ECOPOCALYPSE CH.7 - BATMAN REIGNS

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.7 - BATMAN REIGNS By Nandy Ekle

Your public execution. After all the work you did to find an answer to this crisis, they still want to kill you. And this comes directly from the President of the United States, well, the acting President of the United States. Your face feels like it is on fire while your hands and feet feel like icebergs. Worst of all, your insides have become melted wax.

            “No!” Madge screams at Sneedon. “No way! My brother might be a partying bigoted homophobe, but he’s got a huge heart. He cannot be executed.”

            “Madge,” you place your hands on her shoulders. “I don’t think you’re going to stop anything here.” Your life passes before your eyes in a split second—playing house with her when you were kids, Madge playing Daddy and you playing the baby. You sitting on the curb crying while she whips all ten bullies standing in the yard demanding lunch money. The fifteen year fight (she still hasn’t forgiven you) over her g-f, Suzi. Inventing the Environaut and the financial success that followed. Parties with Milo. Then, today’s crap. You realize what an immature jerk you’ve always been, from letting Madge fight your battles to the endless parties with Milo.

            Five words float across your brain. Five one-syllable words, but five words that bring a 180 degree turn around to your life. This one little phrase turns you into a hero. Time to be a man.

            Madge sees it in your eyes. The look on her face changes from a worried sister to a grieving sister to a proud sister. “You mean . . .”

            “Yes, Madge. I’ll let them take me. All my life I’ve done nothing but hide behind you and partay harday. But today, I’m bringing out the tights and cape and becoming a hero.”

            She throws her arms around your neck and hugs you tight enough to push all the air from your lungs. You hug her back, then you tap on her back, begging for her to release you so you can breathe long enough to do what must be done.

            She drops her arms. “Sorry. I keep forgetting how much stronger I am than you.”

            You stand up straighter and your voice drops two octaves. “It’s okay, Madge. I wouldn’t be where I am today if you weren’t stronger.” She grins as she wipes her tears and snotty nose on your shirt.

            You turn to face Sneedon. “Okay. I give up. Take me in.”

            “You’re full of crap, you know it? Just because China, Russia and the entire Arab nation are calling for your public execution doesn’t mean we’re going to give it to them. They’re not our bosses, afterall.”

            At that moment an alarm sounds with a volume so loud you nearly jump out the window. You all look toward the red phone under the glass dome and notice it bouncing up and down. Sneedon removes the dome and picks up the receiver.

            “Yes?  Yes, sir. I understand.” He replaces the receiver and the glass dome and turns back to the room. You hold your breath while he collects his composure. He looks at you, then down at the floor. He looks at Madge, then you, then down at the floor. Finally he brings his head up and appears to be looking out the window behind you.

            “That was President Gantly. Russia, China, and the entire Arab nation have threatened to launch a nuclear missile directly to your hometown if we don’t show your torture and execution in the next 24 hours. He doesn’t really want to kill you, but it appears we have no choice.”

             You throw your arms out together, hands knotted into fists, waiting for the handcuffs to snap around them. When the cold steel touches your wrists, you gasp. The metal is so hard and cold. They really intend to go through with it. Forget the noble intention, an entire world is at stake.

             Walking silently to the beat of Madge’s sobs, you, Sneedon, Madge, and Ernie march toward the door. The whole party enters the elevator and begin the trip to the ground floor where you all will walk to the front lawn of the White House in front of cameras from all over the world and a firing squad standing ready for the order to fire.

            Just as you and the rest of the parade is about to leave the front door, Madge stops and turns you toward her. Her hands reach to pluck at a potted plant on a shelf by the door.

            “You know that stuff about not forgiving you over Suzi?” You nod your head, afraid to speak. Tears would spoil the heroic music playing in your head. “I forgive you.”

            “Madge . . .” you manage to say.

            “Get moving, you two.” Sneedon does not appreciate the tender moment you and Madge are sharing.

            As you stand on the green grass, you look at Madge one final time standing far away from the line of soldiers with guns pointed directly at you. You feel your previously melted insides begin to rise as if trying to run away from the guns. The world takes on a brown tinge.

            President Arthur Gantly is speaking to the cameras. “Ladies and gentlemen of the world, I bring you this, this miscreant who nearly destroyed our world with pooh. I will give you his head on a platter.”

