Nuklear Age (50 page)

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Atomik Lad stood up defiantly. “This is complete nonsense!”

“Do not listen to the heretic!” Fred ordered. “Zarnak will take care of you all.”

As if from nowhere, but probably from the hallway just outside of the courtroom, a massive flaming chainsaw shaped like a great spiked ankh was thrown into the wall behind Fred, missing the Zarnakian Zealot’s head by a mere three inches.

“You missed,” a sullen girl’s voice rang over the now silent religious ruffians.

“WENCH! THE ODDS WERE STACKED IN MY FAVOR. HIS ARMOR CLASS COULDN’T BE ANY BETTER THAN THAT OF A MERE ELFODDERIAN SAGEKEEPER FROM THE VILLAGE OF WEAKMORE NEAR THE SOMEWHAT UNINSPIREDLY NAMED PLAINS OF FLATLAND. THAT, COMPOUNDED BY MY +5 GULTANGIAN BLESSED FLAMING ANKHSAW, SHOULD HAVE SEALED THIS PATHETIC WORM’S FATE. BUT NO, YOU HAD TO SHIFT YOUR WEIGHT AT THE LAST MINUTE AND MAKE ME MISS!”

Sorrow gracefully avoided the spikes of Henry’s armor as she slid from his shoulder pad and stood next to him. She brandished two fists full of obsidian ankh retribution. “Excuses, excuses. Let’s just make ankhmeat out of these hippie love freaks.”

“WENCH! FOR ONCE I AGREE WITH YOU!” The Gultangian Ravager produced a mighty quad-bladed battle axe with rusty serrated edges and the slogan “I’ve got this axe and you don’t,” scrawled across it in what Henry would call the blood of a felled Behemasaur even though it was only brown spray paint.

Fred and his devoted host of religious maniacs gathered near the Judge’s bench. “Okay, boys,” Fred prepped. “May Zarnak’s love guide us true for we are the chosen. Deploy the Weapons of Benevolence!” And lo they brought forth all manner of melee mayhem including, but not limited to, a wrench, brass knuckles, knives, a staple gun, two halberds, and a pair of nunchuku.

Henry and Sorrow buckled down. “Bring it on.”

The Maniac Monks hurled their battlecry, “Love is pain!” and charged the overly gothic pair, forcing the entire throng out of the courtroom into the lobby where the news reporters were not expecting anything like that.

Atomik Lad sat back down and ran his fingers through his hair to straighten it out a little and remove a few unruly strands from his face. He held a deep breath as the dust and pamphlets settled. He released it slowly.

Dr. Menace and Count Insidious crawled out from under the Prosecution’s table. “Ahem. No more questions.”

__________

“Please state your name and occupation.”

“I’m Nukebot: Alpha, and I’m a recently emancipated mechani-slave who was in servitude of the organic you people call ‘Nuklear Man.’”

“How long did he oppress you?”

“Several days. Both me and Nukebot: Beta. He’s still got Danger: Computer Lady locked up in that Concentration Silo of his. He took away her freedom by taking away her body. It’s sickening.”

“Guilty!” Nuklear Man exclaimed.

“Sit down!” Atomik Lad said, wrestling the Hero back into his seat.

“Is there a problem over there, son?” Judge Letgodsortitout asked.

“I’m a criminal, I’m living
evil!”
Nuklear Man blurt before Atomik Lad stuffed the Hero’s cape into his mouth. “Mmphf! Mfphmlm!”

“Er, what he means to say is ‘No, your honor. We’re doin’ fine.’”

“I dunno, that there sounded like a confession to me.”

“No, he’s, um, been under a lot of stress lately. And it
is
about nine o’clock. That’s past his bedtime, so I think he’s getting a little cranky too. Could we have a recess or something to get settled?”

“Oh, fine. Y’all got ten minutes.”

Count Insidious approached the Heroes. “Well, I think we’re doing pretty good.”

“You’re fired,” Atomik Lad said.

“I see,” Insidious packed his briefcase without touching it or its contents. “Of course, now I’ll have to stop going easy on you.”

“Gee.
Thanks
. Now get the hell away from us.”

Insidious sat next to Dr. Menace and started discussing how they should spend their two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

“Just lock me up and throw away the key!” Nuklear Man sobbed loudly.

“Okay,” Atomik Lad told himself. “We can still get out of this. I’ll call Dr. Genius, she’ll know what to do. She’s smart, she’ll think of something, she always does.”

