Andrew Colon Space Custodian

Andrew Colon
Space Custodian
By
Sir Sylvester Crinden Rose Childes IV Esquire


“The night. Dark, light, it’s all the same. You walk down those long, harsh, vibrant, soft, jiggly, roun–,” he was nearly knocked off the desk by Amy, the secretary. He didn’t know why, nor did he question it, but that’s how Amy’s name stuck in his head. Amy, the secretary. No other way could he think about her, and no other way would he imagine her to think about him, than a medium sized, medium colored, medium goal, medium class, medium brained, medium done egg brained moron. This was Andrew Colon, Space Custodian, and the girl who just nearly caused him to crack his skull on the tri-composite-aspirin colored floor was the love of his life. Of course, he never knew it.
“IS there any other way you can interrupt my state of work than by describing the features of a woman’s body, Andrew?” Amy’s coy smile appeared, just to vanish a mere second before the fallen custodian could pull himself up to desk level. Her invertebrate body slunk back in her chair, as her tentacle-like arms slipped back to her duty of sorting papers.
“I’m just demonstrating how I managed to resist the many temptations of Circe’s Café!” Andrew leaned in with a giant smile, only to have Amy’s eyes roll back away from him and toward her papers.
“All in the name of business, honestly Andrew,” she sighed, “I just never realized how treacherous it is for you to walk to work every morning.”
Andrew shrugged and turned back to his cohorts, only to find three of the five had already left, with their laughter echoing through the polished mildew hallway. The remaining two were a very pink, thick skinned (and headed), Toresterite named Bob (who dangerously resembled a giant sow. So plump and juicy was his appearance he only dared entering carnivorous serving restaurants in the daylight, and only then if his friends weren’t so hungry they forgot he wasn’t food), and a green encrusted Squidilovian named Bob, who, for the majority of his presence in an arid atmosphere, was confined to a clear exposure suit meant to keep him swimming in continuously recycled water.
“So, anyway,” Andrew halted. His hand outstretched a few inches from the deep-blue, sleeved jacket, with the white shirt underneath poking through to his wrists. A slightly confused look passed over his face, before he dropped his hands to his side, “I lost my train of thought.”
“I think it lost you,” Amy smirked to herself, leaving her back turned to Andrew, as she pretended to concentrate on her work and not the dashing slacker standing in front of her desk.
The paced sound of boots echoed through the busy hallway, nearly concealing the click of cleated metal from the dashing vixen’s footwear. Andrew, having no time to think of a witty or timely response to Amy’s sharp gib, immediately recognized the tighter than skin-tight, black, Pu-Dont faux leather armored jumpsuit worn by the fellow custodial pilot: Heidi Veronica Geraldine Hoosier the Third. Though, spare the soul of any living creature who spoke any portion of her name, as she preferred to be called Monica, or Victoria, or any other name she was currently working under due to her current mood swing.
“Morning, Mona!” So, I lied. Sue me. She preferred to be called Mona, her maiden name, being that she’s a maiden and despite the fact it was actually her first name, “How’s the drop off today?” Amy swung her chair around to the filing cabinet to pull out a small package of forms, before handing them to the scowling, humanoid standing before her. Amy gave a stifled smile when she saw one of Mona’s co-pilots yammering on incessantly about a multitude of inane conversational concepts so ridiculously boring that we have spared you from the mind numbing nightmare of scrying his words on this page. Seeing Mona’s large rabbit like ears, which were protruding from her very human like head, twitch with a building angst that could only suggest the growing urge to commit multiple acts of an unlawful nature upon her co-pilot, Amy turned her chair back towards the filing cabinet and produced a separate packet which she quickly handed to the custodial pilot.
“So how’s it goin’, hot stuff?” Andrew smirked at the pilot, seemingly oblivious to the building anxiety the dumpy co-pilot had been causing her and beginning to cause Amy. Mona’s only response was a quiet grumble, which transformed to a near growl, moments before she gave a broad slash with her hand to signify her completion of the transfer request.