            You watch as Ernie leans down and whispers something in Madge’s ear. He has a leering look on his face. You laugh as she knees him so hard in the crotch he hits the wall.

            The President stands facing the line of gun-wielding soldiers with his hand in the air. You hear a scream. It’s not Madge, her voice is much lower than what you heard. You hear the noises of bedlam and look beyond the firing squad. People are running everywhere, trampling each other, climbing over cars and trees to get away from the gruesome scene about to take place. You envision your blood splatter on the ground and look down as if it already has. You do see a drop of something near your feet, but it isn’t red, it’s brown. At that moment, another drop of brown liquid falls from your eyes.

            You remember the clod of dirt Madge rubbed in your face during the tender moment in the hallway. You can still taste the mud as she suggested you even swallow some of it. It works. People everywhere are convinced you have contracted the same disease that has been turning the rest of the world into zombies. Not wanting to catch anything from you, the on-lookers, officials, gunsquad, even the news people who would withstand a hurricane or a blasting volcano for a story, drop all their equipment and run full speed away.

            It seems you will not die of a hundred gun shots today. 

THE END.

ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 5 - YOU'RE A SCIENTIST!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.5 - YOU'RE A SCIENTIST!
 By Wayne Depriest

You’ve got one chance to get this right; one chance to turn the tide; one chance to get you and Madge and the rest of humanity out of the shithole and back to normalcy. You need an antidote and you need it fast. You’re a scientist, for shit’s sake! You made the mess, even if it was some cost-conscious, bottom line-watching asstard who made the decision to use mercury. there’s no time to use any of the normal chelating agents like DMSA or DMPS. You need something that’s gonna flush the mercury out of a person’s system in minutes, an hour at most. It’s the damn mercury vapor that’s the problem. Get the unaffected to stop breathing until the units are stabilized is the perfect answer—not realistic, but perfect.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Gonetoshit, there are hordes of shit zombies sludging through the facility. For the moment you and Madge are safe. You’ve got some favors to call in; people who owe you big time and who can get some shit done in a hurry. You need to develop an antidote for those affected, one that will reverse the manure mange—or at least halt its progression through the body.

You flip back the hood of the hazmat suit, pick up the phone and punch 9 for an outside line, an idea twisting through your head. If we can get the...

You get no dial tone. You punch 9 again. Same thing.

“How the hell do I call in favors if I can’t make a call?”

“There’s no time for that anyway,” Madge  urges. “You have to do something and you have to do it fast.”

“Even if I make an antidote, how do we get it out and dispensed? I can’t even call for FedEx.”

“You’re the scientist. Just make the antidote. We’ll worry about getting it delivered later.”

You race over to the bench and start slinging test tubes and pipettes around like you know what you’re doing. But you don’t. You’re not a chemist, for God’s sake. You’re an industrial engineer. You throw some of this in a tube, add a pinch of that, some more of whatever this is and the damn thing blows up in your face. It burns like a bastard, but your eyes seem unaffected. The bright blue cloud of vapor floats across the lab and envelopes a pile of some former lab assistant. The congealed pile of crap starts to reshape itself into something resembling a human being.

“That’s it!” screams Madge. “That’s it!”

“What the hell is it?” you scream back at her.

“You made it—don’t you know?”

“Hell no.”

“You have to make some more. Lots more.”

You spend another twenty minutes trying to duplicate the formula. Finally you get a controlled batch, one that doesn’t explode. A good thing, too. You’re about out of hair. You get it into an atomizer and start working on a bigger batch, something you can push through the ventilation system here. That will give you enough time to make more and somehow get the formula out to other labs. You can have this thing whipped by tomorrow morning and be the hero again. There’s just one problem.

It’s that damn blinking light in the corner. Madge doesn’t see it. Or doesn’t know what it means. But you do. And you realize that all the determination in the world isn’t going to change what is about to happen. That little blinking light is a security breach indicator. Normally it glows with a soft steady light. When it blinks it means that someone has entered the security zone in an unauthorized manner. There’s always a guy monitoring that light. It’s his only job. When it blinks he’s trained to respond by pushing some buttons or something that will lock down the core of the lab inside a series of sheet steel walls that might yield to a nuclear weapon. Might. Anything less is like hitting a brick wall with a toasted marshmallow.