__________

Meanwhile, above the Gulf of Mexico, several Coast Guard helicopters had been magnetized to one another. The wad of helicopters hung over the water’s surface so the pilots and their crews could hop safely into the warm waters. After the evacuations were complete, the helicopters were magnetically crushed into a indistinguishable metallic mass and released. It sunk really darn fast.

The fly boys shook their fists at the sky and cursed.

“Hey,” Mighty Metallic Magno Man said from high above them. “You’ve got no one but yourselves to blame. I told you we could do it the Easy Way or the Magno Way. It’s not my fault you made the wrong choice.”

“Eeek! Eeek oook ook eeeeeek!” his loyal army of monkeys resounded from their magnetically floating cages.

“Easy, Chim-Chim,” Norman coaxed. “The bad men have been taken care of.”

“Ook, oooook, eeek.”

“Right back at ya, buddy.”

__________

Atomik Lad returned from the lobby and shot Count Insidious an angry look before sitting next to a suddenly composed and non-guilt-wracked Nuklear Man.

“Well, I wasn’t able to get in touch with Dr. Genius. I guess we’ll just have to wing it for the rest of the night. We can’t possibly be any worse off than we were with Count Corrupt over there. What were you thinking when you hired him, anyway? There must be hundreds of lawyers in this city, why did you have to pick that one?”

“Well, he was wearing a cape. I think a better question would be how
couldn’t
I hire him?”

“Argh.”

“Besides, he’s really good. Did you see the way he made those poor saps look guiltier than sin? Woo, I feel sorry for those guys.”

“We
are
those guys, you nimrod.”

“Oh yeah. This is that trial you kept talking about.”

“…You really have no idea about anything that happens outside that bloated ego of yours, do you?”

“Why should I? I mean, it ain’t me. How important could it possibly be?”

“Well, anyway, I’m glad you’re not wallowing in guilt any more. It was making us look bad. Especially since we’re innocent.”

“There are no innocents, Sparky,” Nuklear Man growled with a sinister Plazma glow in his eyes.

“Okay, this is so not the time to bring that up again. I think the less the public knows about your proposed ‘Cleansings’, the better. All right?”

“But punishment must be dealt swiftly and—”

“Nuke.”

“Oh, fine. Lousy sinners, Nuke smash you later.”

“Okay. Now shut up. I’ve got to think up a legal strategy here. Maybe I should call some witnesses who like us.”

“Why don’t you leave the legal stuff to our learned counselor, hm?”

“Because our learned counselor turned out to be Dr. Menace’s learned counselor and boyfriend.”

“I’m not talking about him.”

Atomik Lad’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like this.”

The Golden Guardian produced, “Katkat!”

“But how’d he even get here?”

“I dunno, must be that Kat-mojo of his.”

“Nuke, he’s a cat. He cannot be our lawyer.”

“That’s what they told Edison about the electric-powered hamster cleaner. But did he listen?
No.”

“Nuke. That was you, not Edison. And your so-called cleaner was our blender. Stop it. Katkat is not going to be our legal representative.”

“Oh, but I think he is.”

“Awright, y’all! Shaddup. Court’s back in session,” Judge Letgodsortitout barked. “You, Countie, git back to the lawyerin’ already. It’s late.”

“Certainly, your honor. I’d like to call the entire jury to the stand!”

“Meow.”

“What the—” Judge Hangemall said. “Why, in the name of grits, is there a
cat
sitting on the Defendant’s Table?!”

“He’s our new lawyer,” Nuklear Man explained.

“No! No, he’s not,” Atomik Lad said. “Please, ignore him.”

“I’d like to, but he just meowed. Keep him quiet. Now then, Insidious, you were saying?”

“Thank you, your honor. I was saying I’d like to call the entire jury to testify.”

“Meow!” Katkat said more emphatically.

“What did I just tell y’all about that there danged cat?”

“I think he’s making an objection, sir,” Nuklear Man said.

“Oh, for the love of…” Atomik Lad covered his face and hoped he could somehow pop out of existence.

“An objection, eh? On what grounds?”

“No grounds, your honor. He’s on the table,” Nuklear Man corrected.

“Shuttup!” Atomik Lad hissed. “Er, on the grounds that, um, the jury is supposed to remain impartial.”

“Oh yeah. Impartial,” the Judge said while looking around the courtroom dreamily. “I remember that. Count?”

