Strange Brain Parts (5 page)

Suddenly, Pain was struck with an idea he found so incredible that he accidentally caused one-quarter of the female population on Earth to suffer from menstrual cramps.

“I got it, man,” said Pain, hands waving erratically.

“What?” asked Death.

Pain’s eyes literally bulged with excitement as he said, “Let’s play a game called ‘Divine Intervention’.”

“Um,” said Death. “I don’t follow you.”

“You’ve never heard of this game?”

“I can pretend like I have if you want. I’m not above that type of behavior.”

“It was real popular with the Greeks and Romans. Those Norse people had a thing for it, too. The Alpha Proxims really ate that crap up back in the day. There's whole belief systems based on one or more all-powerful entities showing up and mixing it up with sentient beings. Actually, just about every belief system in the universe is based on godlike people coming around and driving the locals crazy.”

Pain fixed a stare at Death and waited for a good long time to see if Death understood what he was talking about. He finally said, “You haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m talking about here do you?”

“I was kinda hoping you’d just keep talking so I could pick out the details from what you were saying.”

Pain sighed and said, “Divine intervention is where a god or gods directly mess with the affairs of sentient beings.”

“Gotcha,” said Death. “What’s your game plan?”

“We keep it simple for now, I think,” began Pain. “Let's pick out some worthless human being and promise it immortality. It’s been a while since we’ve been to Earth, so let’s start there.”

“Damn, man,” said a disappointed Death. “We can’t promise anything like that. We don’t have that kind of authority.”

“Well, I know that,” said Pain, rolling his eyes, “but that's the whole point here. We're just messing with the human's head a bit. You think an ignorant human is gonna know two godlike beings don't have godlike power?”

“Probably not.”

“There you go. Anyway, we have to throw in one catch. These deals always have a catch. Something like...to qualify for the aforementioned immortality the human must make a sacrifice to us every month. Not a stupid bunny or goat but another human being. As long as it keeps making sacrifices to us it will remain alive. What do you think, buddy?”

Death tapped his fingers on the large oaken table they were seated at and thought about the idea for a moment. An unholy fire ignited and swirled in his empty eye sockets. He said, “You know, I like it. It’s not completely original but it’s workable and, to be honest, I can't think of anything better at the moment.”

Pain enthusiastically said, “It’s agreed then! Now let’s find a suitable human and strike up a deal.”

“Um,” began Death, “How should we do that?”

Pain shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Walk randomly down a street on Earth and see what we can see, I guess. How hard can something like this be?”

* * *

Failure was a minor entity who, in a very curious way that can’t be explained because it makes absolutely no sense, was related to both Pain and Death. However, neither of them was particularly close to their families and couldn’t, if asked, pick Failure out of a lineup. That’s why their quest for a suitable human for their mischievous game was so unsuccessful at first.

Twenty-one humans believed Pain and Death’s offer of immortality was a rather sick joke being made by their friends with a really stupid sense of humor.

Ten humans produced guns and tried to ventilate Pain and Death’s impervious bodies. Pain was amused by the effort, but recognized a failure when he saw one (he just didn’t recognize Failure).

A surprising number of humans, forty-two all tolled, gave up their wallets or purses and ran away screaming for help. Death kept their identification cards for future reference.

Six humans asked if they were being taped for some popular reality style television program.

One human died outright when Pain and Death approached him. “Great,” said Death. “More paperwork. Like I need this aggravation.”

Finally, Pain spotted Failure in his peripheral vision nonchalantly dismantling the brake system on a car. Pain approached Failure and told her to bugger off before he turned all of her toilet paper into rusty barbed wire and then gave her case of explosive diarrhea. Quite sure that Pain wasn’t bluffing or incapable of the threat, Failure thought it best to leave the pair alone and amuse herself by tampering with baby monitors.

Failure had just disappeared when a human named Victor Klein walked straight into Death, who had been standing on the sidewalk watching the exchange between Pain and Failure. Death wouldn’t have noticed the human at all if it wasn’t for the loud noise it made when it fell ass first onto the pavement. Pain quickly strolled over to see what all the noise was about.

Victor looked up frightened at Pain and Death and asked, “Do you have any Pez?”

Pain and Death looked at each other in total confusion.

“I said, ‘ Do you have any Pez?’” repeated Victor, his voice being just this side of hysterical.

“Uh, no,” answered Pain. “We don’t.”

The human jumped cheerfully to his feet and heartily shook their hands. “Then I take it you aren’t policemen. Or policewomen,” he said, a wide, almost sane smile on his face. “All policemen, and policewomen, too, carry Pez dispensers. It makes them feel superior.”

“Uh,” said Death. “Um.”

Pain asked, “What difference would it make if we were policemen?”

“Or policewomen?” added Death.

Victor looked around quickly and moved towards Pain and Death before saying, “It’s because they’re after me, you see. The policemen, and policewomen, too, that is.”

“Oh? Any particular reason?”

“Probably because I recently escaped from the Perpetually Disturbed Mental Institution and Steak Ranch.”

Pain’s face beamed with pure joy. Death’s skull seemed to glow and, if he had the ability, he would have smiled. They both recognized that they might have accidentally found a potential candidate for their game. They had great success in the past with those that were slightly unbalanced mentally but seemingly functional otherwise.

“Thank you, Fate,” whispered Pain. He asked Victor, “If you don’t mind me asking, what did you do to end up in this institution?”

“I prevented my girlfriend from being abducted into another dimension by the High Priest of Kwork,” answered Victor proudly, as if this were an actual, noteworthy accomplishment.

