Mike v2.0 (A Firesetter Short Story) (2 page)

My mother scoffed whenever he related this
silly tale, while my grandfather usually swore, mumbling something
along the lines of, “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“You believe me, Mike, don’t you?” my father
always said, to which I humored him and nodded, while knowing full
and well that angels didn’t exist.

Now, I yawned and made a groaning noise,
preferring not to hear this story yet again.

“Ah, I see you have grown weary,” he said,
taking the clue. “Well, I shall be leaving you to rest, unless you
wish for me to stay?”

“No, Father.” Turning my face into the pillow,
I pretended to snore.

“Are you certain? It’s quite alright. I can
sit here as long as you desire.”

I didn’t respond, but instead made a concerted
effort to keep my breathing steady and even.

He sat for a few more moments, his gaze intent
on my face. Even though I couldn’t see him, it was almost as if I
could feel his eyes upon my skin. Eventually, he rose to his feet,
thumping across the room, his braces clanking.

“Goodnight, sweet Mikal,” he whispered.
“Tomorrow will be better.”

I wasn’t certain about that. In fact, I was
resolved to the prospect of tomorrow being worse, as would everyday
after that forevermore.

My father had been born and raised on Earth,
in a town that seemed straight out of ancient film, while my entire
life had been spent in the Imperial Palace. Although, the Palace
wasn’t the original massive structure once occupied by my mother’s
predecessor, my great-grandfather, the Great Emperor, it was still
quite impressive, especially when compared to my father’s childhood
house.

Built entirely of marble stones that cast a
pink shadow across the valley when the sun set, in the moonlight,
our Imperial residence rose like a giant monolith nearly as high as
the stars. Whilst the interior was no longer trimmed in gold or
crystal as in the Great Emperor’s days, it was still quite
luxurious, a fitting residence for the Empress Sara and her
consort.

Having lived there since my first breath, I
had no conception of the world beyond those palace walls, nor did I
understand the people to be anything beyond subjects of my future
crown. Thus, my father forever made it his task to keep me humble
and human, even though, technically, I was only sixty-two and one
half percent human, twelve and one half percent Xironian, and
twenty-five percent Rehnorian.

In addition to my parents, my mother’s father,
the Imperial Prince lived with us. Steve, as we called him for a
reason that was never fully explained, was the eldest son of the
Great Emperor. Throughout his life, he had been a colossal
screw-up, such that for a time, he had been banished to a frozen
planet on the outer banks of the Empire. When he returned, he had
continuously lived in fear of execution at his father’s
hand.

“You think you’ve got it bad,” he’d tell me,
whenever I complained about my schoolwork or having to eat my peas.
“If I dared to open my mouth and object to anything my mother said,
my father would glare at me with his silver eyes and threaten to
send me flying across the ceiling.”

“Oh, he never did that,” my mother scoffed,
glaring at me with her own bright blue eyes. “Eat your peas, Mike.
They’re good for you. Full of fiber. Afterward, I expect you to
finish your math problems.”

“How do you know? You weren’t there. Just
because Senya turned into a marshmallow around you, doesn’t mean he
wasn’t a vicious bastard around me. He was.” Steve leaned in
closer, nodding to me as if I was complicit in some sort of scheme.
“He was a great king, though, a great emperor when he wasn’t mad
out of his brain. You’ll be a great king, too, Mikey. You stick
with me, bud, and you’ll be called the Great Emperor, version
2.0.”

Usually, at this, my mother sighed
dramatically, and my father rolled his eyes. We all knew Steve was
pretty mad out of his brain, too, but we all accepted it, and did
our best to ignore him. At the time, Steve was something like a
hundred years old, and he was allowed to act and say bizarre things
despite how annoying and embarrassing he could be. To that end, I
did my best to avoid him whenever he came around.

“What’s up, junior?” he would call, offering a
hand for a high five, a fist to bump, or if his sciatica wasn't
acting up, his butt.