With the “i’s” dotted and the “t’s” crossed, the small red computer chip in the “Teri-Con MASS TRANSIT CONSUMPTION DUMPING AGENCY™” logo began to blink. The creature, hardly classifiable as human, in even the most decrepit of singles bars, immediately ceased his chatter, cocked his head slightly, and quickly but methodically began walking down the hallway. Andrew opened his mouth as if to speak, but was hushed with a simple hand motion from Mona. Mona, who was standing straight up from her hunched over position, closed her eyes and gave a soft, sweet smile of victory.
“Can you hear that?” her voice nearly inaudible above the normal echo of hallway chatter.
“What?” Andrew shrugged and waited for her answer.
“Nothing,” Mona replied, then her smile grew sick with a sarcastic sense of satisfaction, “Now, can you hear...” she held her finger up, while waiting for her cue. A moment passed before a scream could be heard from what they believed to be several hundred feet down the hallway, when in fact it had originated several floors and five airlocks away, “that!”
“Well, you’re goin’ to hell,” Andrew smirked, as he walked around the bustling tour group, that had just entered the area, and closer toward Amy’s desk.
“But at least it’ll be a quiet trip,” Mona gave a smiling sigh of relief. Her very human body was distinguished as abnormal only by a few traits. One of the said “obvious traits” she shared with the genes of a rabbit was her pair of elongated ears, both of which were placed in a very human fashion off the side of her head, providing the unsuspecting onlooker with a sense of amazement, as the human-like ears stretched out at the tips by five inches while developing a short, but thick coat of white fur. While partially comical in appearance, the fur served as an enhancement to the auditory senses, picking up minute tremors in the air and sound media. Her nose also twitched, both voluntarily and involuntarily, though unless it was actively seen twitching, it would be impossible to distinguish it from a normal human nose.
The rest of her distinguishing rabbit features were politely hidden underneath her garments. Those features being a thick but short layer of fur covering most of her bodice, in normal rabbit fashion: her standard four nipples (evenly dispersed among her two breasts), and the ecologically devastating ability to produce a multitude of small human-shaped-rabbit like creatures within a very short span of six months. Which, in turn, was coupled with the uncanny ability to defy nearly all known means of contraception, including methods which removed the reproductive organs entirely from the birthing mother’s body. While this phenomena has yet to be explained by even the scientists who created the half-species centuries before, it is a known fact that whether or not the rabbit is participating in cross specie relations, the effects are nearly always the same: babies, and lots of them.
Pity the poor woman who falls in lust with a male rabbit, for this, unfortunately, most often results in a living death sentence. Whether by the female’s inability to give birth to 12 strapping six pounders in one setting, or by the years of constant round the clock parenting, the effects are as brutal as death. It should be noted that, though rarely, the father often suffers a fate worse than the mother (especially so if the mother died during childbirth), since it is commonly required that the father work to provide enough money to support the large family. Pity also the father who thinks he can escape as a deadbeat, for even in death the Anarcho-Lawyers of Doom can find his unwitting soul in the land of the dead. On the bright side, rabbits provide an excellent source of income for Social Security since few, if any, ever live long enough to collect for extended periods of time.
“This,” Mona struggled with her tighter than skin tight suit, pulling at a corner of it near her waist, “Damn piece of trash,” in a futile attempt, the ravishing visage of a perfect woman grabbed hold of the only single imperfection of the tighter than skin tight suit just above her haunch, a small bubble of extra fabric created just for such an occasion that just happened to be the only failure of the suit’s design the company would admit to. Due to its slick behavior, her hand could barely move the suit a half inch before her hand slipped from the “e-z grip fabric redistribution handle”. Mona simply swore under her breath. “I hate these things!” she cried, after her quiet damnation.