“Well, your honor, can it be said that any of us is impartial? At the very least, we experience reality as mediated by the artifice of language which
itself
caries partialities, biases, and preconceived notions in nearly every word. Even more so when they are employed in syntax. For instance, the word ‘nuclear’ conjures up images of devastation, untold human suffering, radiation sickness, mutations, death, and guilt. This is most evident in a perfectly random statement like, ‘Nuklear Man is guilty of destruction of property.’ You see? In fact, partiality is nothing more than a symptom of language and experience, a frame from which it is utterly impossible for us, as beings whose entire mental landscape
is
language, to escape. So unless you want a jury of deaf, dumb, blind, mute invertebrates who lack a forebrain, then I don’t see a problem in letting the jury testify. Besides, they’ve been here for the whole trial. They probably have a pretty good idea just how guilty Nuklear Man really is.”

“Hm,” the judge said. “It is highly unusual, but I’ll allow it.”

“This isn’t even a trial anymore!” Atomik Lad protested. “You can’t call this anything short of a complete parody of everything that is supposed to be fair and just. I demand a mistrial.”

“Oh, sure, let me just allow that,” the Judge said bitterly. “Every time someone gits the feeling that their trial ain’t goin’ the way they’d like, they start demanding a mistrial. Well, I’ve got news for you, Guilty Lad. The law is a shield meant to protect innocents like dear Dr. Menace down there. It is
not
a sword to be wielded by the criminal element such as yourself. Your kind makes me sick, preying upon the common defenseless citizenry as you do. I’ve had it. Count, we’re skipping your jury idea and moving right into the Defense’s case. I want to watch these bastards try and warp the truth to fit their twisted needs.”

“Your honor,” Count Insidious said, stepping up to the bench. “It is fair to assume that my witnesses were telling the truth since they swore to do so, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“And it goes without saying that the Defense’s side of the case will directly contradict what I have shown to be true these past two hours, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we’re presented with two versions of the truth. One must be true and the other must be false, correct?”

“Also yeah. What’re y’all gittin’ at?”

“Well, I think it’s rather clear. All of my witnesses swore to tell the truth, therefore they did, and since any information provided by the Defense will be contrary to that, their potential testimony and any implied conclusions, must be struck from the record as perjurous.”

“Ohhhh, that’s dirty lawyerin’,” Judge Letgodsortitout said.

“I’ll say,” Atomik Lad agreed.

“That’s why I hate you guys so much,” Hangemall said. “It’s just like you villainous Heroes to use fancy legal loopholes like that to your advantage!”

“
Us?!
But!” Atomik Lad was beyond words. He was in some terrible place without rule or reason.

“The worst part is that you’ve tainted the jury with the idea that there exists a possibility that you might
not
be guilty.”

“Um, aren’t we supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty?” Atomik Lad foolishly asked.

The Judge laughed. “Sounds like the cries of a desperate man. Besides, if you’re innocent, why are you even in a trial? Hm?”

“It’s a frivolous lawsuit!” Atomik Lad exclaimed.

“If you think a case of this paramount concern is frivolous, then your sense of justice is warped beyond my comprehension, Mr. Atomik Lad. Members of the jury, you are hereby ordered to ignore any notion or even the
possibility
that the defendant could ever be innocent since Count Insidious has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that any such possibility would be contrary to the case he has made. You may now pronounce Nuklear Man guilty. I mean, make your verdict which will be guilty. But, just to keep up appearances, you will deliberate for exactly thirty minutes so I can catch the post-game wrap up from the wrastlin’ program I missed ‘cause of all this nonsense.” He banged the gavel and the jury filed out.

Atomik Lad’s head dropped hard onto the table in front of him.

Nuklear Man leaned close to him. “I think we’ve got a pretty good chance.”

“Meow.”

“See, even Katkat thinks so.”

“We. Are. Doomed,” Atomik Lad mumbled into the mahogany table. “The judge hates us, our lawyer works for the person suing us – who happens to be your arch-nemesis – and the jury, made up of twelve of our worst enemies, has just gone into deliberation after being ordered by the judge to ignore so much as the
chance
that we might not be guilty. But you’re right, we do have a pretty good chance. Of being doomed!”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the jury’s decision. Remember, I was smart enough to invest in a little ‘insurance.’”

“Great.”

“Well, someone’s gotta look out for
your
screw-ups.”

__________

Half an hour later, the jury filed into the courtroom and sat down in their seats. Each of them wore a mask of sinister delights. Mr. Manager, for instance, couldn’t help laughing hysterically as he looked upon the innocent faces of the guilty.