“Nothing, Steve,” I would mumble, and hurry
off before he trapped me in an endless conversation about the past.
“School. You know, I’ve got to study.”

“Well, that’s a fine pickle you’ve got
yourself in,” Steve announced, shuffling into my hospital room. A
chair scraped against the floor, followed by the sound of his body
collapsing into it. “Oof! Are you awake, Mikey? It’s me, Steve,
your grandfather. Remember me? How’s about I take you to a baseball
game?” Then, he started laughing, a cackling sound intermingled
with his usual hacking coughs.

I had been asleep, but there was no point in
telling him that now.

“Hi Steve.”

“Oh, so you do remember me. Good. Your brain
isn’t completely fried. Can you see anything yet?”

I opened my mouth to explain that my world was
still completely dark, when more footsteps crossed the floor, along
with a gust of very flowery perfume.

“Oh!” a high feminine voice proclaimed. “Sir!
I’m so sorry to interrupt.”

“That’s alright, sweetheart,” Steven insisted.
“Too bad you can’t see this dish, Mikey-boy. She’s a real
looker.”

“Oh, Sir!” She giggled nervously and touched
my arm with her soft hand. This was followed by a not-so-soft
poke.

“If I was only eighty years younger,” Steve
chortled. “I’d let that nurse poke me. But, I’ve had my share of
hospital rooms. Yes, I have. You couldn’t pay me to swap places
with you, junior. Did I ever tell you about the time my father beat
the bleeding shit out of me? I was in the hospital for a month
after that, but I learned my lesson. Yes, I did. I didn’t have
another drink for at least the next ten years. Well, maybe eight
years. Six tops. Although, I did have a beer or two in between, and
occasionally, a glass of wine. Can’t go through life without good
wine. Trust me, Mikey-boy. I could have stopped any time I wanted,
though. Really, I could have.”

“Yes, Sir,” the nurse said politely, her hand
still clutching my arm, the viperous needle still drawing an
obscene quantity of my life’s blood.

“Maybe, it wasn’t ten years,” Steve continued.
“No, come to think of it, it was definitely closer to five. I
started drinking again when Joanne left me for the second time. No.
It was the first time, but that doesn’t matter. Every time she
left, I got drunk just to celebrate.”

Joanne wasn’t my grandmother, but rather
Steve’s second and third wife, of which the first one had also left
him in a rage.

As for my grandmother, I knew basically
nothing, except that my mother had been conceived during a
one-night stand. Later, she had died in a spaceplane crash when my
mother was still a child.

“Caused by my father, no doubt,” Steve always
insisted, growing increasingly remorse, “because I loved
her.”

“No, he didn’t cause it,” my mother snapped.
“It was a mechanical malfunction. And, you didn’t love my mother at
all. You can’t even remember her name, Steve. Stop filling Mike’s
head with these ridiculous stories.”

“She’s right.” Steve chuckled, cheering up
again, while nudging me conspiratorially. “I have no clue who your
grandmother was, but I'm certain she was totally hot. Hot women
love princes like us, Mikey, even when we look like
toads.”

“Do I look like a toad?” I had asked, being an
impressionable five year old at the time.

“Not at all, little dude. You’re fortunate in
that you look like me and not your old man, Thunk.” Steve stuck out
his tongue, pronouncing my father’s nickname with a great deal of
aspiration. “Actually, you look like my old man with your curly
black hair and all. The Great Emperor, version 2.0, that’s gonna be
you, Mikey-boy. You stick with me and we’ll make you a better king
than even mad Senya.”

“Stop it, Steve!” my mother probably cried,
hustling me off to bed, or bath, or school. “I ought to banish you
to your suite before you corrupt my child.”

“I wish you would banish him to an old folk’s
home instead,” my father undoubtedly added. “But, I doubt there is
a single facility on this entire planet willing to take
him.”

“If I go, you’re coming with me, Thunk,” Steve
spat, waggling his tongue at my father’s name.

“Fine by me,” my mother added. “I’ll gladly
put you both away. Mikey and I will be just fine on our
own.”

