I’m reasonably convinced that Tom Brady is the antichrist. Is it because he’s rich, handsome, and won seven Super Bowls? No. It’s because he cloned his dog that died two years ago.
“That’s just typical rich people shit,” you might say.
And you’re right! But if you know Tom Brady like I know Tom Brady, then you’d also know that it won’t end there. This is only the beginning. Today, it’s dogs. Tomorrow, it’s Tom Brady himself. What started off as a stupid throwaway joke from a forgotten Paul Rudd show will escalate into full on defiance of god himself. This is the end times. The dawning of the foretold apocalypse. The imagination of Peter Thiel run amok. When Tom Brady crosses the threshold of immortality via Colossal Bioscience, humanity’s days are numbered.
Death, grief, and appreciating life’s finitude is the cornerstone of the human condition. When those chains are cast off, what do we become? The universe is cold and unforgiving. But in the amoral vacuum of space and time is a small shred of transcendent substance called consciousness. It is here for a brief shining moment and is suddenly gone like a flicker in the night. Knowing this flame will someday burn out gives meaning to our lives.
But for a man with seven titles and recognized the world over as the greatest athlete of all time, one life isn’t enough. He will reincarnate himself again and again, living the same charmed life as before and breaking new records as his reenergized body enters the draft to continue his reign of terror on the NFL.
And all for what? Because he was taken in the sixth round?
We’re playing god. And when you’re playing god, prepare to tango with the Devil
Stephanos puzzled at the strange man sitting across the fire. The boy snuggled up to him and the man reached into his duster for a canteen. “I’m sorry,” the preacher said. “I’ve seen so many faces. Forgive me if I don’t recognize you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the drifter told him. “I’ve seen hundreds of your kind. All with different faces but the same prying eyes. None of you know Jonny from a hole in the ground.”
“That’s not true,” Stephanos protested.
“It’s not? Do you know who that fellow over there is?”
“He was of the agency.”
“Yes. He was Javier Gomez.”
“And how do you know him?”
“I know an enemy when I see one. That’s the difference between you and me.”
“But there are no enemies in the eyes of God.”
“God? Do you think his kingdom dwells in the heavens? Or does it dwell down here, with flesh and blood?”
“As equal creatures in the eyes of God, we will all be relieved of the burden of flesh and blood once we enter his kingdom in heaven.”
The drifter smiled and picked his teeth. His scars flashed as malicious augury against the flames. “You have some funny ideas, preacher,” he said. “Your kind is always searching for the unexplainable in the mystical. It’s indistinguishable from the nonexistent. While tales of magic inspire awe, it prevents you from seeing what’s right in front of you. Evil is real and it sits right next to us. God is not a god of unseen power but is force is itself. To extinguish evil, it takes power. It takes force. You don’t believe in god. You believe in vanity. There is no future for you, only the complacency of an ever cursed present.”
The preacher didn’t reply. He considered reaching for the Colt but the drifter already had fingers on the shotgun. “I don’t want any problems,” Stephanos told him.
“I don’t either,” said the drifter. Then he lifted the shotgun and blew a hole in the preacher’s chest. After emptying the shells, he approached Stephanos’ corpse and took his pistol and placed it under his duster. Then he took the child by the hand and they resumed their path down the king’s road.
The two men marched the two women through the torched and upturned earth past charred trees and stones where echoes of the living had found their resting place. Though the dull and grey and blackened vestiges of bloodshed dotted the countryside, to the south remained a symbol of past and future. A village, or what seemed like one, aligned with stinging metal and men standing watch and looking towards the great abyss beyond. In the center of it all was a relic to law and order. Perhaps it was a courthouse before the days of the alleged war but to the women it was a tawdry reminder of a failed establishment.
The men pushed the women towards the harem where they were stripped and searched and issued new attire. When it was over, the man took the older woman aside.
“Where were you going?” he asked her.
“It’s…it’s difficult to explain,” she stammered.
“Will there be others coming through?”
“I don’t know.”
The man took out an old pack of cigarettes and offered the woman one. She refused. He placed one in his mouth and lit it. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Regina.”
