The Search for Ball Zero (5 page)

In the quest to span the globe,
you have to deal with the world’s problems.  First, you just
have rent-a-cop security, then you need a rent-a-cop who speaks
Mongolian.  Then there’s rent-a-cops in downtown LA who need
tasers, then they need more than tasers.  That’s when you get
the Corporate Police (called CP), which leads to cloned Corporate
Police, which, is basically a clone army.

A cloned corporate army, kind
of cheesy, I bet you can imagine what it looks like.  All of
them in their spiffy ad covered fatigues, standing in perfect lines
as far back as you can see, marching in unison.  All created
from the perfect rent-a-cop DNA.  Are they all eunuchs you may
ask?  Yes, of course they are.  They are cloned
ball-less. Two albino twins who played offensive line at USC were
the progenitors of these hybrids.

So there you go, you have an
army of brainwashed eunuch clones whose DNA donor is the corpse of
the perfect, power hungry rent-a-cop, which is owned by a
corporation that has globe spanning security needs.  End of
story you say?  Not quite.  

One day in a very important
meeting between the heads of Elohssa Corp. it was brought up that
Michael Jackson’s dreams were 5% less popular today than they were
yesterday.  Although Elohssa Corporation was the number 1, big
boy corporation in the world with an army of cloned eunuchs at its
disposal, this news was devastating.  They were going to go
bankrupt if Michael Jackson’s dreams became 1% less popular, and
the executives of Elohssa were meeting to solve this problem once
and for all.  

“
How about we lay off everyone in
the video game division?”

The room grumbled like all
boardrooms filled with old rich men do.  Grumble, grumble,
shake, shake.  They all pondered this solution half aloud,
though some were sleeping.  

“
Are you fucking crazy?” one
grizzled old geezer yelled out suddenly, “In Real Life 5, I’m on
the verge of taking over Japan, and those guys are working on the
weekly updates, I hear next week is the big alien invasion.
 You want us to fire them!?  I can’t miss that!  I’m
about to make those Japs my bitches!”  At end of this tirade,
the old man quickly stood up and flashed some gaming clan hand
signals and movements, which kind of looks like an old white dude
flashing gang symbols and then leaning side to side and kicking his
feet out.  Then he plopped back into his seat.

The grumble came back, this
time a little louder and more negative.

After a long silence that was
easily the product of all of them paying attention to other things,
a Bill and Ted-like, “Fucking taxes man!” sprung out from
somewhere.

Silence, no grumbles.

“
Yea!  Fuck taxes!”, came from
somewhere in the room.

The robot vice-president of
marketing agreed in a robot voice, “Yes.  Fuck taxes with my
robot penis in its vagina and/or asshole.”

“
Taxes are why we’re losing money.
 Why do we need to pay those fags in the government
anyways?”

“
Yea, if we don’t pay taxes, we’ll
be making money!  Right?”

“
Yea, like, totally dude!”, the Bill
and Ted guy said.

“
What are they gonna do if we don’t?
 Make a ‘law’ against us?  Or maybe they’ll attack us
with their ‘army’!”  This particular executive liked to use
air quotes when talking and laughed louder at his own jokes than
anyone else.

They all looked around at each
and burst into laughter.

After the laughter subsided
slightly, the man at the head of the table stood up, “So it’s
decided.  Fuck those pussies in the government!  We will
refuse to pay taxes and if those homos in the US government have a
problem with it, they can talk to our warstores when they launch
next week!”

Then quickly,
everyone disappeared.  (Well, what really happened was all the
3D holograms of each executive turned off.  Did you think all
of these important executive-types would have the time to attend a
meeting in person?  That’s so 21
st
century.)

In the quiet forest on the outskirts of a
normal sized town, a small family of deer

graze peacefully. The ground begins to
vibrate slightly and each deer stops to look. The vibrations become
a rumbling and the deer take off in all directions just as massive
tank treads rip through the trees and forest around them. The
treads are so huge that only a couple deer escape and the rest are
crushed into a red wake of forest soup. The treads smash roads,
trees, giant rocks and reach near the tops of trees; whatever is
riding on them must be gigantic.