The nurse, having acquired numerous vials of
my royal blood, curtseyed and giggled her way out of the room. I
was left alone with Steve, who undoubtedly took a few moments to
enjoy the nurse’s parting view.

“Well, Mikey, what are we going to do about
you now?” His voice circled from the door, to the windows, before
settling back upon me.

“Shoot me,” I suggested. “I’m damaged
goods.”

“Ha! You just need to get yourself
repaired.”

“The doctor said it’s going to take time. We
can do nothing but wait it out.” I felt a tear trickle down my
cheek as the prospect of extended blindness sounded
daunting.

“Harrumph.” Steve paused and clicked his
tongue. He scratched his head, and I imagined a cloud of dandruff
snowflakes swirling in the air. “You know what I think,
junior?”

“No.”

“I think we need to take you to another
hospital. This one has gone to hell anyway. Obviously, the doctors
here are incompetent ignoramuses. Now, back in my father’s day,
this place—ach! You don’t want hear about that now. I’m thinking we
need to go to Planet Rozari. Those dudes are smarter, much more on
the ball. Are you up for a ride in space, buddy boy?”

Normally, I would have been up for anything.
Normally, a trip across the stars to the neighboring system of
Rozari would have thrilled me beyond measure, especially since I
had never left the planet Rehnor. Frankly, I had never left my
future kingdom of Mishnah. In fact, I had hardly ever emerged from
the palace gates, except to go play baseball, which of course, was
how I ended up here.

However, at this particular moment in time, I
wasn’t certain interstellar travel with my grandfather was the best
idea.

“You had better ask my mom about that,” I
advised. “She trusts the doctors here.”

“We won’t tell her,” Steve announced, pushing
back his chair and shuffling to his feet. “Be ready to blow this
Popsicle stand in the morning, kiddo. You and I are going for a
ride.”

“Wait Steve!” I started to panic as I realized
Steve might actually want to go through with this plan. If he
intended to break me out of here and take me to Rozari, chances
were, he would. I imagined my mother and father arriving for a
visit in the morning, only to discover my hospital bed empty with
no trace of where I had gone. “We can’t just leave without
telling.”

“Why not?”

“My mother is the Empress Sara. You have to
ask her permission for everything, especially when it comes to
me.”

“Bah! Empress schmempress. Her bloody empire
is the size of my big toe. Back in my father’s day, we ruled half
the stars in this galaxy.”

“I know. I know.” Back in the Great Emperor’s
day, everything was always so much better. “She’s my
mother.”

“So? She’s my daughter, or at least I think
she is. I can’t remember if we ever did genetic testing. She could
be totally somebody else, although that wouldn’t explain why you
look so much like my old man.”

“Still, Steve. We had better ask.”

“Are you going to be a king or a princess,
Mikey? Come on, boy. Where’s your spine? Did your mother take it? I
bet she locked it in the same box with your dad’s. You’ll probably
find his balls in there, too.”

Baseballs?

“I’m not ready to be a king, Steve. I’m only
eight years old.”

“That’s irrelevant. King training starts at
birth, or at least it should have. Back when I was your age, my
father had me—Ach! You don’t want to hear about all the hell I went
through. Don’t worry about your mother. I’ll call her when we get
there. We’ll get you fixed up and be back in time for your next
baseball game. Ha ha! Unless you want to stay and do some
sightseeing. How about a little vacationing while we’re there? I
can take you to the beach. I know a great one where the sand is
pink.”

“I don’t know, Steve.”

“Come on! It’ll be just you and me, Mikey-boy.
It’s about time you had some real family bonding with your old
gramps. I’m not going to live forever, you know. I got the short
end of the stick in the gene pool and ended up totally mortal
unlike my old man. See you at oh-six-hundred, bright and early,
kid. Be ready to fly.”

“Wait! How are we going to get there?” I
called as Steve’s footsteps took him to the door. There weren’t any
spaceplanes around these days.