“I know, I mean, Jesus, Mona! That thing’s so tight I can almost see your belly button!” Andrew snorted at the slick sheen covering his friend’s body, “If it were any tighter we could see your–,”
“Would you believe I have two pairs of sweats and sweaters under this? It’s as if even my fur has no more dimension than cellophane,” Mona was pushed lightly aside by a small blue man reaching for one of the check sheets on Amy’s desk, while several other creatures of varying tentacles and red hues proceeded to hand their objective quarterlies to the secretary. “I swear, as soon as I get my three weeks I’m not only going to have this uniform incinerated, I’ll redesign it and submit it to the committee myself!”
“It takes months for them to approve new uniform alterations, what make–uhh,” Mona smiled grimly at Andrew, stopping him in his tracks. “Uh, yeah, never mind.”
“Here’s your end of the paperwork, Mona,” between her busy life of demands from the other milling bodily properties of the corporation, Amy sorted through her filing cabinets for the proper preparation and design submission forms required for the creation and implementation of the female rabbit uniform, “I’ve already begun working on most of the generic submission requirements, hun. This rest you need to fill out for yourself.”
“Thanks, Amy! Just tell me if you need anything!”
“Well, I noticed you were swinging around Petula for your pickup in Clarksville. If you swing downtown, there’s a store called Strawberryfields on 5th and Main. They’ve got this skin moisturizer that’s a dream! Here’s some money and a small list of a few other things,” As she was speaking, Amy quickly wrote down the name of the business and a handful of products on a piece of paper. She then took out some cash and slipped the note and money into an envelope before handing it all to Mona, “If it comes to more than that let me know!”
“Strawberryfields?” Mona curiously looked up from the envelope she held in her hand. With an affirmative shrug and nod from the secretary she continued, “But, isn’t that a–,” halting herself once she realized the alien figure had no idea what she was talking about, Mona simply smiled and slipped the envelope into the rest of her papers, “I’ll make sure to grab it first thing!”
“Michael, Michael, Michael,” the deep penetrating voice rumbled with a gleeful musical ring, that was just on the verge of a mild chuckle. “Isn’t is shameful what I get paid around here?” John paused slightly in his gait, as both he and a paper logged vice president exited the super-turbo elevating mechanisms, or as the staff of Teri-Con MASS TRANSIT CONSUMPTION DUMPING AGENCY™ (otherwise known as TCMTCDA, also trademarked), cheerfully called it: The “Super Speedy Ultra Continental Keister Ecstatic Relocator™”. This incredibly long nick name is cheerfully called the Super S.U.C.K.E.R.™, and is trademarked as well. Other names have cropped up since, such as the Turbo S.U.C.K.E.R. and the Intercontinental Pants Wetting Machine, but since such names were previously trademarked under other owners, for various, unscrupulous pieces of mechanical workmanship, John Luck Pichard (with a hard ‘K’) trademarked only those two names and their acronyms, once he had finished stealing the proper patents. “I mean just look at it!” John shoved the paper into Michael’s hidden eye for a brief moment, before turning his smile back upon the numbers (mainly zeros) printed on the page.
“Thank you, please ride me again.” The Super S.U.C.K.E.R.’s™ doors shut with a loud wham, nearly catching the end of Michael’s shoelace, but that was ok, since the doors did manage to grab a firm hold on a strand of yarn from his knitted sweater-vest. Two jerks and a yank later, a light bouncing sound of a plastic bottle without a purpose was completely ignored by everyone in the hallway.
“Yes, John, I see your dirty money,” Michael stepped forward, taking absolutely no note of the deep, sexy, lustful feminine voice of The Super S.U.C.K.E.R.™, or the momentary tugging sensation he felt around his chest. Instead, believing it was another cardiac arrest, he fumbled with the small three foot stack of papers in an effort to locate his box of aspirin.
“Noo, you haven’t seen these figures!” The bald head of the company president glistened in his own self-indulgence and the “Just as Nature Intended” faux lighting scheme, as he held the page a foot in front of his face so he could properly drool without moistening the not so indelible ink.
