Per 
Joey, Overgang, Rita and Molly's zombie artist hunt had become less about the zombies and more about the art. They'd made a beeline for New York, but turned around once they hit Chicago; when they hit Minneapolis, they decided to head south, instead of back west toward Seattle and the Men In Black who'd almost caught them earlier in the week. There was a full day and a half of radio silence from their quarry as they crossed the vast plains of Iowa and Missouri; but then someone hung Jeff Koons in thirty-foot balloon-animal effigy from the Gateway Arch, and they knew they were in business. They only missed his tasteful memorial to the victims of Hurricane Katrina (a FEMA trailer in the center of the Superdome's field, staffed by holograms of Bush administration officials) by eight hours; next up, they hoped, would be Austin.
They were right.
"So, what do you think Ruiz has against LBJ?" Molly was staring up at the massive windowless façade of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, which sat on the University of Texas campus like a big square building made of concrete. It was currently occupied by a very well-made interactive audiovisual installation; they'd joined the steadily growing mob of onlookers who were enjoying the show.
"I mean, he was the one who sent troops into Vietnam," Overgang said, polishing his sunglasses so he could get an unobstructed view. "That's pretty bad."
Joey had found a bag of kettle corn somewhere. He was perched on top of the van, occasionally tossing individual kernels down through the sunroof into Rita's mouth. "And, you know." He waved the bag vaguely at the library. "He had the CIA kill Kennedy."
The video was projected from an invisible projector, and the music came from invisible speakers. John F. Kennedy's head, three stories tall, dominated the frame. At the moment, Darude's "Sandstorm" was playing, more than loud enough to be heard above the crowd; and on every beat, Kennedy's head jerked as Bernard Montgomery Sanders' bullet found its mark. (Or, if you believe the official story—and Rita very much did not—Lee Harvey Oswald's.) There was a link at the bottom to a site where you could vote on the next song; at the moment, "All Star" was winning.
"I keep telling you, the CIA had nothing to do with it," Rita protested, pausing to catch another piece of kettle corn. "It was Bernie Sanders on the grassy knoll. The man plays the long game. Holy shit, Joey, what flavor was that?"
"Uhhhh." He looked into the bag. "Should've been kettle corn, I didn't do anything to these. Why?"
"Hand to god, it tastes like cheddar." Rita swirled the flavors around for a moment. "Yeah. Cheddar cheese."
"I mean, there's an easy explanation for that one," Overgang said. His sunglasses were back where they belonged. "It's a baggler."
"What," said Molly, wrenching her gaze away from the Zapruder Film, "is a baggler."
"You know, like when you get an onion ring in your tater tots or something? Snuck in there at the factory from some cheese corn." Overgang shrugged. "I dunno, 's what my friends in high school called it."
"It sounds like a slur for the Belgians." Rita had given up on the cheese-corn enigma, and was trying to hack into the voting website to get it to play Futanari Titwhore Fiasco's latest single, "Decrystallize My Pineal Gland Harder, Mommy". It was, as the kids say, a bona-fide banger.
"I think I'm part Belgian."
"Damn, Joey, you fuckin' baggler. Get outta here." For someone who grew up in New York (well, ok, Connecticut, but it was in the metropolitan area), Rita was remarkably bad at a classic Brooklyn accent. She sounded more Boston than anything.
"Rita?"
"Yes, Molly?"
"Don't do the accent, it hurts my tender ears."
"You know what else will hurt your tender ears?" Rita typed a few lines, and let her code do the rest. It was remarkable how easy it was to hack into stuff when you stopped thinking of scripts as data and started thinking of them as invisible spiders. "This."
Darude ground to a halt, and Kennedy started banging his head to the tender screaming of Staten Island's own Annie Cline.
Decrystallize me mommy
"Hey, Rita?"
Decrystalize me harder
"Yes, Molly?"
I've been drinking too much flouride
"Look, the girls are great, they're excellent friends."
They hide it in the water
"But?"
I'm putting my third eye into your hands
"Their music fucking sucks."
I NEED YOU TO FUCK ME IN MY PINEAL GLAND!
"Well, ya know, Frank, I gotta say that sure is different."
"You betcha. Sure don't see that every day."
Frank Gunderson and Joe Nelson had gotten to the scene pretty late, a consequence of Frank's enlarged prostate, which his doctor assured him wasn't cancer, but which meant they had to pull the squad car into a gas station or a vacant lot every hour on the hour so he could relieve himself. By the time they reached the Walker, there were already a couple other cars there, and some younger guys were setting up the perimeter; so Frank and Joe were free to lean against the car and join in the collective rubbernecking.
The object of their bemusement was a brand new addition to the Walker Art Center's sculpture garden, in the pool around the big cherry-and-spoon that's on all the postcards. Not floating in the pool; the water had all been drained over night, to be replaced with thousands upon thousands of individually-wrapped cherry Jolly Ranchers. At the moment, they were treating it as vandalism, or maybe littering in the first degree. Frank was secretly hoping they'd find a body at the bottom.