“Regina. What did you do before this?”
“I’m a follower of Jonny.”
“Jonny? The magician?”
“He’s not a magician.”
“Well you know that he died in an attack many years ago.”
“He promised he’ll be back.”
“It’s hard to come back from being blown to smithereens.”
The man stamped out his cigarette and escorted the women to their quarters but before he left the woman Regina stopped him. “Why are you doing this to us?” she inquired.
“You are now property of the Milner Corporation,” he informed her. “The men executed. Were they your family?”
The woman nodded.
“According to law, we are permitted to liquidate men of fighting age,” he said. “You may not understand but as we told you, this is private land. When the war is over, everything that you saw will be fully developed into something greater than what it was before. There is a lot of money to be made. A future to restore.”
“But what will happen to us?”
“You needn’t worry,” the man said. “As women you will bear the future. You will be a part of something wonderful and in time you will understand.”
The women took their bedside. But before the man left, he stopped and turned around. “My name is Wade,” he said. “Welcome to the Promised Land.”
A speck meandering through darkness. Focus on it long enough and it becomes indistinguishable from the vacuum in which it sojourns. To notice it would seem like a blunder from an otherwise faultless maker. But It is on this canvas of blackened nullity where hopes and dreams reside. Where love and tribulation live side by side like paramours in the dead of night. Look a little closer and a tale will emerge. These chronicles are familiar to us but exist as abominations in the ceaseless void.
Every story must begin somewhere. And this one begins here.
Light puckers intermittently through the greyish mist and a man is huddled under mounds of filth and turnt up earth. He looks upon the valley beneath him like a god casting a shadow on his accursed domain and like a god he sees its few inhabitants as a foolish catch. “Travelers,” he murmurs to himself.
The other man grips his weapon and rejoices like a salivating leopard. “Day travelers,” he gleams.
The man stands up on his kingdomly mound and shouts to the transgressors below. “Halt!” he ordered. The travelers stop and see the specter of a figure several meters above them. There were four in the caravan and one and one attempted a flee. But the man with the weapon rifles a bullet over his shoulder and the young traveler freezes at the kicked up dirt before him.
The two men traverse down the mound to meet their visitors and both were brandishing weapons. They inform the travelers that they were in violation of the law for this was private land. “We are not from the Agency,” the first traveler informed them.
“I figured “ said the man.
“We are fleeing the latest strikes.”
“Where to?”
The traveler didn’t answer.
The man rummages through their belongings and finds little of interest. Just enough food and clothing sufficient for a journey. Then the man looks under the hood of a shrouded traveler. It was a woman.
“I’m taking her according to the law,” the man declared.
“She’s only 15,” said the other woman.
“I’m taking you too.”
“Please have mercy,” begged the traveler. “We have no weapons. We didn’t know this was private land!”
“I’m only doing what the law allows,” said the man.
“Then the law is dead!”
The two men slew the male travelers and gathered their remains. Then they calmed the women at gunpoint then escorted them out of the valley.
I hitchhiked towards I-80 where Old Jim was holed up in a Motel 6. A cabbie picked me up and I climbed into the front seat where the driver tore me a new one. “Are you some sort of dumbass?” he shouted. “Don’t you know how dangerous hitchhiking is? I should beat the hell out you for being a moron!”
“Look brother,” I retorted, “I’ve been hitchhiking all my life and I’ve only been stabbed twice. Furthermore, I am armed with a Colt Python and a crisp $20 bill. So would you like the 20 bucks or a wadcutter to the belly?”
The cabbie shut his trap and put the vehicle in drive and we journeyed towards the interstate in cordial silence. When I arrived, I climbed out the passenger door while the petrified driver was itching to say something. When he did, he asked if he could have the $20.
“I see that the fare came to $19.98,” I said. “Do you have two pennies?”
The cabbie swallowed hard before reaching into his wallet to dig for two golden pieces of useless copper. He found plenty of quarters, dimes, nickels, and Iraqi dinars but only one penny. He held the lone coin silently while sensing his doom.
