(For imagery and context: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=19092&p=369063#p369063)
Thunk! Thunk! Ftttcch.
Junior Soaprano chucked away the assorted pieces of his grandnephew. Christuffuh Soaprano settled like fill dirt at the bottom of Charger's Clone Dome. The old fuck was slow, but he didn’t waste a second. Down came the levers. Junior had forgotten the lid. Contact.
Scchplt schlplit!
“Fuckin’ bitch!”
Junior wiped Christuffuh juice from his tie, showing his age as he hobbled back and forth a bit. He slammed his fist into a switch labeled “Reverse.” Nothing. The decrepit hitman remembered how switches work. He grimaced, feeling emasculated, and flipped the switch with his tense old claw.
!tilplhcs tlphccS
Christuffuh’s pieces piled back into the Dome, his particles entangled with Charger's experimental fluid, as it reversed its messy deed. Junior again reached for the levers when his old bones rattled with fear:
KRA-KA-KOOM!
Junior peered out from the bulkhead over the cracks and crags of Skoupídia. Uncle June hid from the window, but this world’s shattered geography concealed the Cartel from prying eyes. Shifting sheets of what used to be tectonic plates drift through the debris field constantly in unpredictable tridimensional patterns - only a Cartel computer or a crack pilot can get near Charger Castle.
VVVVMMMM
Junior had hoped the horrific sounds had only been debris colliding with the deflector array. No such luck. He ducked on instinct as a Sector Protectorate starfighter - a “Forefront” - buzzed past, climbing through a corkscrew of moonrock as it made its getaway. A streak of damage from the air raid marred Charger Castle outside. Junior flinched and leapt behind a console as pattering bare footsteps approached from the wall opposite the window.
The door swung open. Two Pantsless Truckers hauled nude ass to bring a body in from the skirmish. Junior smirked. “You iced that stunad already?” They shook their heads, rattling around their oversized space helmets. Doc Spaceborn rushed in tugging a gurney and several loose bags of syringes and elixirs. The Truckers laid down their cargo and rushed to guard the door. Junior’s toothless jaw dropped to the floor… On the gurney lay Charger. His helmet was off.
Junior saw the rest, just for a second. He ducked back behind the console.
Crakkk tchk tchk tchk eeeee tchk tchk
A daisy chain of neurons inside of Charger’s plastic skull feigned consciousness. A pathetic web of searing sensations were his existence for some length of time he couldn’t add up. Patterns struggled to form - two of himself carrying his body for around half a mile, slamming doors, screeching laserblasts. Laughter and cheers and jeers somewhere in the mix. Hard to piece any of it together. There’s so much noise. Young Jim Spaceborn… How’d he get so old?... How am I so young?
Doc Spaceborn plugged up a drip of something Junior couldn’t quite clock. Maniac Beer? Trollium? Piss? Shocking June, Spaceborn shot a glare at the console.
“I know what you’re thinking. It’s a little of everything. Get on the levers.”
Junior creaked up to attention as fast as he could. He tossed Christuffuh’s pieces out of the Clone Dome. A few more Pantsless Truckers poured into the room; Spaceborn directed them faster than June could perceive with a couple of battle gestures. Following orders, the Truckers carried their clone-father up to the top of the tank.
Junior interjected. “Hey - don’t forget the lid! This is the fuckin’ chief!” Spaceborn shook his head violently and swiped a finger in the air. Each Pantsless Trucker stood in single file and took a turn smacking the old henchman across the mouth. They then dangled Charger above the Clone Dome, keeping his body out of the fluid - all except for his broken chunk of minifig-brain.
Doc Spaceborn looked Junior in the eye. He mimed two arms pushing downwards.
“I don’t speak that clone shit.”
Doc’s brow furrowed. “What do you THINK it means?” The frontier medic pointed at the levers as he readied a brain scanner.
“Oh. Just fuckin’ say it…” Junior slammed down the levers. Contact.
Scchplt schlplit sschplt schlplit…
Charger’s mind swirled into the cleansing whirlpool. He could see. He felt the air now. Pain too - he made sure not to struggle, as much as he could help it. He knew the gravity of what was about to happen.
“This is Doc Spaceborn! We have conscious thought! I repeat - brain death averted!”
Applause and vague guttural noises erupted throughout Charger Castle.