"Hey, Frank, take a look at this." One of the guys setting up the perimeter had passed Joe a Jolly Rancher—technically speaking, they were all evidence, but it's not like they were gonna run out any time soon. "Label's all wrong."
Frank took a look at that. It was the same font, in the same place, but it definitely didn't say Jolly Rancher. "Huh. Who's Ruiz Duchamp?"
"A very dangerous man." While Frank and Joe were distracted by the candy, a black SUV had pulled up behind them. The men who'd gotten out of it were clearly feds; one of them was wearing the classic FBI windbreaker, and the other was in a suit straight out of the Men In Black wardrobe room. "I'm Agent Spencer, FBI, and this is Agent Green, FDA." They both flashed badges.
"Sure thing." Joe halfheartedly checked over their identification; he'd only seen a real FBI badge once before, and he wouldn't know an FDA special agent from a hole in the ground. "Didn't know the FDA had special agents. Learn something new every day."
Green nodded. "Started after the Tylenol poisonings in '82. So, what are we looking at, gentlemen?"
"Well," Frank said, handing Green the Jolly Rancher, "some joker came 'round the Walker last night and filled up the pool with these. I guess he must've printed them up special, since they've got his name on 'em."
Green nodded, and passed the Jolly Rancher to Spencer. "Yeah," Spencer said, unwrapping it and holding the wrapper up to catch the light, "he's been doing this shit all across the country. You hear about that thing in Chicago?"
"The bean, right?" Joe had a cousin out that way who'd posted something on Facebook about it. "That was the same guy? Geez Louise."
"Yep. We're treating his actions as art terrorism." Spencer popped the Jolly Rancher into his mouth. "Mmm. Yep, that's a Jolly Rancher, alright."
"But…" Frank was still trying to wrap his head around the concept of art terrorism, and didn't even notice Spencer eating the evidence. "I mean, how could an artist be dangerous?"
Behind him, a Canada goose had landed on the pool, and was pecking at the tasty treats on the surface. Its flock was about to touch down next to it; and then a pair of sour-apple-green jaws popped up from below the surface, dragging it below in a puff of blood and feathers. The geese and the cops scrambled away in unison.
"That," Green said, "is how an artist could be dangerous."
50% off
"All right, fixed his face." Felicity thought it was a pretty good job, if she did say so herself. The eyes weren't quite right, and the hair was a little patchy, but with a hat and some sunglasses, Ruiz's own mother would swear he was still alive. "How's he looking, Tanks?"
Tanksy, the Tankie Banksy, grunted and kept his eyes on the road. He was the only one with a driver's license. (Felicity could drive. But she never got around to taking the driver's test, and her learner's permit expired like six years ago. She kept it around for slipping latches and pushing white powders into neat little lines.)
"Yeah, I agree. Perfection. So, next stop, Battery Park?"
Casio, the 3D printer in the back seat, whirred to life, laying down filament at a speed that would have your average 3D printer aficionado creaming their jeans. She produced a one-twenty-fourth scale model of Felicity getting beaten by several police officers, while the Statue of Liberty looked on from across the waters.
"The cops won't even see me. I've got an invisibility cloak. Borrowed the technique from that lady with the non-euclidean textiles."
The model dissolved and was absorbed back into the printer. She started printing again. This time, the tiny Felicity was getting jostled by a mass of tourists, her invisibility cloak lost beneath the crowd's feet.
"Do you have any constructive criticism, or are you just striking down my ideas like a toddler smashing a block tower made of my ideas?"
A crescent moon, complete with cartoon face sticking its tongue out.
"It's actually waning gibbous tonight."
A raised middle finger.
"Fuck you too, Cass. Ok, we wait for nightfall. Tanksy!"
Tanksy, the Tankie Banksy, grunted again. He was sick of New York traffic.
"To Times Square! We're gonna go to Olive Garden."
The Times Square Olive Garden was a miserable place, made more miserable by the people. The tourists, Midwestern moms with hordes of children, Korean retirees in "I <3 New York" bucket hats, British honeymooners regretting choosing here over Mallorca; the employees, bitter chain-smoking line cooks with bad tattoos, faux-chipper college students considering moving back in with Mom, middle-aged mothers working three jobs to pay for their kids' medical bills; and, perhaps worst of all, the locals, chain retail store assistant managers on forgettable second dates, post-divorce accountants treating themselves to a nice lunch, smug bespectacled twenty-somethings live-tweeting their experience for their hipster friends.
Carla assumed that the newest walk-ins were the latter. (She, being one of the secret architects of a global conspiracy, was in none of the typical categories, though she was an employee on paper.) A scruffy white guy in an army-surplus jacket and a Che Guevara hat; a chick who kind of looked like Scarlett Johansson playing an art school drop out; another guy in a Mets cap and sunglasses, clearly either stoned, hungover, or both, half-asleep in the booth. They'd also brought a 3D printer in with them. She decided to ignore it.