But Mr Security Breach Guy isn’t there. Well, he is, but he’s not much use as a slush pile of chunky diarrhea overflowing the office chair. And from the way the damn light is flashing, there isn’t any time to batten down the hatches, even if you knew how to batten down anything. Which you don’t. About the only thing you can do is try to get you and Madge out before the shit storm hits. The stool zombies aren’t going to care about a cure and the little atomizer isn’t enough for the mounds of muck on the way.

Of course, by this time there is no getting out. Cameras are showing hordes of shittards scraping along the corridors on the way to the lab. Every exit is blocked by shuffling schools of shit zombies, putrid poop pods plodding toward the lab. You and Madge ain’t in deep shit yet, but it won’t be long.

You search frantically for anything that will help. Of course there isn’t anything. You and your sister are on your own. For a minute you think about throwing her to the zombies. Maybe it will give you enough time to get away. You look at her and realize she’s thinking about making you the star of the Fecal Follies.

“What the hell are we going to do?” You can’t seem to control the panic.

“Just calm down. Let me think.” Madge waves a shush hand at you like your mother did when she wanted quiet. It doesn’t work for Madge either.

“What’s there to think about? We’re dead. They’ll rip these hazmat suits off us like underwear at an orgy.”

“Spray ourselves with the formula,” Madge exclaims. “Even if they get us, we won’t turn to shit. We can fake dying and hold out until they leave.”

You take a gigantic hit from the atomizer, sucking it deep into your lungs as Madge removes her helmet and reaches for the antidote. Just as she’s squeezing the mist into her mouth you feel your lungs ignite. You have time to see Madge’s eyes widen in surprise before your lungs explode and flames engulf her face.

Oops...return to Chapter 5

 

ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 4 - I WANT MY DADDY

ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 4 - I WANT MY DADDY
By Nandy Ekle

He’s gone. Milo is gone. Your best friend’s death is like a sharp finger poking you right in the middle of your forehead. You’re sitting across from Madge and she’s just going on and on, talking about what you have to do to fix this, but all you can think about is the fact that Milo died in a stew of his own sewage.

“Hello?  Earth to Mr. Poopy President. Are you listening to me at all?”

You look up from where your eyes are fixated, staring at a brown stain under your fingernail. Where exactly had that brown stain come from? Was it from the flying fecal matter at your house as you ran away? And what about that running away thing? What kind of leader runs away from his problems?

You look up into Madge’s eyes. “What?”

“I said, what kind of a leader runs from his problem?”

A gasp blasts out of your mouth. Did she read your mind? You’re sure you thought the question up yourself; or did she plant it in your brain? Does she have psychic abilities you never knew about? And how come you never got a share of that?

“I, um . . .”

Her eyebrows are scrunched up and her mouth is posed in a pucker as if she actually expects you to say something intelligent.

The answer suddenly pierces through your consciousness. Screw it! Screw them all! Your business is tanked. Your reputation looks like the offending crap all over your house. Your best friend is dead. And now your sister demands you pay attention to her as if she were the smartest person in the world. You don’t need this. You don’t need any of it and you damn sure don’t have to put up with it.

You stand up and turn your back to her in mid-sentence.  “Go to hell,” you say as you walk toward the door.

“Get back here! We have to get this worked out!”

You run out the door and head for the stairs leading up to the roof. You need to get away just for a moment to mourn Milo, your mom, your career, your life. You need . . . fishing. Madge said your dad was on the yacht in the Pacific. You feel a sudden urge to pull on Daddy’s pant leg and beg to be hugged and rocked to sleep.

As you reach the roof you jump in the chopper and aim it toward the west, your main thought: “I want my daddy!” The sun glints off the water below you—or is it the water leaking from your eye?

Surprisingly, Dad’s boat is not far out on the sea and the size of the yacht makes it easy enough to spot. Lowering the copter to the deck you jump out of the aircraft. You see your sixty-year-old father running toward you.

“Dad!” You throw your arms out to him as you yell his name.

Instead of taking you in his arms for a comforting paternal hug, he pulls his fist back and punches you a hard one across your jaw. Rubbing your face, you look at the man who raised you. “What the?” You ask in a stunned tone.

“Get the hell off my boat, you murderer!”

“It wasn’t my fault! The lab substituted components in the formula! I didn’t do it! I swear!”

“You sold those things all over the world and got rich off people’s doody, boy. I don’t want your disease close to me. I don’t want anything to do with you again. Now get this confounded whirlybird off my boat before I throw you and your toy overboard.”

