Fast and Fastbinder witnessed their first feeding frenzy. The wounded creature—they didn’t even have time to determine if the naked thing was male or female—was swarmed and dismembered by groping hands and gnashing teeth. There was meat enough for every albino to get a mouthful. The blood-smeared, nude, filthy albinos settled into unflattering squats to eat their lunch.
“Gross!” Jack chuckled. “Guess they’ll eat anything that gets their mouth watering.”
“Survival instinct will drive them to seek out any possible variety in their diet to get rare nutrients,” Fastbinder agreed, nodding.
Jack nodded at the stacks of groceries and dripping foam coolers piled up in the rear of Jack’s Earth Drill. “We’re gonna be gods, Pops.”
“Yes, Jack, my genius progeny, they will be ours to command, and they are the answers to all our troubles.”
Jack ripped the pull-tops off all eight cans of Lil Wieners Hot Dawgs and tossed the fat rolls of Processed Meat Product across the sand. The aroma of meat fat in brine got the attention of the albinos. They threw caution to the wind and scrambled for the hot dogs like starved Boy Scouts. The Lil Wieners vanished.
The blind, degenerate humans shuffled for the open hatch of Jack’s Earth Drill.
“Now you are all very brave, I see, yes?” Jacob Fastbinder demanded. He flung Ding Dongs in every direction, creating a free-for-all. The pastries were consumed, foil wrappers and all, in a matter of seconds.
The albinos came back to Jack’s Earth Drill expectantly. No, belligerently.
“Now that we have taught them we have wonderful gifts to give, we should teach them we are powerful deliverers of death, yes?” Fastbinder asked rhetorically.
“Oh, yeah, Big Daddy!” Jack excitedly dug into a steel locker jolted to the wall.
“You have firearms?”
“Yeah, but I have something better, Pops.” Jack stood up with a red, white and blue cardboard box.
“Firecrackers. Big honkin’ firecrackers. I brought them for stability tests on sedimentary deposits.”
“Here comes a friendly sedimentary deposit, now, Jack.” Fastbinder couldn’t wait to see what Jack had in mind for the tall, tough-looking albino who was getting aggressive on them, obviously some sort of alpha male. Other males crouched and sniffed the ground at his feet as he muscled through the crowd. The big albino strolled this way and that, but came closer to JED than the others dared.
“You are a very ugly dude.” Jack tossed the alpha male an M-80, which had about the same mass as a Lil Wiener Processed Meat Product and thumped on the ground with the same sound. The alpha male stuffed it in his mouth.
“Yikes.” Jack slammed the hatch just as the alpha male’s face splattered. The blood smell broadcast throughout the cavern and the albinos reacted.
Father and son had a front row seat for the second feeding frenzy of the afternoon. “Guess the wieners and Ding Dongs just whetted their appetite, huh, Pops? I thought they’d be a little, you know, terrified of the big bang.”
“Yes, they will be, you will see. But they are driven by their instinct to feed, and always it will dominate them. We must use this to our advantage.”
Soon after the last few fragments of the alpha male were devoured, the albinos became aware of how close they’d wandered to Jack’s Earth Drill. They retreated until Jack tossed out the stack of thawed frozen dinners. After the dinners were gone, the albinos were in a state of agitation.
“They know we have more food. They are compelled to try to take it. Now they must learn we are their masters.”
“Yeah.” Jack said. “Big jerk albinos at ten, twelve and two.”
Three more big adult males postured before JED, sniffing one another and engaging in brief wrestling matches to show their aggressiveness, until a temporary alliance was formed and they attacked JED with flat chunks of rock. No matter how much they pounded, they couldn’t break the steel skin.
Jack opened the hatch and laughed harshly until the albino crowd joined in the merriment, shaming the three champions. One of them grew pink in the cheeks and grabbed for Jack, only to have both forearms crushed when the hatch slammed down on them. The next one shouted furiously at JED while Fastbinder taunted him in German through a narrow slot opening in the door. The brute eventually flung himself on the earth drill and tried to bite it open, breaking his teeth. Fastbinder moved the vehicle a few feet and caught the brute’s legs under the treads, where he wriggled helplessly like a praying mantis freshly impaled on a collector’s pin. Only one albino still had any fight left in him.
“Okay, I’ll take care of that dude,” Jack said, dragging on a big sweatshirt, but not before Fastbinder saw some sort of harness strapped beneath it.
“He is being cautious. He may be one of zee smart ones, Jack.”
“Chill, Pops, he’s already Purina Caveman Chow. But I got to show these shmoes that we’re the baddest asses ever, even away from the big shiny thing we rode in on.”
Fastbinder watched from the hatch, grabbing a pry bar from a tool chest to use in case Jack’s judgment turned out to be faulty.
But Jack knew what he was doing, as always. The kid was some sort of a genius and played the scene just right. He yelled at the albino male until it was goaded into attacking him, then Jack’s arm snapped out at the caveman, extended two feet too long and crushed his sternum. Fastbinder nodded with satisfaction—Jack had some sort of a mechanical arm under his sweatshirt.
The brute ignored the funny feeling of internal bleeding, instead staggering to his feet and charging Jack, only to be sucker punched in the hip. The caveman’s leg bent an unnatural direction and blood spurted where the bone pierced the skin.
The blood smell got the albinos dancing and shrieking, but they wouldn’t go any closer. Their greatest instinct had been subverted by fear of something terrible and supernatural.
Fastbinder and his son were now deities to the albinos. Being benevolent gods, they eventually allowed the albinos to feed on the trio of fallen heroes. The wounded brutes grunted and whined as they were ripped apart, and the last one, the smart one, even begged for mercy.
He begged in English.
Chapter 4
The Korean man was so very old that his skin was like parchment. His flesh was nearly translucent, the wisps of hair over his ears were yellow-white and the threads of his beard were nearly invisible.
In the dingy office, he stroked the beard thoughtfully, then put his hand back into the sleeve of his pale gold Korean robe.
“I don’t understand,” said the man behind the desk in a pinched, sour tone of voice. “Does this have something to do with the succession?”
“It is a private matter, unworthy of your attentions, kind and generous Emperor,” proclaimed the old Korean in a formal singsong voice. “It is between my pupil and myself.”
“Master Chiun, I beg to differ,” said the man behind the desk. “Anything that affects my enforcement arm is my business. Remo becomes more headstrong every day. He’s never been the most cooperative man to manage, but now he’s utterly unpredictable and belligerent. He is putting his own interests ahead of CURE’s mandate.”
The small Korean man, who was actually much older than the man behind the desk, wore a smile that wouldn’t budge. The old man behind the desk, Harold W. Smith, director of CURE, glanced worriedly at his assistant. Mark Howard was at another desk, which looked out of place in the timeworn office.
“To be blunt, Master Chiun,” Smith said, “Remo is failing to fulfill his contract.”
“I assure you, Great and Humble Emperor of the North American Continent, Remo has fulfilled all your stated demands.”