“I get it!” Failing to locate his pocket, it took Michael several more minutes before he realized he failed to locate the sweater-vest his pocket had been attached to earlier that morning. “Son of a,” Michael dumped the papers and turned around to see the last strand of yarn from his sweater, just as it was sucked up through the doors of The Super S.U.C.K.E.R.™ shaft.
“Can you believe I just made 50 million while listening to you?” John turned away from his accounting receipt for a moment, just to see a frustrated Michael swear under his breath, “Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael,” he boomed with a laugh, “Well, once you’re done with that mess, how about making plans with that lovely wife of yours to enjoy my presence at my house for dinner tonight!” as he walked away, John could be heard murmuring, “What lovely ‘i’s’,” to himself. This, of course, enraged the heartbeat of his vice president, causing the little vein in his forehead head to break through to the otherwise calm surface of his skin. It began pulsing with such a ferocity, the heat of anger boiling through his head nearly alarmed the fire-extinguishing system. Little did he know, John’s statement was simply in his continuous awe at much money he had made over the past minute alone. The ‘i’s’ were in reference to the name of the bank. Saving you the trouble of reading more useless information, just trust in the fact this particular bank has more ‘i’s’ in its name than previously thought possible for any word in the English language.
The jingle of the small pill bottle rolling across the floor finally came to a stop as it was kicked against Andrew’s foot by a passing quintuped. Afraid to do much of anything else, Andrew bent down to pick up the bottle, and in a moderately cracked voice said, “Your aspirin, uh, sir.”
With his vein still pulsating, Michael walked across to Andrew, knocking down a small orange creature with the palm of his hand on his way over. Ignoring the babbling curses which followed, Michael took the bottle and gave a gritting smile. “Thanks.”
What followed next was a piece of comedic timing which could not have been any more pure in the comic form. A small dirt busting machine rounded the corner with a bright blinking red light at its tip. Cruising at a cool speed of five miles per hour, the beast cried out “It is a good day to clean!” at the top of his lungs. With a giant scoop and a cry of pain from Michael, the machine scooped the papers up into its jaws of 100 small and 900 even smaller rotating blades. A loud buzz could be heard, as the white parchment was shown no mercy in the gaping maw which was the Master 9000 Cleaning Robot Autonomous Plier and Equipment Repairer, or the Master C.R.A.P.E.R. for short.
Michael surprised everyone, as his anger seemed to boil down while the robot made its get away. Only Amy knew what was about to happen, reaching back behind the auto lock storage system to produce the item their boss was a second from requesting. “Amy,” his calm collected voice rang with an edge of righteous madness when he spoke, “My Boomstick.” A sharp sound of metal slapping against flesh marked the exchange of the Mega-Laser 2000, the Boomstick Edition, from Amy’s tentacled hand to the Vice President’s.
Hearing the exchange just within its sensor range, the robot turned around briefly, just in time to see Michael cocking the laser rifle with a smooth jerk of his hand (it should be duly noted, the “cocking” effect does absolutely nothing in the aspect of loading the Boomstick model’s weaponry. It is meant for pure effect only). Quickly, the Machine began repeating its mantra louder and faster, as it tried miserably to increase its speed across the incredibly slick floor, “It’s a good day to clean! It’s a good day to clean!” his words were almost as relentless as Michael’s glare.
“No. For you, it’s a good day to die!” His whispered comment was lost under the screams of horror emanating from the distressed, and incredibly fast cleaning robot. Seeing no way to cut through the crowd to his target, Michael was nearly ready to let out a sigh of reluctant failure in combination with several rounds into the hallway walls. It was only the presence of Amy’s voice which brought back a vigor of revenge to Michael’s face.
“That one has a pickup in the commissary on level 14 in five minutes. If you hurry up, you’ll be able to catch him!”
“His call sign’s X-12 right?” Michael turned briefly to the secretary, “Last time I shot the wrong one, putting it on the couch for a month.”