At the same time in a nearby city, people
are excitedly forming lines along a main street. Many more are
coming and it’s crowded, like a parade is about to come down the
street. All the people are wearing outrageous clothing with
prominent ads, some streaming live video ads, some with 3D
holographic ads projecting from them. Among the pixelation of ads
protruding from the crowd, many are showing a countdown; all with a
little less than five minutes remaining. Surveying the chaotic
crowd, it can be seen they are here for the opening of the first
warstore.

The giant treads continue mowing through the
forest. As the giant machine rolls

by, the treads leave a crater in the Earth
about ten feet deep. Hinting at the size and weight of this beast,
its entire bottom is riddled with bullet dents in the armor, small
blood stains, giant blood splatters and lots of stuff that can only
be described as “meat”.

Hanging on the side of this enormous Hunter
Killer-like machine is a giant tarp that reads “Grand Opening! 50%
off – Today only!” Above the sign is a logo, “TelNet, the
‘original’ warstore”

The forest pulls back for a second to reveal
the entire Telnet warstore. It looks

like a fully-armed apartment
building/Walmart on gigantic tank treads. The outer layer is
littered with machine guns, radars, sensors, the surface looks like
a Death Star. It’s obviously very loud, rumbling and leaving a path
of destruction a few blocks wide in its wake. The epicenter of an
earthquake on tank treads.

The crowd waiting on the street is getting
feverish now and spilling off the sidewalk. They are intently
focused on whatever is about to happen, yet the mood is
celebratory; like the front gates of Disneyland are about to open
or Black Thursday but everyone is on crack.

Consumer 1, freaking out, “I can’t believe
it. My whole life I’ve dreamt of shopping at a luxury traveling
store!”

Consumer 2, “This is better than any old
traveling store.. this is a warstore!” emphasizing the last two
words.

The forest edge starts to rumble, like a
T-Rex crunching through the jungle in Jurassic Park, and the crowd
reacts like someone got a clutch hit in the World Series.

Some people are trying to stay in line, but
chaos takes reign.

There is a small, grassy field between the
edge of the forest and the city edge, a

few hundred yards or so. The field is dotted
with a few random people, but the city street is filled with
thousands and is chaotic.

Inside a high tech cockpit, uniformed men
and women are looking at readouts

and pressing important buttons on their
touch screens. The cockpit looks like the deck of a Star Trek ship,
yet they are dressed like they work at Walmart. A map on a big
screen in front shows them closing in on a big X.

The warstore computer brags about some
reading it just received, “Consumer confidence – high”, in a
typical soothing female computer voice.

“
Are we all ready to go?”
the Captain says, he’s the only person here who looks and sounds
like he could be in the army.

“
Uhhh..,” Billy, the 2nd
in command mutters. This guy is obviously more Walmart employee
than Army. Then with supremely faked confidence, “Yes
sir!”

“
I don’t want to see
another Phoenix. You hear me?”

The computer interrupts, “Social media
advertising saturation – 75%. Physical ad presence nearing
50,000.”

Billy, “Yes sir, I’ll double check on the
supervisors.”

Computer, “Launching Regional Sales
Promotion Virus…”

On a nearby screen millions of names scroll
by in about a ½ a second. Then the screen flashes. “Virus Defeated.
…Calculating..”

The captain likes it,”Woohoo, did you see
that!? We were online for a whole half a second! Heads are gonna
roll at MBEPSoft West for that one. Good job geek squad. More than
we could’ve asked for.”

A bunch of ultra nerds in some other room
celebrate with awkward high fives,

typing and ‘interfacing’ with their
computers in celebration of their successful marketing virus.

The computer brags again, “Exact virus ad
campaign time in cyberspace… point five one seconds. Total ICs
infected, ten trillion.”

The Captain loves it, “Ten trillion facebook
fucks want our shit now, let’s give it to ‘em!”

Billy goes back to the supervisor control
room where pimply faced teens man computer terminals and sweat
nervously.

