July 1, 2014. Tuesday.
Alfonso stood by an open window. Radiating with pride and satisfaction, he stared up, at the nearly completed rocket covered in scaffoldings. The rocket was twice the height of his mansion. Four massive engines carried a missile attached to their top.
An elderly man in a white coat was standing on the topmost scaffold by an open casing, holding dangling wires in his hands. A large guard carrying a CXX8 orb wrapped in the Vibro-belt approached him. The scientist gave instructions to the muscle and together they focused on putting the orb inside the rocket. After completing the task, the scientist picked out the 'Detonator' joystick out of his pocket and waving the subordinate away, he turned and twisted a couple of sticks. The eyes and the diamond of the Ultraman were installed in the cut-out holes of joystick frame and blinked in random colors. With great focus, breaking a sweat, the old man tuned the device.
A line of heavy duty trucks standing by the rocket had their hoses connected to it, 'Rocket Fuel' written on their trailers. A large newly painted container stood by the gate, its name painted in white on blue: "The Book of Orders".
"Is everything going well?" a deep voice spoke from behind Alfonso.
"Everything is going according to the plan."
"Good."
Alfonso turned his head to the side so that he could take a glimpse of the visitor, whose voice he had recognized. It was the man in the black scuba suit. "Why did he send you?" Alfonso asked.
"To help." The man took a few steps closer. "Bottlemore received some backup. So I came here to make it even. I will not intervene with your affairs. I will assist June, the two of us will be more than enough to take any army down."
"Mhm." Alfonso nodded with a frown.
"Do you still hold a grudge on me, Alfonso?"
The large sad man stood silent.
The ninja continued, "You know I'm just a tool, right? Tools do not make choices, they do the job. I did the job on you back then. And now, I'm here to help you."
"I'm fine with you being here. I just find it strange that he considers you expendable."
"He considers everyone expendable."
Sometimes Alfonso limped and sometimes he did not. Now that the man in scuba suit was in the room, the pain had returned to his leg. The sad man slowly walked to the visitor, said, "Welcome to the team, Kevin," and extended his hand.
———
The size of the ancient world overwhelmed Zoop. It was just too big. He had so many unanswered questions bothering him, and when George showed him a map of the world in the press shop on the train station, Zoop was left speechless for the whole journey to the terrible motel.
The sun was setting down when the four heroes got to their resting place. The terrible motel was a dump for George, a strange place for Sally, a luxury suite for Zoop, and for Max... Well, Max just did not care.
The manager was doing his thing: sleeping in his chair, which currently stood on two legs rammed against the wall. He let out a loud snort when the last entrant of the four, Zoop, closed the door behind him.
"Wake up!" Max shouted at the man and slammed the reception table with his fist.
His blow resonated to the ground and then to the chair. It was all it took for the chair to dismantle. The manager fell on his back in most clumsy manner. The way he got up was not the most gracious either.
"So, now," said the manager, cleaning his clothes, keeping his face straight as if nothing had happened. "How many rooms would my precious guests like to order?"
"Two will be more than enough," said George.
"Would you like some of the following luxuries?" The manager picked up a list from the table and read it, "Hot water, cold water. Please note that with no water you won't be able to flush the toilet. Shower head, clean bedding, light, electricity, air conditioning, breakfast, dinner, supper, radio, refrigerator,.." the list went on and on.
At some point George interrupted the listing with a loud yawn, then said, "Most of those things were free the first time. What's with the long list? Just give us some water and light, add a radio to each room too."
"The first time was free, sir, a demo version. Do you want five, ten, or twenty liters of water? And if you take hot, may I suggest taking cold too? Hot alone will be too hot I'm sure."
"Fine, give us ten of both. How much will it be for the two rooms?"
The manager picked up a calculator and tapped it. George understood that the host was not doing so well with the math, but being the patient man that he was, he waited for five minutes and then some more.
"You might check this out." The manager pointed his hairy hand at a pack of brochures while he was working with the calculator.
George picked a few of them and gave out to his friends. Sally shrugged after reading the title page that said, 'Join The Followers Of The Vilest Demon'. Down below in smaller letters was written 'With this leaflet you are legible for a discount of thirty percent.' All tense, she put the leaflet back on the reception table.
"Do you know anything about them, Sally?" asked George as he scrolled to the next page. There was written, 'Wear a cape and a mask and do many fun and evil rituals. Bring your friends to have fun with you. With each friend you bring you get loyalty points, which you can trade for a sacred book of dark magic or a cultist badge. As a member of our club, you will get free entrance to our new scary attractions park. '
Sally replied, "Yeah, kind of. Gonna tell you later about it."
"Cool," George turned the page. There was a picture of a crossed smiley face with the words below, 'Plot against The (un)Cool Church, our vicious enemies. Fight them in variety of places, ranging from an abandoned factory to a kitchen of a fancy restaurant.' A photograph of two crowds running into one another was printed below the text. One fighting side had white pajamas on; another wore black capes and animal masks.
"I learned about them in the future," said Max. "They did some positive influence in the region."
"Is this some kind of role playing game for a fee?" George asked the manager, who was still tapping his calculator.
"Yes, only more real." The host glanced at George with the spookiest eyes he could manage.