“It’s the X-12. He tried to eat my gold bracelet when I dropped it last week,” her own scowl hinted at the dark seed of vengeance hidden beneath her near translucent skin.
“Good,” everyone parted out of Michael’s way in fear and awe, as they watched the grinning man make his way to the sleek chrome doors of the Super S.U.C.K.E.R.™.
A stunned silence soon followed, breaking the monotony of the useless or otherwise ridiculous thoughts running through the ridiculous minds of the various employees. While perfectly understandable to most normal sentient beings, this silence was a baffling realization to absolutely no one in particular that this rifle-toting event happened weekly, and in some rare months, daily. Thankfully, only robots were ever injured or harmed during one of Michael’s explosions (as for the other company board members: those court dockets have since been sealed).
“Humans,” Mona snorted under her breath, “I swear, if I hadn’t met you, Andrew, I would’ve joined the Anti-Human Hyperbole League a looong time ago.” The humanoid rabbit turned to give Amy a smile as she left, “I’ll see you soon!”
“Take care, hun,” Amy’s nonchalant attitude was only stressed by the fact she had seemed to be using the sudden, though temporary quiet, as a means to get as much work done as she possibly could.
“Fly safe!”
“You too Andrew!”
With Mona now on her way back to the flight deck for her ride home, Andrew turned his attention back to Amy, leaving the rest of the hallway’s occupants to slowly go back to their work. “So, where’ve I got today?”
“Please use correct grammar,” Amy shook her head in a disapproving sigh at the pilot.
“Well, well, Ms. Teacher lady!”
“Andrew, I’m just looking out for you, you know you always talk about people not taking you seriously,” Amy looked up to see him nod his head as if to say “I know”, “Well, you just don’t realize it’s all in how you present yourself to others! Here,” Amy stood up to adjust his jacket.
“Hey, now! I already have a mom!” he pushed Amy away, half in playful awareness of his friend’s concern and two thirds in annoyance.
“Well, maybe you should see her sometime, that way I won’t be the only one left to pick up the pieces,” her smart comment was met with a childish stuck-out tongue from the pilot. Sitting back down, she pulled out a set of papers to hand to Andrew, “This is your assignment book for the week. I tried to do my best, but they gave you the long routes, again.”
“Hey, it’s fine,” Andrew’s attempt at belittling Amy’s concern was met only with a noticeably fearful sigh. “I’m a good pilot.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like watching my friends get the dangerous routes.”
“Hey, if it weren’t me, it’d be someone else. Besides, I’m one of the best pilots there is in this junk-heap, multi-gazillion, six star, Fortunus 5000 company! Where could th–,” Andrew’s voice dropped when he read the list. In bright, thick, flaming black letters, the top destination addition on his route nearly jumped down his throat: Hell. “Well,” Andrew said with a sigh, “Looks like John managed to close that new account!”

*

The following sequence of events incurred upon our hero of the story: Andrew Colon (space custodian), are so horrifically boring, that you’d rather that I’d regale you with the wonderful story of my lint collection, otherwise known as the story of: “Is that lint in your pocket, or do you require the immediate attention of a skilled doctor?” Since this is a fake story title, made specifically for a fictional, yet cute, anecdotal segue, meant entirely to distract you from the fact I have very little imagination, I won’t relate any part of that story to you at any time in the past present or future. Moving right along, we pick up our story with the amazing Mr. Sneed– oh, wait, wrong story.
Andrew stood, nervously tapping the bottom of the pickup chart, while looking around the endless cavern hallway. It was unquestionably the creepiest place he had ever been to, second only to an alley behind that seedy jazz bar, on the wrong side of the tracks, in the specific city. You know which one. Standing in front of him was their new client: Luci. He sported a flashy star studded suit and looked anything but slimy, which is what gave our intrepid hero the heebie jeebies.
“You sure I don’t have anything to offer you?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely sure? Just to kill some time while we wait?”