“I’ll tell you what bucko,” said I, “how about I shut this door and you go about your merry way?”
I took the cabbie’s non-response as an agreement so I closed the door and the cab slowly rolled out of the parking lot. It was another successful hitchhike.
Inside the motel room, I found Jim siting alone in his longjohns with a spit cup and playing solitaire. He left the air conditioning off which under the Nevada heat made the room unbearable. I sat the plastic bag of goods I bought on the dresser; some Rogaine, razors and shaving cream.
“How have you been holding up Jim?” I ask him.
Jim picks up his styrofoam spit cup and spits out a wad of long cut tobacco. “About as well as you could expect,” he said. “Where have you boys been?”
“Dale’s been killing it on the tables. I don’t know why but luck has blessed us here. We stayed in a suite last night.”
“A suite? Well Ain’t that somthin’” he said, spittin another wad.
“Look, I’m gonna need you to shave and dye your hair. We’re going undercover.”
“Shave? Dye?”
“Yes. That’s what all this shit here is for.”
His dead grey eyes hinted at a lack of comprehension. Perhaps being left alone in motel room for days on end resurrected his dementia so I folded on my demand. “You know what, nevermind,” I said. “Is there anything you can tell me about Joelle? Something we’ve never discussed?”
“Joelle?” he asked.
“Yes. The Madam.”
“Oh she’s a darlin’. How’s she doin these days?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her yet.”
“What’s she been up to?”
“Apparently pimping out whores again.”
Jim chuckled. “That madam, she’s a character.”
“What’s her relationship with Randy like?”
“Randy?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mumbled under my breath. “Anyway, I’m gonna go see her soon”.
“What fur?”
I paused and thought. “I guess the day of judgement comes for all of us,” I said.
“Mmm,” said Jim, spitting again. “You know, I’ve been thinking about my own judgment. I suppose I should be thanking the lord for blessing me with a long life. I’ve watched so many of my friends die. They were good men. And they were evil men too. I think about them a lot. I suppose that’s all I do nowadays. But then I think, maybe there is no god. Why must my brother die of cholera at six years old while I, a man who slayed another for a pack of cigarettes, gets to live a long life? Then I think maybe my brother is the blessed one and that hell lies not below our feet but lasts as long as we breathe. Funny things a man thinks in his old age.”
That night, I made Old Jim stay with us in the suite.
I waited for a cab outside the tawdry gates of Big Dick Cedars. The burly guard approached me with a stack of old and faded nudie cards he found stashed away in the guard shack. “Can you believe my luck?” he asked as he held a picture of a fully bushed woman spread eagle on an eight of spades.
“Pretty neat,” I said.
“I know! I can’t play solitaire without getting a boner!”
But as he thumbed through each card with increasing intensity, the taxi pulled curbside and rolled down the window. My heart sank when I saw the driver. “You son of a bitch!” the cabbie shouted. It was the same racist cabbie I stiffed earlier in the day.
Panicked, I grabbed the guard’s pistol believing it to be a 9mm then I aimed and fired it at the driver. Instead of a bullet, a prong shot out and attached itself to the cabbie. While he convulsed from numerous volts of electricity, I dropped the taser and headed for the bushes. I realized then that there was only one way back to Los Angeles and that was on my own two feet.
21 hours later I was back on the outskirts LA. With my feet rubbed raw and the soles of my shoes hanging by a thread, I crawled into my flat on all fours. I headed straight towards the kitchen and grabbed the last beer in the fridge. It was a Pabst BlueRibbon. “Goddamn piss water,” I said to myself. Vic must have drank the last of my Miller High Life. But I cracked open the PBR and crawled to the couch and tried to enjoy the lukewarm beer.
Right as I was about to doze off, Vic came through the front door carrying machete, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a dead boar. “Evening mate,” he greeted in his Scottish draw.
“I didn’t think there were wild boar in California,” I say.
“There’s not,” he explains as he throws off his gear. “Ay went huntin in the San Gabriel Mountains and was stalked by two prowlin cougars. I killed em both with me machete and used their skins to make me loincloth. Aye, I had a good dee killin’.”