The top of the warstore towers above the
tallest trees in the forest, eating it’s

way to the forest edge. It gets closer and
closer as its mechanical roar gets louder and the rumbling moves up
the richter scale. It almost reaches the end of the tree line, and
a long second later the trees on the edge of the forest explode as
the warstore makes its grand entrance; the crowd erupts
simultaneously.

The giant crowd emits every emotion
possible: people are running in circles

like they just won the lottery, some stare
in amazement, some burst into tears. A few of the hardcore Ads
burst into a porcupine of 3D holographic ads. One particularly
enthusiastic Ad jumps from the top of a 3 story building, his ads
gloriously filling the air for a few seconds, then he hits the
ground in a splat and all his ads pop off. No one cares.

Back in the warstore cockpit.

“
Billy, can I go on break,
I need to call my mom and take a shit.” One of the non-descript
screen watching workers spurts out. His name happens to be
Robbie.

“
No! You fucking idiot,
the sale’s in about 2 seconds, get ready. We need this

sale to go perfectly or they’re gonna have
us sellin used robots to a bunch of Jawas!” Billy gets in Robbie’s
face, without the Captain around Billy goes all alpha male, “Jawas
Robbie!! Jawas! Do you want that? Do Jawas have enough money to pay
for your mom’s therapeutic hemorrhoid ass pool? No. I didn’t think
so.. So just do your job, you can shit and talk to your hippo of a
mother after we sell these bastards some good ole

Telnet products. Okay?”

“
Okaay, geez.” Robbie
says, then begins trailing off ,”My mom’s not a…”

The Computer isn’t bragging this time,
“Government resistance very probable.

Local law enforcement resistance – 95%
chance.”

Billy doesn’t like that news, “Did you hear
that?! See what you did Robbie?!.. I

hate you!” The supervisor slaps Robbie
across the face, hard. “I hate you! look what you did!”

Robbie starts crying, but trying to hold it
in. He’s also simultaneously trying to

hold in that shit he was talking about, but
lets a fart slip out he’s so stressed. His eyes dart back and
forth, no one noticed.

The Captain is standing near the main front
window, looking out over the

approaching frenzied street, like some great
army commander surveying the battlefield.

“
See that Billy? That’s
the power, those bastards will do anything and everything to be the
first one in here giving us their money. Look at em go!
Whoowee.”

Then after a pause,”Ok, are we ready to do
this?”

A few screen watchers sound off weakly and
not in unison, “Yea” “yea” “ok”

The Captain turns and throws a furious
backhand over the top of a row of

monitors, hitting at least 2 screen
watchers. He turns into a drill sergeant, “I can’t hear you!”

All of the screen watchers now respond, “Yes
Sir!”

“
Better. Ok, lower vacuum
store entrances.”

Looking at warstore from the crowd’s
perspective. You can hear giant mechanized parts moving and
unlocking. Two giant “arms” begin descending from the warstore's
side. The ends of each arm have what looks like a giant Dust Buster
where the hand should be, but with the words “Entrance. Have a nice
time shopping at Telnet” Below that their warstore slogan“We blow
away the competition.” With cartoon machine gun muzzle blasts
background art. The arms lower almost all the way to ground level
and the warstore is still moving at top speed. The giant Dust
Buster vacuums turn on with a enormous hum and debris begins being
sucked in with tornado like wind speed.

The frenzied crowd is now not long from it’s
shopping spree, it’s pure chaos in

the streets.

Suddenly 4 cop cars come flying by with
sirens blazing, sending some people

fleeing back to the sidewalk.

A few Ads and normal people are very upset
by the cops crashing their Sale. One Ad steps out in the path on
the oncoming cars like he’s in Tiananmen Square. He’s got multiple
3D holographic ads for the new iPad69 shooting out at angles from
his shoulders and the Apple logo tattooed across his face. He looks
like Flavor Flav, mixed with a pincushion of holographic Apple ads
pointing in all directions from his body.

None of the cop cars touch the brakes,
splattering him like the toxic waste guy in Robocop. All of his 3D
holograms stutter and shatter in all directions then quickly blink
off. No more hits today for that Ad.