“I’m here to pick up your trash, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” A dead silence followed afterwards. Reducing the two conversationalists to a state of readiness known only by a pair of people standing in a very awkward way.
“So uhhh,” the client paused while trying to think of what to say, “Nice time of year, isn’t it?”
“Sure, it’s pretty nice. If you’re into the whole melted rock look,” Andrew tapped the back of the chart with increased repetition, still searching for any sign of his co-pilot and the engineering crew with the recyclables and other trash, “I mean, ya know, you have to have an eye for that sort of thing.”
“Well, thank you! I thought I made a smashing choice myself!” Luci grinned with an intensity of self-importance no other being could muster, “You should see it in the winter when the frozen flesh worms come out! They make the most brilliant stream of lighting effects after they’ve fed on a few souls!”
“You don’t mind if I’ll just take your word for it?”
“Not at all!” He remarked, while reaching into his make believe vest pocket to produce a ridiculously tall stack of pictures. “I have some pictures of them if you’d like to glance!”
“No tha– gaahhh!” Andrew balked at the sight of several luminescent creatures worming across the small cards his client held out, “What’s that!?”
“Oh, they’re just holographic, like, type of, thin– you know? I don’t quite know what these are!”
Just then, Andrew felt a sigh of relief pass over him, as the sound of footsteps marked the approach of his co-pilot and the rest of their enterprising crew.
“Andrew!” the co-pilot huffed, his breaths coming harder than an all star basketball icon, or for that matter, a Times Square workin’ gal, “Andrew!” he screamed a final time, before stopping at his captain’s feet.
“What is it?” Andrew was stopped with a motion from the co-pilot’s hand. He looked down at the figure who was bent over, holding himself against his knees. “Well?” another motion to wait followed. The co-pilot waved off an offer of water from Luci, and continued to huff for several more minutes. He watched as a small inchworm made it carefully across Andrew’s foot.
“Well, this is exciting.” Andrew’s cold sarcasm sliced through the stagnant air. The rest of the party had already begun loading the canisters of recyclables and garbage up into the bowls of the gigantic ship. The hum of the hover engines from the carriage-bots echoed down through the large cavern walls.
“I must say the suspense is murderously sinful.”
“Well,” Andrew sighed, “Like I said, he had my deck of cards.” The pilot grabbed the deck which had fallen outside of the co-pilot’s pocket. With each interjection by Andrew and Luci, the co-pilot desperately tried to blurt out some message of warning, but his words were left to the curse of his breathless heaving. “Up for a game?”
“Care to make it interesting!!?”
“No!”
Over an hour passed, before the co-pilot stood erect. By now, Luci and Andrew had been engaged in a frightfully exciting game of baccarat, and Andrew was winning.
“S-sir,” the co-pilot took several more breaths, as his body slowly erected, “Sir!”
“What!?” Andrew slammed his hand down on the table Luci had conjured from thin air. Unaware that the flat surface gave the Prince of Damnation a third view at their cards. Luci swore under his breath.
“He tried to sneak a soul aboard the plastic number 3 recyclables bin!” The young co-pilot glared in Luci’s direction, pulling the white suited denizen of darkness into reality, and halting his attempt to look at the next card on top of the playing deck.
“What?” Luci’s high pitch question, coupled with a rise in his eyebrows gave an unconvincing aura of innocence.
“You mixed the recyclables!?” Andrew’s scream echoed above the sound of the motorcade making its way into the ship.
“No, no, sir, it’s much worse than that,” the co-pilot read off a portion of the delivery contract notice to Andrew. While Andrew preferred the smooth vibrant feel of paper, his co-pilot and everyone else restricted themselves to computer display monitors roughly the size of a hundred sheets, “Provision 5.3.124.9.4.567.334.891, subsection A.” Andrew gave a shot of confusion in Luci’s direction at the ridiculous length of the chapter citation number the co-pilot read off.