“But how did you get the boar?”
“Tha boar? Oh that’s just roadkill mate.”
Vic strips out of his bloodied shirt and mud-caked pants to expose his cougar-skinned loincloth. Unbridled by clothes and restrictions of modern man, he stood like a Roman god in my living room. The half naked Scot then picked up an acoustic guitar and gently plucked away as he sang hymns from the mother land. I finished my can of piss water and threw the crushed piece of aluminum across the room. Vic stopped his serenading. “Oy mate, where have you been all day?” he asks.
“Norco,” I say.
“Norco? Why would you go to tha shitehole?”
“Someone owed me money. It’s like the goddamn wild west out there.”
“Aye. It’s the wild west everywhere mate.”
I rub my hands across my face as I choked back tears. “How did the world get so crazy?” I ask.
Vic lays down the guitar and leans forward. “The world has always been crazy,” he says. “We’re just feeble beings floating on an insignificant rock through time and space. Some days you’re up but most days you’re down yet the world spins madly round. They say that man is born into sin but his soul can be redeemed. But I say man is rotted to the bone. There is not one pure creature that walks this earth. Nay not one. God was right to look upon his creation and curse it. And if god has cursed us to live this madness then what hope have we? The pursuit of sanity will forever remain an empty one. In fact it’s something worse. It’s vanity.”
As usual I strolled into work five hours late and headed straight for the bathroom. I went into the one empty stall and dropped my pants to unload an ungodly duce which was the result of drinking two six packs and eating multiple cans of Vienna sausages the night before. But as I was desperately trying to squeeze the turd from my ass I could hear pathetic whimpering from the stall next to me.
I pounded on the wall. “Hey buddy! Can you keep it down over there?!” I shout.
The crying intensified.
Through the boo-hooing and unbearable cramping of my intestines I focus on unleashing the brown beast desperately trying to escape my body. But the man next to me only howled. And as he howled so too did the wretched stench blasting out of my butthole. Finally I had enough. I unfurl half a role of toilet paper to wipe my ass and there was nothing on it. Not a speckle of shit. My stomach was a raging and boiling mess. Though the attempt to free the monstrous brown bear creeping through my body had failed I knew that someway and somehow it would find a way out. But that moment wasn’t now. So I pull up my pants and flush the toilet filled with tissue as clean as unadulterated snow and depart the toilet knowing full well that this piece of porcelain will eventually face the wrath of my ass.
I forgo washing my hands and pound on the neighboring stall door. “I hope you’re happy,” I say to the pathetic whimpering man inside, “I can’t shit because of you. This is an unforgivable transgression!”
“I’m sorry James. I can’t control myself,” the voice said.
“Dale?”
“Yes James. It is I.”
“Step out,” I order. “Face me like a man you weakling!”
Dale unlocks the door and steps out with his head bowed like a yellow-bellied coward. His eyes were bloodshot and his face crusted by streams of tears. I was disgusted. “You sad little man,” I tell him.
He cries again.
“Don’t yell at me,” he begs. “My wife ran off with a knife salesman down to Kokomo. My son’s in jail for vehicular manslaughter and my doctor will no longer prescribe me dick pills.”
I slap him across the face. “Good!” I tell him, “a little adversity serves a man well from time to time. And you my dear Dale could use some shaping up! Look at you for Christ sake! Your tits are flopping out from behind your overalls!”
A fresh batch of tears flow from his eyes. “I can’t handle life no more!” he cries.
“There there,” I tell him. “There’s always hope. God is dead and when you die your memories fade away forever. A few will mourn your death but within weeks and months no one will think of you again. The universe is an empty and meaningless vortex that expands into infinity until it mercifully fades away into a quiet heat death. Then all that was will be no more. And when that day comes your concerns will seem like a speck floating on in an immense void shrouded in darkness. Some say there is no hope in this world but dare I say where gods cease to roam is where I find freedom! Seize this life! No one can do it but you!”