“But you’re my dad. You’re supposed to be on my side.” The man who had helped you build a Pine Derby race car for scouts when you were eight years old now looks as though he would harpoon you like a whale and gut you like a fish.

“My wife is gone, and your sister probably will be too if she keeps working with your zombies. Even the dog died. You’re no boy of mine.” He takes a couple of steps toward you. “I didn’t raise you to turn the world into sewer zombies.” 

As you stand there rubbing your jaw, your father grabs your arm, runs you to the side of the boat and pushes you over. You hit the water and the only thought in your head is that the brown stain under your fingernail will finally be washed away.

The rhythmic sound of a cello plays from somewhere in the air. Your dad looks not in your direction, but past you. He laughs and points, and you’re afraid he’s gone crazy and will jump in and drown you.

As you start to swim toward the yacht, the cello music gets louder and more intense. Then a new thought jumps into your mind as you feel something massive brush against your leg. You know that music! As the identity of the sound gels in your mind you see the circle of red around you grow larger. Suddenly your left leg is cold. LEG? What leg? You realize your left leg is missing and the blood is coming from you.

You open your mouth to scream for your daddy when the giant great white shark clamps on your other leg and pulls you under.

Oops...return to chapter 4

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.4 - TO THE HOSPITAL!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.4 - TO THE HOSPITAL!
By Mandy Ward

The Helicopter dips as you momentarily lose control from shock. How could it get this bad? What on earth is causing this?

As usual, Milo reads your mind.

Milo shudders. “What the hell is causing this, man? We did all those tests and there were no malfunctions or side effects from the prototypes. Shit, we even had a whole fricken town testing them for a whole year!”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to get close to an Environaut recently, so how the fuck would I know?” you point out irritably as you wrestle the ‘copter back into stable flight.

“So what’s the plan?” Milo is jiggling his right foot and tapping his left hand on his left knee.

You ignore the annoying movement and concentrate on flying. “Not sure at the moment. I know that I’m not going to run away from this until I’ve had a damn good look at what’s causing it.”

Milo laughs. “Man, you’ve got so much money stashed all over the place that you could just go to ground. Why not let the Government sort it out?”

Glancing at him, you realise that his eyes have glazed slightly and his skin is looking far too yellow, even for an Asian.

You frown. “Did you use the john this morning before I woke up?”

“Yeah.” Milo’s voice is starting to sound slurred. “Man, I don’t feel so good.”

“Shit! Shit…just…shit!” you give yourself over to a bout of swearing as you swing the ‘copter around in the direction of the Iscariot Hospital. “Hang in there, buddy, I’ll get you to my sister at Iscariot.”

“Thanks.” Milo wipes a dribble of brown away from the corner of his mouth. “You got anything to drink in this thing? I’m parched.”

“Sorry, Milo. I don’t allow food or drink in here.” Risking a glance at your friend’s face, you increase your airspeed. I have got to get him well; I can’t fix the Environaut without him. Using the auto pilot for a moment, you text your sister about Milo. Her answer is predictable:

He’s a shit anyway; it’s just like finding like. Bring him in. We need a guinea pig that isn’t too far along for the treatments we’re developing.

Smiling, you put your phone away and take control of the ‘copter back from the auto pilot. “Madge says they’re developing a treatment. Trust her to be on the ball!”

“Yeesssrrrgh” Milo gurgles. Brown liquid is dribbling from the corners of his eyes.

“I just hope I can get you there before you try to attack me.”

“Yeesssrrrgh”

Dropping the helicopter cleanly onto the helipad at the hospital, you scramble out as the rotors slow.

A group of ER nurses rush out with an odd looking trolley. It’s one of those metal cages that the hospital uses to transport boxes and bags around the place, but it’s been covered in acrylic sheets and reinforced with metal. There’s a soft looking waterproof mattress on the base of the cage, and a bottle of some kind of gas attached to the side.

All the nurses are wearing hazmat suits, and they bundle Milo out of the helicopter and into the cage before he has a chance to complain. The door is bolted and one of the nurses turns the tap on the gas canister.

A loud hissing fills the air and Milo’s eyes droop before he collapses to rest on the mattress.

“Anaesthetic?” you ask anxiously.

One of the nurses turns towards you. “We’ll keep him sedated. It seems to slow down the rate of decay and hopefully it will give us time to administer the treatments."