“I had them put that in there special,” Luci stood up to address the others, packing the deck of cards away and handing them to the pilot, “I just like long numbers!”
Both pilots gave a simultaneous sigh of annoyance, “As I was saying,” the co-pilot sneered in Luci’s direction, “Said provision precludes the packaging of any non-recyclable materials in said recyclable bins on pain of fines adjustable to the sorting cost and method required to repair said attempted damaged to said vehicle!”
“You tried to sabotage my ship!?” Andrew’s rising anger felled Luci back several feet with the brunt force of the love felt toward the chromed compilation of metal and grease.
“It’s worse than that, I don’t even recognize the name! He gave us some nobody! M. Jackson.”
“What!?” Andrew grabbed the computer display from the co-pilot, “Michael Jackson!?” The pilot then shot a penetrating glare at Luci’s direction, forcing his target to step back with his palms held up in a defensive gesture, “That’s why you were losing, wasn’t it! You were so desperate and worried you couldn’t get away with it, you couldn’t concentrate! Damnit!” Andrew turned on his co-pilot for a moment, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this!? I would’ve cleaned him out!”
“He’s a freak! His body won’t decay! He, he, he’s supposed to be black but he, he’s WHITE! And it’s not a healthy white either,” Luci’s defense fell on deaf ears, as he tried, desperately, to plead with the custodians, “Didn’t anyone else notice that! His body won’t even decay! I–,” Luci continued on his rant while the pilot’s discussed their own situation.
“Did you at least remove the damned box!?”
“Well, no, I-ah,”
“Get it out of my ship, NOW!”
“–and that infatuation of his with Sandy Duncan,” Luci continued his rant during the pilots’ exchange, “Granted, she’s a wonderful actress, there’s a reason she got the penthouse luxury sweet on the top floor instead of the incinerator room, but it’s just not natural! He has a collection of her glass eyes, for Christ’s sake!” his attempt to emphasize the point was lost when he realized no one was paying any attention to him.
“On it sir!” The co-pilot turned his head to the walkie talkie and began screaming orders to the loading personnel.
“You–!” Andrew’s scream at the cowering figure standing before him, was quickly interrupted by his plea.
“Please! No more yelling! Where’s all the love gone?” Luci begged for the pilot to stop, putting on his best innocent face, and still failing at it, “Where’s all the love?” Andrew just huffed at the comment, and stormed off to this ship’s cockpit, “Everybody loves Luci!” he yelled out to him. “Right?”
A loud chunk of metal slamming against the ground reverberated in the hallway, as the workers threw the box marked: “M. Jackson” out one of the cargo bay windows, after having sealed the ship for launch. The co-pilot stomped the three feet forward to stare Luci down with the most unforgiving glare he could muster. “I don’t.” The burning brutality of the truth in his words, as they finished passing through his lips in a sneer, sent the lord of darkness back several steps, before the pilot too joined Andrew in the ship’s cockpit.
“Well,” Luci said with a hrumph, “You just can’t please some people.”
A violent gust of wind rushed through the caverns, marking the ship’s departure from Luci’s dominion. Sighing regrettably at the box which lay at his doorstep, Luci called forth one of his lesser minions, an exchange student from the National Oil Concern University.
“Sir, they didn’t take Michael!?”
“No, but at least they didn’t discover my other package, or that bitch queen of the icewomen for that matter.” Luci released a sigh of relief, “Even if they fine me and cut my service, it’ll be worth it to get rid of just her!”
“How goes the divorce?” the grease ball oil conservative in training quickly called out for several smaller shadows to take the box back to one of Hell’s deeper pits. They could still see the metal container bouncing violently, while sounds even frightening to Luci emanated from its grey sides.
“All but finalized! Once I hit this button, the terror of the virgin succubus will never grace my halls again!” Turning to the bastard son of a tobacco wench, he quietly mused, “I mean, really, who ever heard of a sex demon who never had sex?! It’s like a rabbit who can’t have litters! It’s just not done! It’s, it’s..,”
“Unholy, sir?”