Dale nods his head. “I think I see what you’re saying,” he says. He wipes snot from his nose. “You’re saying I should take a loaded Colt .45 down to South Florida and settle matters with my wife’s lover.”
I throw my arm around his shoulder. I give him a warm embrace. “Now you’re getting it,” I say. “And don’t forget: you ARE god.”
I patted him on the back and he left the bathroom with his head held high like a man born anew. But my stomach still cramped. I exited through the front lobby where I was intercepted by the boss man. I tried to ignore him as I walked out the front door. “Is this an excused absence?” he shouted at me before the door closed.
I stood with one foot outside as I turned towards him. “Of course,” I lied, “I have an emergency.”
Time Magazine called me “the biggest fucking asshole” while the New York Times named me the “worst author of the 21st Century” for writing The Detective James Series: Vol. 1. Typical liberal MSM bs, smh. So needless to say the reviews haven’t been good.
That is until Dan Scamell of DVS Fiction released his glowing review of my first book. You see, Dan is a TRUE artist and an actual author. He has REAL talent, just like me. Unlike the rest of those hacks in the LAME stream media, Dan Scamell understands the subtle complexities of my very SERIOUS work.
Honestly, when the dust settles on ALL the attention my book’s getting, I think people will realize that Herman Melville is a clown and that The Detective James Series: Vol. 1 is truly the greatest American novel. Hell, it’ll probably outsell the Bible because God ain’t got SHIT on me.
But thank you Dan 🙏 your positive review means a lot to me. I love his work and I implore all of you to visit dvsfiction.com and follow him on the socials.
“Hey God, God Alliance, the Holy Divers…whatever the fuck you call yourselves…come get your boy!” I radioed to the new energy source on radar.
Yah jammed the transmission. “Captain, you have fucked me over for the last time,” he said over the intercom. “You will never escape me. I’ll chase you around the moons of Nibia and around the Antares Maelstrom and around perdition’s flames before I give you up!”
“Suck my limp dick!” I replied.
The energy source pursuing Yah was gaining on him. And with his final act, Yah tail whipped the rear of the Sagan, causing the ship to spin out of control.
“Fire the braking thrusters!” I ordered Valdez.
“Thrusters are having no effect!”
I radioed down to engineering. “Nia, more power to the brakes!”
“Sir,” she replied, “breaking thrusters were destroyed in the last hit! There’s a coolant leak in engineering. I’m diverting power to both the lift and main thrusters. That will stop the spinning, but we will be unable to stop in forward motion!”
“Captain, we’re hurdling towards a massive object ahead. 50,000km and closing,” Dr. Jackass said.
“Valdez! Give it some gas!” I yelled.
Valdez floored it. We were seconds away from crashing into a large meteor in front of us. The Sagan got caught in the object’s orbit and we spun around it a few times until we broke free.
The ship was now on a straight path, but we were still traveling at light speed. “We dodged that bullet,” The Doctor said, “but it’s only a matter of time before we collide with another object!”
I called back down to engineering. “Nia, can you stop the engines?”
“Not at this speed sir!” she replied. “And with our coolant depleted, I am unable to ramp them down. We will continue to increase speed until the engines burn out, but there will be no way of stopping the ship!”
We were now traveling at 1.5 times the speed of light and increasing. It was the fastest that humanity had ever achieved. But it was going to cost the lives of my crew.
Valdez and Jackass looked to me for answers. I had none.
I went over the intercom.
“Attention crew of the Sagan,”I said, “it has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your captain. All of you are fine officers. You have achieved only what others have dreamt. Let’s just hope history never forgets the name: The USV Carl Sagan.”
I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. Vibration began increasing.
Then there was a miracle.
“Sir!” Valdez yelled. “Speed is decreasing!”
I opened my eyes. The universe was no longer speeding past us. Finally, the Sagan reached a full stop.
“What the hell happened?” I asked.
There was a voice behind me. “I stopped this piece of shit from flying apart, that’s what happened,” it said.
I turned around and there was a Jack Lemmon-looking asshole dressed in white robes standing on the bridge.