Charger's mind spread itself like a Spiderling's web. In the churning Clone Dome he had potential beyond a mortal mind, even his own mighty intellect. Visions molded themselves; new technologies, philosophies, ways of seeing reality; they slipped by him. He latched onto memories. Memories he hadn't seen for decades, maybe centuries of conscious life…
He twisted the steering wheel. Tonnage careened inches from the guardrail behind him. How much? Eighteen? Eighteen-wheeler. The truck has a simple emblem emblazoned on its speeding sides: “CHARGER.” Alabama; hills, mountains? Bad roads. Bad brain. His neurons carry broken signals fried in beer-batter. What was his truck carrying? He’s coming to a stop now. Too fast. He’s carrying a truck of bricks… Bricks for kids. Toys. He hit something - someone. He’s hit too. The figure by the roadside is small. I think I killed him. My head hit by a brick?
Seeing stars. In the stars. That’s ME… I’m in the stars. Big blue wedge. Metal floor beneath my feet. In my feet. I have leg holes. No knees. Light gray firmament will carry me to the redemption I seek. I have built a cradle to carry me to my grave.
The stars fly past me. Everything is so fast here. Back in the truck, time moves at a crawl. Adrenaline has jolted my soggy brain to attention. The pieces dart past me like a deep, deep field of little stars. I wish I were still fast. I didn’t have to think about much then.
I am fast. I am in the cockpit of the Galaxy Explorer. At my side is Jim Spaceborn. Nice kid. Small. I couldn’t have seen him before, he was just built, right? We love going fast together. Here in space, we have helmets to keep us safe.
Our rocket has landed. Something resembling my boots touch down on something resembling the moon and I shout out that I’ve come in peace. Little Jim flashes me a smile. Eighteen bright-eyed pioneers march out behind me. Stiff little Boy Scouts on parade. They hold in their hands deadly weapons capable of incinerating a body on a molecular level. We are deadly spacemen.
We are classical spacemen. Deadly is classic. I hit the guardrail. Men enter spaces and prove themselves their master. My rocket has carried me to the furthest reaches of my domain and left treads upon every land that prove the power I hold in my hands. Thankfully, centuries have passed. I can’t see the road anymore, not even in my mind’s eye. I have taken charge; I deserve a rest.
I have built a castle here. Everything is shifting everywhere but in here it’s all so simple. Doesn't matter if it's built out of sheet metal welded by an idiot. In here I get to relax and unwind with a few of me and a few of them; women or whatever the mood calls for. They feed me in my bed and other things like that. Delicacies I’ve found, in my travels.
I need to make this right. I came in peace, didn’t I? Was I always the smuggler king? I thought I did good business with good people, at some point. I could do some kind of service here. Just some time. Good hard time. Is there some way I can get this out of me? I just keep escaping. Then I forget.
I’m in the truck. The Galaxy Explorer is a box of toys. It’s on the dashboard in front of me and I realize in this instant, that I had some kind of chance to prove myself and I blew it. That other place, it’s some kind of test. All in my head. Right? I escaped? Tried. The engine has exploded. Something’s engulfed my skull. Fire. It’s hot where I’m going. It’s only a matter of time. I’m running out of it. How many more centuries?
Noise.
I’m in the hospital. I think they saved me.
But how can that be? For I look into the round little eyes of Jim Spaceborn.
Doc Spaceborn pulled Charger up from the tank. Uncle Junior leaned in, reached out for the boss, trying to make a show of usefulness; Spaceborn waved him away. “You don’t wanna touch this goop anyway. ‘Genetic material’, right? Guess where we take our samples?”
June shuddered. He shook his head and waved phooey as he hobbled back to the next room, taking the bits of Christuffuh with him for later. Spaceborn continued a conversation with a Cartel capo on his comms as he heaved Charger out of the Clone Dome. “Yeah, we’ll get Chinbeard. Just him, right?... JUST one more? Confirmed it’s not him?... The BATMAN, you idiot... CONFIRM it… Good. Yeah, we’ll get ‘em when they land. Send Furio and a couple of the chief.”
Charger sat up.
It’s some kind of cycle.
The good Doctor shook hands with his employer. A little mob of Pantsless Truckers had gathered in nondescript admiration. Uncle June stepped back inside, having forgotten one of his nephew’s crucial parts. Right hand. Both for shooting a gat and for cranking off; Chris would kill him if he lost it.
Spaceborn stared into Charger.
“Howdy, Chief. Guess I should say ‘good morning,’ huh?”
I could forget a little faster this time.
Charger lunged from the floor to the console. “Reverse”. Click. The ooze on the floor twitched a bit before Spaceborn flicked the switch back into place. A few of the eighteen in the crowd leapt to hold back their delirious paycheck before he could hurt himself.
No!
June recoiled, fearing he’d seen too much. Spaceborn met his stare.
Stare. Charger struggled as a few of himself dragged him from the console.
Spaceborn chuckled.
“Oh, don’t worry, oldhead. It always goes this way.”
