips him over his shoulder onto the torso of the other man. They both fall to the floor.

Soon they are all back on their feet again, eager to start round two—but Vega doesn’t have time for round two. He ducks, pulls out both katanas from the holsters on his back, and rises again, holding out the blades and twirling like a helicopter—decapitating all five in a single motion. Blood sprays from their neck-holes and covers the cab completely.

Ding.
The bell from the elevator sounds as the doors spring open. Vega returns his katanas to their holsters and smiles at the Devils, completely covered in blood.

“
Red suits you,” Krebb says, nodding in approval.

Vandenboom, Krebb, and Gluum help Vega remove the bodies from the elevator, while T-Dakk works on repairing the severed wires of the control panel.

“
Ready,” T-Dakk calls. The Devils all pile into the elevator. T-Dakk presses the button for the 178
^th
floor. The button illuminates, the bell sounds, and the doors close.

“
Going up!”

TWENTY-ONE

DEVILS MAY CARE

Krumm kicks open the door to Dethbryte’s office and walks in with a ghoulish smile spread across his face.

“
Well . . . I got ’em!” he says.

“
You got the Damned Dirt Devils?! And so quickly, blah!” Dethbryte shouts with glee.

“
Oooh, well . . . no, not
them
. But I do have something special for you!” Krumm says, rocking his hips and twirling around like a high school cheerleader. The three Bowsers enter the room, dragging behind them Reynold, Pete, and the ostrich. Reynold instantly becomes ill at the sight of Dethbryte.

“
Who the fuck are
they
, blah?” she asks.

Krumm’s smiling lips melt into an annoyed frown. “These are the . . .
travelers
 . . . that you requested. Remember?”

“
Travelers? What the gizit, blah?! You’re getting too old for this job! Turn them loose and go get those damned Devils . . .”

“
You stupid shit! These are the ones who traveled through the Doom Magnetic! The ones who were following Vandenboom! You asked us to go get them . . . so, here they are . . .” Krumm throws his arms up in the air in a big dramatic production, and walks out the door. “I’m done with this shit!”

“
Ahh, now I remember, blah . . .” mumbles Dethbryte. “Kill them!”

“
No! You can’t!” Reynold shouts. Dethbryte ignores him.

Click.
“Anybody have any fucking clue as to where the Dirt Devils are?!” she shouts into the walkie-talkie. The three Bowsers, standing in the same room across from her, rush to grab their walkie-talkies.

Click.
“Negative. We do not have a clear visual at the moment,” they say in unison. Dethbryte, enraged by their ignorance, begins to twitch and shiver. Her eyes bulge and pulse along with the beating of her heart. Electricity builds and storms out from her eyes in a mighty bolt, missing the Bowsers and igniting the wall behind them. Reynold tries to duck, but the Bowsers keep a tight grasp on him.

Ding.
The bell of the elevator sounds down the hall. The sound instantly brings Dethbryte out of anger. She takes a deep breath and tries to clear her mind. She needs to think quickly, clearly. She may only have one shot at this.

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← →
B A B A

She enters the cheat code on her Power Glove controller so quickly her fingers become transparent. A tiny smile cracks in the corner of her mouth as she proudly presses the last button. She gets it on the first try.

Just then, the door busts open. Vandenboom and his Damned Dirt Devils stand still in the doorway, eyeing Dethbryte from the shadows in the hallway. The Bowsers loosen their grasp on Reynold, Pete, and the Ostrich, and charge at the Devils.

“
You can’t be here!” the three Bowsers say together. “This is a
private
meeting!”

“
Now calm your bones, boys! We’re only here to lend a hand!” Krebb says, sticking his fist in the chamber of the KREBBOOM and pulling the trigger. The KREBBOOM makes an exact copy of his fist and launches the clone through the air, hitting all three Bowsers with one shot.

Dethbryte’s skin begins to tingle, as if tiny sparks of electricity are exploding like fireworks throughout her fat, wormy body. “Ha, you’re too late, Vandenboom! It’s already begun, blah!”

The Devils watch as her bones begin to shift and dislocate. Her arms and tail twitch and expand rapidly. Pink saliva bubbles from her mouth like an unholy percolator, occasionally spurting and spraying long thick streams of mucus across the room. Her body grows wider, larger, taller—becoming so enormous that she quickly fills the entire room, pinning and suffocating Reynold and company against the wall.

The ceiling finally gives way and topples 178 stories down to the busy city street below. Once the ceiling breaks loose, the pressure on Reynold and the Devils eases and they are able to catch their breaths again.