“I said I’ve got it, don’t worry,” continued Chester A. Arthur XVII, walking outside with the string.
“Told you he was a douchebag,” said Thor under his breath.
“I heard that,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“Oh,” said Thor. “Uh, what I meant was…”
Thor never got to explain what he actually meant. No one cared. By this point, Mark had removed himself from the table and begun verbally accosting the diner owner. All eyes in the diner—robotic, organic, or otherwise—were on them.
“That string has every right…”
“I don’t give a shit about its rights, or your opinion, or…”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Chester A. Arthur XVII, “but my friend here would like a cup of coffee.”
The sentient piece of string strode up next to Chester A. Arthur, looped and twisted around on itself, with its hair messed up and raveled out.
“Oh, you got some balls,” said the diner owner, pushing Mark aside and approaching the president and the string. “Let me spell this out for you. There are no strings allowed in the diner. And you are a string, aren’t you?”
“No,” said the string confidently. “I’m a frayed knot.”
Fifty-Eight: It’s On Now, Bitches
Bill and Phil made their way through the blood and guts and laser guns and metal fragments and severed limbs and more guts and more metal fragments until they found Quetzalcoatl.
“Quinn,” said Phil, “we…”
“One second, girls,” said Quetzalcoatl, pinned against one murder-drone by another murder-drone. “I’m a little busy.”
Quetzalcoatl was immediately, and violently, beset by three more murder-drones.
Bill and Phil waited patiently.
“Fucking… ball sacks, man,” said Quetzalcoatl, punching the metal head casing of the nearest robot repeatedly. The robot didn’t seem to notice.
A few minutes passed and two more homicidal automatons joined the fray.
Bill and Phil continued to wait.
Quetzalcoatl said some undoubtedly profane thing, but Bill and Phil couldn’t hear it over the sound of the seven mechanical assassins attempting to eviscerate, behead, stab, burn and quarter him.
A small stream of blood spurted from the fracas and landed on Bill’s loafer.
“We… should probably help him,” said Phil turning to Bill.
“What the… blazes are you talking about, Phil?” replied Bill. “Maybe you’ve… found a way to channel your… inner barbarian, but the only thing I know how to do is think… and that’s nearly gotten me killed twelve times… in the last hour alone.”
“Well, we have to do… something,” countered Phil. “He’s being…”
Six of the robots surrounding Quetzalcoatl were hurled into the air with tremendous force. Some were intact. Most were not.
“… murdered?”
Phil’s question was not uncalled for. The man he had known as Quinn was now hovering above the battlefield, breathing heavily but otherwise seemingly unfazed by the fact that he had just hurled six tons of angry metal across a half mile of robot-on-human bloodshed.
He also appeared undaunted by the fact that he had grown wings and a tail.
In actuality, Quetzalcoatl was marginally surprised to have reverted to his feathered serpent form, even if he didn’t show it. Mostly, though, he was pissed. That part he made pretty evident.
Quetzalcoatl tilted his head and looked down at the lone robot still clinging to his torso.
“Error,” said the remaining, and clearly most tenacious, murder-drone. “Impossibility made manifest.”
“Not exactly, my metallic nemesis. Religion was disproved. Not faith, not philosophy.”
“Does not compute.”
“No, of course it doesn’t. You’re a robot. You can’t think. You can’t believe. You’re just numbers and programs. At the end of the day you have no idea how much power faith can give you.”
Quetzalcoatl lifted the robot with one hand.
“No, Mr. Murder-Drone, you understand about as well as a lobotomized garden gnome might. I’m not a god because the Aztecs thought I was, or because these pedantic layabouts believed in me, or because anyone else thought anything at any point.
“I am a god,” continued Quetzalcoatl, putting his fist through the murder-drone’s face, “because I think I am.”
Fifty-Nine: Unless You Want to Get Dead, Of Course
“This was… unexpected,” said Phil.
“Huh?” inquired Quetzalcoatl, still hovering before Phil and Bill. “What are you talking about?”
“You appear to have… transformed into some type of… giant, winged snake-man, Quinn. I’m… I don’t…”
“Oh, that, right,” continued Quetzalcoatl. “I guess I forgot to tell you guys that I had a drinking problem.”
Phil and Bill tried to respond to, refute, or otherwise process the statement, but found they could only tilt their heads slightly and stare.
“Also, I almost drowned once. There was some serious head trauma involved with that.”
Again, the statement was met only with tilting and staring.
“And, before that, I destroyed Central America, made the llama extinct, and severely crippled the Department of Science’s robot military.”
Phil raised his finger as if he was going to say something, but thought better of it and retreated back to his comfort zone of slanted, wide-eyed awe. Bill, however, threw in some gaping, just to liven things up a bit.
“Which should bring us up to speed, gentlemen.”
“No,” said Phil, “not at all actually.”
“Are you sure?” asked Quetzalcoatl. “I was thinking that was a pretty solid recollection of events right there.”
“None of your preceding statements actually explain… anything,” said Bill. “How you… grew wings, for example. Or why your legs seem to have… fused together and become a giant serpent’s tail.”
“Oh, that. Right,” replied Quetzalcoatl, looking down at his new mode of ambulation. “Turns out I’m actually Quetzalcoatl, Aztec serpent god of the wind. And knowledge. And arts and crafts, too, I think. I’m the god of a bunch of things when you get right down to it.”
Bill and Phil retreated to their previously established method of discourse, although, this time, they were tilting and staring like no one’s fucking business. It was impressive.
“Seriously, though, you never figured it out? All that ‘be our leader,’ ‘believe in yourself’ horsecrap you guys kept spouting on about? I just assumed…”
“You gave… absolutely no indication that you were… a fallen deity from an advanced, ancient civilization,” said Phil. “I can say that with… utmost certainty.”
“Honestly,” said Bill, “we didn’t think you were even listening to us most of the time.”
“You talked so damn much it was kind of impossible not to pick up something. Anyway,” said the giant, feathered snake god, spreading his wings and blotting out the sky, “you still with me?”
“I… don’t think we have a choice.”
“Yeah, you really don’t.”
Sixty: Or a Monkey in People Clothes
Catrina and Queen Victoria XXX, shopping bags in hand, stepped from the elevator and began walking down the fourth floor toward their rooms.
“I can’t believe you still have malls up here,” said Queen Victoria XXX.
“I can’t believe you only bought three outfits,” replied Catrina.
“I’m not used to this,” replied the queen, gesturing with her bags. “Even when me and Charlie and Billy do go out, it’s like a time trial. Grab what you can and go. I can’t even remember the last time I tried something on.”