You blink. It isn’t a nurse, it’s your sister. “Madge? Why are you in one of those?”

“Why do you think I am? It’s an airborne contagion, you idiot!” she marches towards you. “You had to go and invent something that turns people into Golgothans, didn’t you? Why couldn’t you just have gone and been an astronaut or a surgeon?” Madge looks upset.

“What’s happened?” you ask, moving closer.

The rest of the nurses wheel Milo away. Madge links her arm through yours and pulls you along behind them.

“Have you used a toilet this morning?” she asks.

“Not yet.”

“Have you been in close contact with any of the affected people?” Madge is strangely insistent.

“Did you not see the news this morning, Sis? They invaded my house and flung poop at us.” You snap back. “What’s with the twenty questions?”

“I’ve been dealing with the results of your little invention. Did you realise that three quarters of the patients I’ve had in the last two weeks have had a significant level of mercury in their systems?” she blinks. “Mum was one of them.”

“Oh.” You can’t think of anything else to say. You might have been estranged from your parents since going to college, but that doesn’t mean that you didn’t care about them.

”She died.” It wasn’t a question and you blink back the tears. “Time enough to grieve later, little bro.” Madge pats your shoulder. “Did you ingest any of the feces thrown at you?”

You gag a little at that thought. “I don’t think so. I hope not.”

“We’ll run some tests on you and put you through decontamination.” She eyes the suit you’re wearing. “A pity we’ll have to dissolve the suit in acid, but it’s the safest way to do it; burning just puts the infection vector back into the air.”

Two hours later you are pronounced safe from infection and, dressed in a set of scrubs and a hazmat suit, you are allowed to visit Milo with your sister.

“Hey man!” you wave at him inside his plastic encased cage.

He raises his head and you stumble back at the rage in his eyes and the brown, foul smelling sludge dribbling from his eyes, nose and mouth. He’s wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and there is brown gunk everywhere around him.

“He’s been through decon and had the treatment.” She gestures at a second gas canister. “It’s just a case of waiting now.”

“How many people have you cured?” You ask, feeling guilty.

She looks sad. “No one yet.”

Ushering her out and down the corridor to her office, you fire questions at her. “Do you know exactly what is causing this? Why do they start spitting up brown slush? What is it that the Environaut has done to cause this? Am I liable for any of this? Is Dad all right? What about animals? How widespread is it?”

She shuts the office door behind you and pushes you down into a seat. You unzip your hazmat suit and push it down to your waist in relief. Phew these things are hot.

Madge just unzips the hood.

“You’re a stupid excuse for an intelligent man,” she snaps. “The mercury in the Environaut’s coolant system is causing the zombie state. It’s affecting the brain in a completely new way, and there’s not much we can do to counteract it. The treatment we’ve come up with works about fifty percent of the time.”

You remember what Milo was swearing about. “Shit. The mother fucking board interfered with the design specs! They must have used the older design internally and the new design externally.” You collapse back against the chair. “What about the sludge?”

“That’s the remains of their internal organs; they go into rapid decay for some reason. While our treatment has been successful against the zombification, humans can’t live when they don’t have a heart, lungs or nervous system.” She raises an eyebrow as you dive for the waste paper bin and throw up in it.

Wiping your mouth on your sleeve, you turn back to her. “Why is that happening?”

“We don’t know. And the only way we’re going to be able to find out is to take samples from a working Environaut.”

“Aren’t there any in the hospital?”

She snorts. “You have got to be kidding. The hospital board vetoed acquiring Environauts when you refused to discount the price per unit.”

But that wasn’t me! That was the board; I remember fighting them on it six months ago. You swear in fluent Russian.

“Enough of that.” Madge aims a slap at the back of your head and you duck. “To answer the rest of your questions, if it was an internal fault that caused this then yes, you are liable. Dad is fine; he’s on his yacht in the Pacific. Animals don’t seem to be susceptible and it’s happening everywhere that your invention has penetrated.” She folds her arms. “So what are you going to do about it?”

You walk over to her office window. Outside the hospital, the numbers of shit covered zombies are growing, hunting down anyone still capable of movement. You remember Hal at EcoGen. “How are you keeping them out?”

Madge joins you at the window. “All the doors from the ground are locked. We have a thousand or so patients in here that we can’t risk. That’s why we’re keeping those brought in by helicopter up here in isolation.”

“How do you get supplies?”

“The Army airlifts them in.”