The baldy wrote the sum for the rooms on a paper then slid it towards George as if he was ashamed to say the number. George shook his head and put one hundred dollars on the table. The manager gave him the keys and the four heroes went to separate rooms, Zoop and Sally went to one while the two Bottlemores went to another.
That night was one of the most terrible nights George had in his life. One of the reasons was Max's advanced sleeping skills. The cop slept with his eyes open, dead silent, not moving a muscle, hand on his gun. Whenever George stood up in the middle of the night and walked to the bathroom or to the window, Max would lift his armed hand and trace him without moving any other muscle of his body. Only when George returned to the bed, the gun holding hand would fall down.
The other aggravation for George's rest was the laugh coming from behind the wall. Sally and Zoop giggled till the late night. He heard only small bits from their conversation. They talked about Alfonso, about the dissapperator, about George.
George tried to, but could not remember the last time he was laughing out loud himself. All he could do was smile, and sometimes, make others laugh. When he was a child, he often noticed emotionless faces of adults, the lack of joy and happiness in their lives. Had he already become one of them? Had his youth evaporated? Would it ever return? While he was thinking, George turned to the side, then rolled on his belly and accidently fell asleep.
For the second week, the sun was baking the local cluster of cities with no intention of letting down. The morning was hot, so hot, that one could cook eggs on a front car shield. The party went to the local fast food restaurant and there, they chatted, planned and schemed.
Max, being the oldest war dog, explained what would be the best course of action in this case. He said, that to fight an unknown enemy, one needed a formidable manpower and more than two backup plans. It was always wise to overestimate capabilities of your enemies. If Alfonso posed such threat that in Sally's time the anomaly point projected in time variance detector was beyond the red zone, there was a chance that even for Max the upcoming encounter might prove to be a difficult challenge. Perhaps, Alfonso was the greatest time criminal of all times. The speed of his progress, the preparations he had done was worrying.
When the talk went towards the assistance the party might get from the locals, George showed them the card he received at the Extreme Pizza and Sally told about the cult and the church and the experience she had on her day off.
The plan of the day was settled. Max and Zoop were to go to the mansion and see the progress Alfonso was doing, understand the complexity of the situation while George and Sally were to find and persuade leaders of the cults and Extreme Pizza for assistance. They split up. The time cop and the scientist headed for the woods. George and Sally strolled towards the gloomy district.
———
A strange thing had happened for the two philosophers the next morning after their friends had left.
They sat on their chairs in the cellar together with the first victim, the agent from the train station Zoop had shot, bonded in the far corner of the room, his mouth tied. They had a very passionate, complex conversation about the importance of the material and spiritual worlds. It ended abruptly and unexpectedly, almost when a conclusion would be drawn and truth figured out because the clock struck nine AM, and two portals opened up.
From the first one, a person, a young man, wearing a pot hat on his foil helm fell down, from the second only a glimpse of a dirty bum with torn clothes could be seen. The beggar vanished into thin air before hitting the ground. Seeing the strange incident, Sandy and John only shrugged their shoulders then greeted the young visitor. As instructed by George, they held the guns behind their backs, just in case.
The young man lifted the hat, removed his foil helmet and put the hat back on the short, neat haircut. He stroked his white suit, removing the dust and pieces of dirt he got from touching the ground. Such people, John imagined, were the best visitors one could get: young and wealthy.
"What year is this, may I ask?" said the young man.
"2014," replied John
"A great year. Now if you'd excuse me. Off I go," the visitor said and headed for the stairs.
"Where do you think you're going?" Sandy said, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
"To make an empire."
"What empire?" Sandy's grip on the gun tightened.
"A corporation. It will be a nice prosperous corporation."
"You can't do it."
"And who is to stop me, may I ask?" the man smiled.
"You sure, this is not a terrible joke?" inquired Sandy.
"No, you foolish barbarians, why would I lie to you? I came to make the world a better place. Something like the Moonrise Enterprises, only much better. I have yet to think of a name," the visitor replied politely. The air around him gave a feeling that he truly believed to be superior to the two hosts, and perhaps, to everyone else he knew.
"Then, how about you call your corporation 'never corporation' because it is never going to happen." Sandy lifted the gun and unloaded two darts into the visitor's chest.
Before the misery happened and fluids started dripping down the stairs, she ran to the man, activated his belt and then backed off. "That should teach him a lesson," she said walking back to John. The space around the visitor swirled and he vanished.
John seemed to get a bit upset. "At least we could have spoken to him. Now we will have nothing to do for the whole day."
"There are other, better ways to spend time than talk to random people. We could read a book or bring the TV downstairs. George has some fun educational on the cable."
A non-stop ringing doorbell interrupted them. They put the guns into holsters behind their backs and walked up to see who the annoying person was.
They were surprised to see that it was not one person, but five. Four of them were elderly people: three men in suits and a lady in red dress, who had a cloud of sharp nose stinging perfume surrounding her. The fifth was a beat up Kakamaquan with cuffed hands. All the men were in their sixties. One of them was bold; he had a microphone in his hand and headphones on his neck. The second one was huge; he had a sharp nose and an evil grin. And the third man had the looks, a face that could blend into any crowd, and perhaps, draw out valuable information from an elderly woman.
"We are here to meet George Bottlemore," said the lady as she lit up her cigarette.