New Wave Soldiers prologue

Before I get into the actual post itself, please notice the new Popgun Chaos banner designed by my mentor, the incomparable Chad Woody!

Now, to your regularly scheduled Popgun Chaos post.

I am intrigued with the idea of pop terrorism, so this is the beginning of a novel that I am working on that looks at what it would be like if we weaponized pop culture. Enjoy!

————

As I lay to die the things I think
Did I waste my time, I think I did- I worked for life

Agenda Suicide – The Faint

———

Yesteryear

Albert’s arms shook violently as he tried to control the color buffer. He hated buffing the floor more than anything because the machine shook him to his core. His heart seemed to vibrate in his chest and as the minutes ticked on, he knew it was only a matter of time before it exploded.

Still, the deafening sound of the buffer was preferred to the shrieking and screaming that echoed in the halls. Albert didn’t ever see what went on in the sealed laboratories, and judging from the blood splatterings (among other fluids), Albert didn’t really want to know what went on. Albert could pretend that the stains were something else, though. He saw patterns of elegant artwork within the blood smears. A sunset. His mother’s face. As he cleaned, he imagined himself as an anti-artist; a man meant to undo art. Each room was his canvas as he cleaned it to perfection.

The smells were what really bothered Albert, though. Otherworldly and heavy, the stench that filled the laboratories never really went away. On a good day, the labs smelled like an old dentist office with a hint of rotting animal. On the worst days, the smell was like cheap cigarettes in diseased hamburger. On these days, the smell was so awful that it could almost be seen; plumes of wavy yellow stink lines or heavy clouds of brown that stained everything they touched.

When he came to the big city from his small town in Tennessee, Albert had big dreams. He had ideas about how to change the world, but ideas don’t make money and ideas don’t make connections, so after seeing an ad in the local paper for a job in government research and development, he decided to apply. He didn’t read the fine print that it was a janitorial position, but it didn’t matter much to Albert because he liked the sense of pride he received when he told someone that he had a government job. On top of that, he actually really liked to make things clean and so he felt as if it was a perfect fit for him.

After work, he used to love watching the Monkees on TV, but after his first week of working as a janitor for R&D, he began to have nightmares. He dreamed that the Monkees were playing a concert in front of hundreds of screaming fans and just as their theme began to build, the fans rushed the stage and began tearing the band apart, limb from limb. Girls who had previously by crying and screaming for their favorite band member were suddenly cannibalistic monsters who fought one another for a sliver of flesh from their idols. All the while, Davy Jones was screaming like a woman and for somewhere, the laugh track was playing.

Albert doesn’t watch television anymore.

He doesn’t go out either.

He works and takes drugs to sleep and that’s all.

Working in R&D has affected his personality, meaning that it has raped  his personality and left it for dead.

The floor buffer had nearly ripped his arms off, and though Albert didn’t want to hear the shrieks, he knew that another moment with the buffer would surely kill him, so he shut it down. Ears ringing, Albert would have prayed to God that he had been struck deaf if he still believed in the Almighty. After the things he had experienced, he believed deep down that he was truly alone in the universe.

Slowly, the sounds of the facility creeped their way into his brain and leaked into his thoughts. If he had been in the right frame of mind, Albert would have admired how mo matter how often he heard the screams, shrieks, and snarls of the otherworldly creatures that remained unseen by him, he could never get used to it. Fear settled into every fiber of his being and never let him go. He couldn’t admire anything though because he was scared shitless.

The screams frightened Albert, but he heard a voice stand out amongst the cries. It had a Texas drawl to it and sounded gruff as the voice asked, “– you sure this is going to work, pardner?”

“Nothing is for sure,” another voice said. Albert recognized it as Dr. Yamagata’s. Of all the employees at the facility, Dr. Yamagata was the only one that Albert had ever spoken to. Yamagata was friendly, and kind, but was always busy. They exchanged pleasantries now and then, but they were far from friends.

The Texan spoke again, “I don’t much care for uncertainties. Ain’t got no use for ‘em,” his voice was gravel. It was hammer and nails. He sighed and said, “Guess we ain’t got ‘nother choice though.”

Albert stepped closer to the laboratory door and as he closed in, he began to hear chanting and a light humming. He couldn’t make out any of the words, but it filled him with an unease that hit his throat first. He choked for a brief moment and found it impossible to breathe. Meanwhile, the humming sound progressively became louder and louder. Dr. Yamagata’s voice rose up above the noise, but he was speaking in a language that Albert didn’t understand.

Suddenly, the ground shook and the lights began to flicker. Rumbling sounds echoed through the hallways and Albert felt his fear replaced for the first time since he started working for R&D. His heart pounded in his chest and he felt pure, unadulterated rage pour through his veins. Albert pounded his chest hard with his fists as he breathed harder and harder. A stream of words spewed forth from his mouth and while most of it was unintelligible, he knew that some of them were racial slurs. Even the unintelligible ones were probably racial slurs in another language.

Blood dripped from his nose and then it began to steadily flow. He screamed as he began to hit himself in the face. At first, he gave himself a few simple slaps, then he escalated to full punches, and finally, he began to dig his fingernails into his skin. Before he could tear into his flesh, a powerful, thunderous cracking sound ripped through the facility and Albert collapsed to the floor in a heap.

His breathing was soft and shallow and he had never felt so good in all of his life. It was an almost sexual experience.

The Texan spoke again, “Did it work?”

A long pause.

“Yes. I believe it did,” Dr. Yamagata said.

A longer pause.

Gasps. The soft sound of electric sizzling. Screams followed by more electric sizzling.

Albert wasn’t sure what was going on in the laboratory, and for once, he didn’t care at all. He didn’t imagine a single thing. His body felt like jelly as he shuddered in pure pleasure. The air had a sweet taste to it even if it still stank of dead things.

The laboratory door opened and Albert didn’t move. Out walked a man in a black suit with an eye patch over his right eye. Albert squinted and realized that the man looked like a younger John Wayne. He would have been more astounded, but his body was still experiencing the intense pleasure of release after the momentary fit of rage that he couldn’t feel any other emotion.

“Howdy, pardner,” the Texan said as he scratched his eye patch with the point of the strangest pistol that Albert had ever seen. It looked like it came from a Flash Gordon comic strip. It didn’t even have a barrel, it looked like a lightning rod with a coil around it attached to a gun. As the Texan bent down to Albert, his knees popped and he said, “Kiddo, I wantcha to listen here. You’re the only fella that I’m gonna leave alive in this here facility. You’re responsible for that there device we made and don’t you dare fuck it up by telling anyone or we’ll ruin your life. This is our little secret. Shake on it, pardner?”

Albert weakly brought up his hand and tried to say something, but contact with another person brought another wave of intense pleasure through his body. It was as if Albert was being born again as he viewed the world as a beautiful and wonderful place. The Texan smiled and said, “I’d stay and palaver, but I gotta do some killin’. Stay on the path, pardner.” With that, the Texan headed off down the corridor and Albert never saw him again.

Time passed and the crippling pleasure faded. Albert finally pulled himself from the ground and looked into the laboratory to find piles of dead bodies strewn about in a circle. He wasn’t sickened or afraid by the sight. He felt no pleasure either. Instead, he simply got his cleaning supplies and prepared to begin his anti-art. His emotions had been completely stripped from him, and he was born anew and even his name didn’t feel right any longer. He looked at the dead bodies and decides that he would adopt a new name to always remind him of this day. A name that would remind him of the horror, the blood, and the gore.

And then, he began to clean.