“What the hell can I do about this?” you wail. “Milo is the engineering genius. I’d need all the plans and a lab, not to mention…” you trail off and stare at your sister. “Will he survive?”

There’s a knock at the door and a nurse in a hazmat suit hurries in. “Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Tebid–Fewmet, but the patient is asking for your sibling.”

The two of you suit up.

“I don’t know why you haven’t gone back to your maiden name, that bastard is long gone,” you say, zipping Madge’s hood up for her. “Besides, his name is almost as ugly as his face.”

She shrugs and stalks away down the corridor after the nurse.

Milo is sitting cross legged on the mattress. Brown slush has dried in long streaks down his body and, looking at the state of the cage, you’re glad for the canned air in your suit. That place must reek.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“You have to fix the damn machine. I know what’s wrong, but I don’t think I have enough time left to help you.” Milo coughs and a deluge of brown gunge splashes over his legs.

He ignores it. “First you have to get everyone to cut the power to the machines; that will stop anyone else being affected. Then you have to destroy the main processing plant. The fuckers on the board must have used mercury in there as well; the presence of mercury in the individual units would just cause toxification, not all this as well.” He waves a hand at the slurry around him.

You blink. “Did you understand that, Madge?”

She nods. “I can call the President to order a shutdown of the power plants. That’s the fastest way to kill the power to the machines.”

“Milo, how do we fix the Environaut?” you ask your oldest friend.

“My notes…” he coughs, “…at the lab… change the… coolant and…” a veritable flood of decayed internal organs emerges from his mouth. He slumps to the floor of the cage and the light goes from his eyes.

You find yourself crying. Poor bugger. What a horrible way to go.

Madge steers you back to her office. “Let’s get this sorted out.

So what do I do first? You think, sitting down while Madge makes her phone call. Destroy the main processing plant or pick up Milo’s notes? Or shall I just call it a day and do a Dad?
What's next?

A. Do you head to the marina for your yacht and join your dad in the pacific until it all blows over?
B. Do you try to retrieve Milo's notes from the lab in the hope that they hold the key to saving your hide?
C. Do you assemble a team to destroy the Main Processing Plant?

ECOPOCALPYSE CH.3 - ROOKIE BLUE POOP THUNDER

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.3 - ROOKIE BLUE POOP THUNDER By James McShane

On any other day, flying your helicopter over the vast metropolis would be a thrill akin to becoming the world’s first triple Nobel Prize winner—of course, seeing that you are unable to make change of a ten, write a poem worth reading, or even know what a goddamn quark is, Nobel is no-dice—but this is not just any other day. Mankind is smothering under the weight of its own shit, and it’s all your fault.

         “Mexico will have to wait,” you shout over the sound of the chopper as it veers first one way, then another.

 “So where to?” Milo screams back. You suddenly remember to turn on communications. No use wearing headphones if you can’t hear for shit, right?

Shit. That word again. If you make it out of this alive, you’re going to petition Webster to remove it from the dictionary. The guys over there owe you—big time. It was you who asked them to include iPoop as a new word.

You still have to answer Milo’s question. You hover over the city for a while, taking in the disaster below. You look around and see the police station. As you fly closer you see that the cops are performing their civic duty as only they know how: They’re shooting at anything that moves. Political correctness be damned!

“We’re going to need guns,” you say into your mouthpiece.

“Lots of guns,” Milo says.

You've always wanted to use that line and are pissed off with Milo for stealing it from you. “Yeah,” you mutter. “A fuck-load of guns?”

“Is that bigger than a shed-load?” Milo winks from behind his visor. Okay, you can’t see him actually wink, but as sure as eggs is eggs, the twerp is winking.

“Let’s go and see if the boys in blue have any spare weaponry. See if we can shoot our way out of this.”

“Would be better if we just flew our way out of this,” Milo whines. “I don’t see how we can help them.”

You ponder this as you look for a place to land, then nod in agreement. “Okay, they’re on their own, but we will still need to defend ourselves one way or another. We’ll stop here, on the roof, bail downstairs, grab some guns and ammo, then fly the fuck back to the lab.”

“The lab?” Milo is agog. “Why the fuck would you want to go back there?”

“I started this,” you say as you expertly land on the roof of the police station. “And I’m going to finish it. Properly.”