Pain and Death visibly slumped. This piece of meat was clearly insane but not in the manner they had initially hoped. They had felt a similar sense of disappointment once seat belts and airbags were invented for automobiles. Previous to that, automobile accidents were a growth/growth industry. Lots of blood and suffering. A limb here, an organ there. Maybe a little decapitation. Now car crashes produced little more than crushed metal and plastic boxes with relatively whole people inside. Hardly worth any excitement at all.

“Sadly,” continued Victor, “The policemen, and policewomen, too, called my preventive acts ‘murder’. I think a judge agreed with that hasty assessment as well. So did a bunch of people with the first name of Jury. Funny that a group of people with the same first name would all get together like that. I mean, the odds of that spontaneously happening must be pretty high.”

“Uh,” said Death. “Um.”

Victor said, “The ironic part to all of this is that I learnt, while wrongly institutionalized for a crime that I didn’t commit, that my girlfriend had actually been murdered the same day I was arrested. Very sad, in a way.”

“Funny that,” said Pain, getting interested.

“One of life’s many coincidences,” said Victor with little discernible emotion in his voice. He took a quick breath and said, “Although, when I think about it, preventing her from entering the Kwork dimension did leave her in a state that could’ve been mistaken as death. She was awfully still and silent afterwards, but women are like that when they don’t get what they want aren’t they? They sulk and moan about the pain. And complain that they’re getting cold. That they’re getting faint from loss of blood. Women overreact like that about everything. Everything is one big production. Hysterical. They're all hysterical meat.”

“Blood?” asked Death, trying to raise an eyebrow he didn’t have.

“Oh, yeah,” said Victor. “It was all over the place. It was a mess like you wouldn’t believe. Preventing inter-dimensional travel is some messy business, let me tell you.”

Pain suddenly felt an inspiration.

“What if I told you,” began Pain, “that this High Priest of whatever was still up to his old tricks?”

“Do you think that's something you're likely to tell me?” asked Victor, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“It might be.”

“Then I think I might be a bit upset,” said Victor. “I might even be highly motivated to try and prevent him from ensnaring other people of this dimension and secreting them away to his. That's just wrong. And a bit tacky. I mean, one should pick up chicks in their home dimension.”

“Maybe he doesn't have Internet in his dimension,” said Death, “and has a hard time making a love connection. This planet is pretty well known for its loose people.”

Pain glared at Death.

“What?” said Death. “It's true. This planet is practically a red light district.”

Ignoring Death, Pain said, “For the record we completely agree with you, human. This High Priest guy has no business in this dimension. We have, in fact, been trying to track him down ourselves. We're special agents of the dimensional police. We've been tasked to take down this heathen.”

“Yeah,” said Death, catching on to where Pain was going with this conversation. “He's like a greased weasel. A greasy, weaselly, uh...thing.”

“We could use the help of a highly motivated individual,” said Pain. “This planet is a mess of people being charmed by the High Priest. We could really use someone willing to seek these people out and prevent them from being kidnapped. We have limited resources and have to focus on tracking down the High Priest himself. We just can't spend any time preventing these crimes ourselves. But maybe we can hire an operative to do that for us. There are some amazing benefits.”

“Interesting,” said Victor, deep in thought. “But where do you stand on the issue of flickering streetlights?”

“Well...” said Death. He didn't even try to finish his sentence, realizing he didn't have the capacity to properly address total nonsense. He thought it best to defer to Pain.

“We can discuss that later,” said Pain. “Let's talk about what we need from you. And what we can do for your hard work and participation at bringing this scum bucket to justice.”

* * *

The deal went something like this:

To Pain and Death's surprise, Victor wasn't particularly interested in immortality for his efforts, requesting to substitute a steady supply of Pez to him instead. He preferred a Spider-man dispenser but a Jughead one would do just as well.

Victor's next request was that for every person he ritualistically prevented from being kidnapped to Kwork he wanted one hundred and twenty-five Kworkians destroyed. He thought this would be a good way to send a punitive message to the High Priest and inspire him to quit his evil ways or to give himself up to the proper authorities.

Pain and Death explained that Victor wasn't to ever reveal his source of Pez to anyone under any circumstances. If he didn't maintain the strictest confidence about working for Pain and Death he would automatically expire. If the authorities of this world caught Victor while discharging his duties he would also automatically expire to prevent him from being taken into custody and handed over to Kworkian operatives working in this dimension.

Along with his initial supply of Pez in his preferred dispenser, Victor received a cheap plastic badge that identified him as a deputy of the dimensional police and a pair of enchanted glasses that allowed him to see people who were in danger of being abducted or were agents from Kwork working in this dimension. The badge was actually a slightly torn beer label Pain had removed from a discarded bottle in a nearby alleyway and the glasses had clear glass in them, having the only special property of making the user look like a nerd. These were details that neither Pain nor Death thought they should share with the human.

With these details worked out, all parties shook hands and then went their separate ways.

* * *

“Look,” said Pain through slurps of nuclear waste soup, “he's at it again.”

Death hopped quickly, and quite nimbly for an animated skeleton wearing a long cloak, over to the table and took a position in front of the widescreen television they had set up to monitor Victor's activities. The television had been enchanted to tune into Victor’s unique biorhythms and automatically turned itself on when his body chemistry and brain activity indicated he was preparing for murder.

On the screen Victor happily hummed a Barry Manilow song to himself while slicing a helpless human to bloody chunks.

“Quite a unique slicing style,” observed Death, transfixed.

“Yeah,” agreed Death. “He takes pride in his work. Can't help but love a good psychotic. Man, they have a focus I totally lack.”