“Uuhhhhh,” cold shivers coursed up Luci’s spine at the thought of his soon to be ex-wife. Regaining his composure, he took the palm sized computer from his vest, and scrolled down the divorce papers, “Well, no matter. The terror which is Rechale shall soon be no more! Champagne?”
“Champagne, check!” The aspiring multi-billion dollar felon took a picnic basket from his vest pocket, and produced a three thousand year old bottle.
“Little Finger Sandwiches?”
“Little Finger Sandwiches, Check!”
“They aren’t actual fingers though, right?” Luci hunched over to peer under the basket’s red and white checkered towel, relieved to find normal sandwich wedges.
“Nope! I remembered from last weeks experience with the–,”
“It’s better left unsaid.” Luci held the computer out at his furthest reach in a stoic stance, ready for a camera shot that would never come, “The piece de resistance! With this button, I shall end the terror of the nine hells forever! I will be free to date whomever I shall choose! I shall indulge in the sins of the flesh as any self respecting lord of darkness shall, without fear of reprisals from the Ice Queen Bitch Goddess! At last, I shall finally know the pleasures of a woman!” With a press of the button the computer beeped very loudly in a rather disturbing fashion. Luci’s face melted, “No, no, no,” taking the computer close to read the screen, he jabbed the send button several times in sequence. With a bright flash, the computer screen vanished, replaced with white letters on a blue backdrop:

WARNING!

INTERNAL CONFLICT:

GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT: 00:34.911A
MICROLOFT’S PRODUCT WARRANTY LICENSING AGREEMENT REQUIRES YOU TO PRESS ANY BUTTON TO REFORMAT YOUR HARDDRIVE AND RESTART YOUR COMPUTER!
FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH MICROLOFT’S PRODUCT WARRANTY LICENSING AGREEMENT IN ANY WAY, INCLUDING ANY ATTEMPT TO SAVE OR RETRIEVE ANY WORK YOU HAVE LOST, WILL RESULT IN FULL TERMINATION OF YOUR TECHNICAL SUPPORT PRIVILEGES AS WELL AS FORFEITURE OF YOUR FIRST BORN!

THANK YOU!
AND HAVE A NICE DAY!:)

“Nooooo!” Luci’s scream rocked the foundation of the cavern walls.

*

“Andrew, did you hear something?”
“No,” Andrew’s seething anger at the Prince of Darkness kept his mind on a single track, as the ship made its quiet trek for the outer reaches of King the Purseless’ territory.

*

“No! That–,” Luci hunched over, careful now to keep his voice down to a seething anger capable of rocking only the foam gathering at the edges of his mouth. After a moment, the prince straightened himself up and placed the computer nicely in his vest pocket. He carefully adjusted his hair, his shirt, tie, and his jacket, before tearing the computer back out of his pocket and throwing it as hard as he could down the canyon ravine. The pocket computer sailed for several miles, before reaching a crashing end against a jagged rock jutting out from the turbulent waters of the River Styx.
“Intern.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Fetch that generic paper divorce kit.”
“But, sir! She’ll eat you alive if you sign that! All your money will be gone!” The objections were met with a grim face from Luci, as the budding corporate conspiracist saw a gleam of pure malevolence grow in his teacher’s eyes.
“Take away Gate’s Apfel computer, and force him to work on his own creation from now on, say,” Luci waved his hand several times in thought, “That Windblows 5000 he wrote.”
“Ooo, that is cruel sir! But, uhh,” the stank weed cohort paused in reflection before he continued, “He will need a computer to operate that under!”
“Yes, a computer,” Luci took the champagne bottle from his lackey and popped the cork, “Something with punch cards and vacuum tubes!”
“You are the perfection of evil, sir.”
“Yes, I know!” Still grinning, Luci lead their way down to the planet’s basement core.

*