Milo opens his side of the chopper and jumps out. “This is where I bail, boss,” he says. “I’m sorry it had to come to this, but you’re on your own.” He runs in the direction of the door at the far end of the roof. You shake your head. All these years, having my back, and he has to bail now, when I need him the most. You’ve given Milo enough room in your thoughts. Now it’s time to do what needs to be done. You follow him, head through the door, and run down the stairs. There is an elevator, but you’re over elevators now. Stairs are the only way to go.

The further you go down, the louder the commotion becomes. You hope you’re not running straight into a Cop vs. iPooper free-for-all—that shouldn’t be the case, because as you flew over, you saw the cops shooting out of rather than back into the station. You gamble that the station is free of iPoopers.

No, the commotion is something else entirely. The cops are fighting amongst themselves, and at the heart of it all is Milo. He points up at you and shouts to one of the cops nearby. All of a sudden you’re the centre of attention, like at a Playboy party when all that the guests want is a piece of you. These cops want a piece of you all right—but not to play with. There is vengeance in their eyes. They wish to call down the wrath of the Maker and smite you from where you stand.

“Smite this, motherfuckers,” you rant, grabbing a service revolver from a nearby cop. (There are a lot of nearby cops, by the way. Well, there would be; it is a police station, after all.) You shoot in the air. “This is your last warning, gentlemen. I need some guns so I can put things right again.”

Milo stands near the front of the vengeful policemen. “See what I mean, guys? My ex-CEO wants to cure the world once more! My former employer wants to return to the scene of the crime and bring more madness upon us. I say it stops. I say it stops now! What say you all?”

The shot that hits your thigh is answer to Miles’ question. Maybe coming here was a bad idea after all. Back to the chopper! You beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs. You thank the Maker for all those hours you put in the gym, but the pain in your wounded thigh isn’t getting any better. The higher you climb, the fuzzier your head gets. You can’t slow down. Milo and his Keystone friends are hot on your tail.

You make it up to the roof and into the chopper before you just about pass out from blood loss. You start the motor running and slowly ascend into the sky. You feel a weight from underneath the helicopter. You look out and see Milo and some cops hanging on the landing blades. There are enough of them to keep you from climbing too high, but not enough that you can’t move away from the roof. Your awareness of what’s happening around you begins to fade. You wish you had more time to stem the loss of blood. There are things you must do to make this right again. You have to atone for your own misjudgements and the actions of your motherfucking Board. They are too dead to answer for their own crimes.

But you can’t atone now. You are powerless to do anything except glide the chopper along the roof. In a moment you’re over the city, with Milo and Company keeping you company. Your demise is imminent, you know. Perhaps you can take a few fucking iPoopers with you. You barely have enough strength left in you to position the chopper over a hoard of shit-stained, shit-smelling, shit-excreting maniacs. You switch off your motor.

You plunge.

You sit back and enjoy the ride.

YEEHAW!!

Oops...return to Chapter 3

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.3 - TO THE LAB!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.3 - TO THE LAB!

by John Elrod

Without saying anything more, you turn and walk right back out of the boardroom, leaving the actual suits to deal with public relations, lawsuits, and market projections. Frankly, you’re not usually any help with those things, anyway; you’re a scientist. You belong in the lab, which is exactly why you spend so much time there that, when you were having this state-of-the-art, skyscraping monolith constructed, you had them incorporate a private express elevator with three stops: the basement lab, where you almost always want to be; the boardroom, where you almost never want to be; and the roof, for when you want to be anywhere but here.

It takes a total of 47 seconds for the elevator to go from the boardroom to the lab. There is no ignominious Muzak or senseless dinging noise. In fact, the inside of this elevator is entirely without distraction; without those things shopping malls employ to keep you from realizing you don’t need to spend half a month’s salary on those shoes; without those tactics hospitals use to make you forget you’ve just seen a loved one for the last time. Yes, this elevator was absolutely boring in every way; you'd made sure of that because it takes a total of 47 seconds to go from the boardroom to the lab, and that’s 47 seconds of pure, unadulterated thought. It was in those 47 seconds that you had finally been able to think of how to bring the Environaut’s consumption-to-production ratio over 200%; it was those 47 seconds that had given you the idea for the iPoop, a toilet USB port that attaches to any toilet and uses your waste to directly charge any compatible device; and, on days like today, it’s those 47 seconds that simply keep you from going insane.

The opening of the elevator doors brings your serenity to a screeching halt as your ears are flooded with an expletive-laden tirade.