“Who are you?” I said to the strange man.
“God, dumbass!”
“You’re God?! I thought Yah was God!”
“No moron! Yah’s that damn Deceiver fella mentioned in that book of yours, the uhh…,” God started snapping his fingers to jog his memory.
“The Bible?” I said
“The Bible! That’s it! He had this cockamamie idea that he could come to Earth and establish a kingdom for himself or some stupid crap. I dunno. We stopped him and thought that he should be a prisoner to YOU guys because he tortured all of you for so long. Clearly that didn’t work out. So now we’re gonna have to find some other way to punish Yah. That guy’s fucking nuts!”
“So are you the ONLY God?”
“I’m the only one NAMED God, if that’s what you mean. But no, there’s a lot more like me.”
“What do you guys DO?”
“Hey! You stay out of our affairs and we’ll stay out of yours PAL!”
“But Earth needs your help.”
“Let me tell you something: no they don’t. You think that because we’re “gods” that we don’t know what it’s like to be you guys? Guess what? We were like you humans at one time. Humanity can climb out of this mess and come back stronger than ever. You know what? I believe in YOU. How do you like that irony?”
“Can you at least help the Ishnarians?”
“Yeah yeah, I’ll go back to Ishnar. I’m used to cleaning up Yah’s shit.”
“I have just one more favor to ask.”
“What do you want now?”
“Can you send us back to Earth? The ship’s kinda broken.”
“Look, I’m not allowed to break the laws of time. Earth’s kinda a shithole right now. Don’t worry though, there’s still people there but they’re all living underground. How bout I put you back in your hibernation chambers and by the time you reach Earth, radiation levels will be back to normal. Sound like a deal?”
“Thanks God.”
“Alright, sweet dreams.” Then God snapped his fingers again.
Many decades later…
The Sagan was orbiting Earth. Tranquility Bay was abandoned and uninhabitable. I made the decision to land on the surface.
“Radiation levels have stabilized, Captain,” Dr. Jackass said.
“Thank you Doctor.” From the bridge, I looked out through the view screen, down to the big blue marble below. “Should we attempt communication?” I asked.
“There doesn’t appear to be any technology to receive it,” the Doctor replied.
“We really are back to the stone ages then,” I said. “I’ll be down in engineering.”
I met with Commander Mwangi at her station. “How’s the landing gear?” I asked.
“All systems are functioning normally, sir,” she replied. But she wouldn’t look at me.
“Is everything alright Commander?”
Mwangi stood up from her desk and turned her face towards me. “You took a big gamble Captain,” she said. “You risked the safety of the entire crew.”
“I ain’t apologizing for getting into a stare down with the devil and winning,” I replied.
“We could’ve been killed!”
“I couldn’t allow you to live in sexual slavery!”
Mwangi sucker punched me right in the face. As I stood in a daze, she grabbed my head and kissed me passionately. “You are one stupid, STUPID son of a bitch,” she said, “but I thank you for it.” She rubbed her body against mine as she sidestepped her way back to work.
I had no idea what just happened. But I liked it.
I returned to the bridge and patted Valdez on the shoulder. “I never congratulated you on your pregnancy. Congratulations Commander,” I told her.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Are you ready to raise this child in a brave new world?”
“We are going home,” I announced to the crew onboard the Sagan. “To repair the ship, we’ll need Yah’s help. He’s being brought to the surface as we speak. His chamber will be stored in the cargo area, where Dr. Jackass will release him. We cannot get too close to Yah. He’s highly radioactive, but the Doctor will be equipped with a radiation absorber that I stole from the Ishnarians. You are ordered to remain out of the cargo bay. The Doctor will ask Yah to remain a safe distance from the crew.”
“If he’s God,” Patel asked, “can’t he make more radiation absorbers?”
“Good question Patel,” I replied, “but let’s not overthink this. Yah is not a supernatural being. He is made of real matter and is bound by gravity. That’s why he needs a spaceship to get off this planet. Additionally, it should be noted that Yah can read minds. But it appears that he can only do so at a certain distance. Perhaps up to 60 feet. If possible, stay 60 feet away from the cargo area. I can’t go into any more details, but when I order everyone to be at their stations, you will have 30 seconds to get there. Am I understood?”