“How the fuck could this fucking happen? I fucking told those motherfuckers not to fucking use fucking mercury. This is un-fucking-believable.”

It’s Milo. He’s yelling at an empty room, but you know exactly what he’s upset about. Back when you and Milo were developing the Environaut, you hit upon a problem: it was introducing too much toxicity into the surrounding environment. Your solution was to replace the mercury you were using as a coolant with a gallium-indium alloy. It was an easy fix, but the Smart EcoGen board members weren’t thrilled about the expense of controlling the alloy’s wetting and aggressivity; it wasn’t cost-effective, but they agreed to the change—or so you thought.

Milo sees you come out of the elevator. “Can you fucking believe this? You’re the President and CE-FUCKING-O!”

“I know.”

“I’m the Vice Fucking President, for Christ sake.”

“I know.”

“This is just—”

“I know, and now we get to say, ‘We told you s—’”

Your snarky quip is interrupted by a video call from the boardroom. Milo is very eager to answer and throw some obscenities their way. He hurriedly presses the button, but on the screen is nothing but an empty boardroom.

“The damn thing must be broken.” Your voice tries to console Milo’s rage.

“Goddammit!” Milo’s rage is beyond consolation.

Suddenly a face come into the video’s frame. It’s Hal, the security guard. He’s still smiling through gritted teeth, but something is different about him. His skin is a jaundiced hue, his eyes are glazed over in a buttery haze, and his face is fixed in the same dead expression as those protesters who stormed your home.

“What the fuck?” Milo’s rage has given way to confusion, now.

“I don’t kn—”

You are interrupted once more, this time by a slurpy growl that seems to be coming from Hal’s throat. The gurgling gets louder, as Hal’s bite loosens just barely and his lips are overtaken by a thick, brown slurry. The sludge dribbles down Hal’s chest, while the lab has become a swamp of palpable fright. Slowly, Hal backs away from the camera, and you notice some of the board members are ambling about. Then you see it. There in Hal’s left hand, held firmly at the tuft of its neck, is the severed head of Smart EcoGen’s CFO, George Quellen Field.

“I second that ‘What the fuck?’” Now you’re the one speaking to the empty room as Milo has hastily evacuated to the elevator.

“Let’s make like Schwarzenegger and get to the fucking chopper!” How Milo can simultaneously make a pop culture reference and shit his pants, you don’t know, but he must be shitting his pants, because this is absolutely a “shit your pants” moment.

25 seconds into the longest 47 seconds of your life, and Milo is still rambling on about not knowing what is going on. Why doesn’t this elevator play music, or fucking ding, or just do anything to distract you from the thoughts wildly rampaging through your mind? There’s nothing to stop you from going insane! What sadistic bastard designed this torturous, 47 second device? But it’s not 47 seconds; not this time. This time, it’s 68 seconds, because you and Milo are going to the roof. More specifically, the helipad on the roof, and the two of you are getting as far away from this building as possible. Let the government come in and deal with this—literal—shit storm.

On the roof you both hop into the helicopter, but not before exchanging reassuring looks with one another. You’re both absolutely positive things are going to be fine. Maybe you’ll head down to Mexico for a couple weeks while things blow over. Sure, it’s a PR nightmare, and the stock is going to take a hit. Blah, blah, blah. None of that concerns a couple of genius lab rats like you and Milo. It’s fine.

You’re the pilot, of course, since you are the one with a pilot’s license. Milo, for lack of a better word, is your co-pilot, even though he can’t even manage to write with a Pilot pen, let alone have anything to do with piloting a helicopter. You set your heading for Mexico, and—

“What’s that?” Milo is gesturing downward.

You don’t want to look, but you have to. What you see are the streets clogged with abandoned vehicles and crowds of people moving at two distinctive speeds. Those running are doing so from those walking; those walking are those who didn’t run fast enough. You’ve seen this in movies, and you’ve lived this in video games. You’ve always thought it might happen, but you didn’t have any idea you could cause it. You can’t go to Mexico; you have to do something, because everything is decidedly not fine.

Do you...

A. Land the helicopter at the hospital, where your sister works, and see if she can help--if she's even still alive.

B. Land the helicopter at the police station, where you're sure to be abel to the get hold of some firearms, them come out blasting.

C. Land the helicopter somewhere outside the city and try to devise a plan.