“Yes sir!”
“Good. Begin preparations for launch.”
I exited the Sagan to meet with Hazov. Off in the distance, Yah’s chamber was being wheeled towards the ship.
“It’s a shame that you are unable to stay,” Hazov said, “hopefully this is the beginning of a fruitful relationship between our two worlds.”
“Possibly,” I said.
“If you don’t mind me prying, Captain, I thought your ship was having trouble launching.”
I smiled. “Someone forgot to carry the 1.”
“I see,” he said. “Farewell Captain.”
“Farewell Hazov.”
We shook hands and I immediately went to engineering to speak with Commander Mwangi. “Commander, once when you see that the hydrogen drive is back online, fire it up immediately,” I told her.
“But Captain, with lift thrusters firing we’ll be moving at a tremendous speed. We risk burning the hydrogen drive out again.”
“Just do it.”
I went to the bridge and strapped into the navigation station next to Valdez. “What’s the fastest you’ve ever flown a ship?” I asked her.
“About 1/8th the speed of light sir.”
“Prepare to shatter that record.”
The Doctor then came over the intercom. “The chamber is loaded sir,” he said.
“Close cargo bay doors and release Yah from the chamber,” I ordered.
Yah spoke up. “Thank you for releasing me from my chains, Captain,” he said.
“Don’t mention it.”
I monitored controls from the command post. Moments later, Valdez spoke up. “Lift thrusters are online sir!”
“Launch thrusters!”
The Sagan began lifting off the surface and into the atmosphere. I channeled down to engineering. “How’s that hydrogen drive coming along, Nia?!”
“Hydrogen drive is fully operational!”
Then a deeply distraught Hazov came over the radio. “Captain Kananga! Our planet is facing a torrent of earthquakes and tornadoes! We are dying! What have you done?!”
I radioed down to the cargo bay. “Yah! Unleashing the apocalypse on Ishnar wasn’t part of the deal!”
“Sorry Captain,” Yah replied. “The people of Ishnar have broken the covenant. They shall face my wrath.”
Now Yah was about to face my wrath, I thought. “I see,” I responded to Yah. “Dr. Jackass, please report to the bridge.”
I looked over to Valdez. “Have we cleared the atmosphere?” I asked.
“Yes sir, we are about to leave the outer orbit of Ishnar’s moons.”
“Good. Hopefully we can put enough distance between Yah and Ishnar.”
Moments later, Dr. Jackass entered the bridge. “Doctor,” I said, “on my count, open the cargo bay doors.
“Sir?”
I went over the intercom. “Attention crew: please be at your stations,” I ordered, then activated life support systems on all decks.
After 30 seconds expired, I looked back over to Valdez. “Alright Commander, step on it!”
“Excuse me?”
“Damn it Valdez! FLOOR IT!”
As we accelerated to an extraordinary speed, I ordered Dr. Jackass to open cargo doors. Centrifugal systems instantly cut out and we were floating at zero-g.
“Sir!” the Doctor yelled, “all contents in the cargo bay have been suctioned out! Including Yah! Closing doors now!”
As the gravity was being restored, I looked up at the radar. An energy source outside the ship was keeping pace. “Damn it! Yah is on our tail! More speed!”
“But we’re traveling near the speed of light!” Valdez replied.
“Can God go faster than light?!” Dr. Jackass asked.
“I guess we’ll find out!”
The ship began to rattle back and forth. We were under attack. Using his god-like power, Yah came over the intercom. “Is this how you want this to end Captain?” he asked. “Empty space makes a cold grave.”
“Faster Valdez!” I ordered.
“She’ll fly apart Captain!”
“Fly her apart then!”
Alarms and buzzers were going off across the bridge. The vibration intensified. If we were going to die, we were going to die going the speed of light.
Then I looked up at the radar. Another energy source was was gaining on Yah.
The Internet Ruined Everything 