"Welcome to Olive Garden! My name is Carla, and I'll be your server today. How are we all doing?"
"Fan-freaking-tastic." She really did look a lot like Scarlett Johansson. Carla was pretty sure that Scarlett Johansson wouldn't ever come to an Olive Garden; but this particular Olive Garden was the modern omphalos, the navel of the world, and stranger things had happened within its quaint faux-stucco walls.
"Great! Can I start you off with something to drink?"
"I think we're actually ready to order. Tanks?"
"Yeah I'll get the chicken parm and a Mountain Dew." He passed Carla the menu. There was some kind of pamphlet folded up inside, a cheap photocopy with a big hammer and sickle in one corner. "The workers of the world have nothing to lose but their chains, comrade. Read that pamphlet."
Carla nodded, and pocketed the pamphlet for later perusal. Or, more likely, disposal. "Sure thing! And uh, what'll you have, miss?"
"I'll get four of the chicken fettucine alfredos and a glass of your house red."
"… Four of them?"
"I'm a growing girl. I'm not trying to reverse-engineer the recipe to start my own competing fast-casual Italian restaurant chain, that would be ridiculous."
"Right. Ok. Anything for your friend there?" Carla pointed at the other man, who hadn't so much as twitched in his sleep since they came in.
"Hmm? Oh, no, Ruiz is a breatharian. He subsists only on sunlight and oxygen. New fad diet, you understand. But…"
The 3D printer started printing. Carla stared at it in confusion. "Uh, ma'am, is that plugged in? I'm afraid we can't let you plug in anything larger than a laptop."
"Oh, don't worry, she's hooked up to a car battery." Before Carla could object to that, the printer finished; a margarita glass, in green filament, stood on the platform. "She'll have a margarita. Thanks!"
"Yeah, sure, OK." Carla grabbed the menus and hurried away.
Felicity dug into her pasta with gusto. Ruiz had passed his first field test; the waitress had no idea that her breatharian friend was a corpse. And the chicken fettucine alfredo would be easier to reverse-engineer than she'd anticipated. "Looks like everything's coming up Felicity."
"Don't talk with your mouth full."
"Yeah, ok, dad." She flipped Tanksy the bird. "How's your chicken parm?"
He shrugged. "It's the product of the global capitalist hegemony. But other than that, you know, it's alright. Hey, hey, no, ask first." He parried Felicity's roving fork with his own.
"Property is theft!"
"Proudhon was a bourgeois individualist and also that's not what he meant."
As Felicity was lifting her stolen bounty to her lips, she heard something that made her blood go cold.
"Mommy! Mommy! Look, it's Black Widow!"
Tanksy was already giggling, and Casio was no doubt printing the Avengers logo or a little spider or some equally unpleasant reminder of Felicity's misfortune.
"Oh, wow. Sorry, do you think we could get a selfie? My daughter is a huge fan."
Felicity sighed, and gazed across her gin and tonic at the approaching family. They were wearing matching t-shirts, which told all who cared to look that they would Never Forget September Eleventh. (Tanksy also owned a t-shirt with that message on it; his, of course, was in reference to the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat.) "I'm not Scarlett Johansson."
"Oh no!" The woman who'd ruined Felicity's day sounded appropriately contrite; but instead of leaving her alone, as she would in a just world, she continued to talk. "Wow, you really look just like her. Sorry, you must get that a lot."
"Yeah, well." Tanksy had the sort of shit-eating grin that indicated he was about to spill Felicity's darkest secrets to a total stranger. At this point, there was nothing she could do. "She thought Scarlett was really hot in The Prestige, you know, that one where David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla? This was, uh, freshman year of high school?" Felicity nodded, and lay her face down in her chicken fettucine alfredo. Tanksy was on a groove now. "So then senior year, she decides, hey, getting facial feminization surgery's expensive, I'm just gonna use my mad plagiarism skills to steal her face."
"To plagiarize her face, there's a difference." Felicity's voice was muffled by the pasta. It was nice and warm, a loving embarrassment-proof cocoon.
"Whatever. Anyway, Iron Man 2 had come out already, but Scarlett wasn't a huge deal in the MCU, you know? And then a couple months later, Avengers happens. And the rest, as they say, is history."
"Um." The child was clearly slightly dazed, as if she'd just been shaken in a paint mixer. Tanksy tended to have that effect on children and other small mammals. "You… You stole Black Widow's face?"
Felicity lifted her face, dripping with parmesan, and gave her best death glare. "Yes. And I'll steal yours too if you don't stop bothering me." The kid shrieked and ran, and her mother followed after. "Hey let's get out of here, huh?"
Cass had already melted down the scale-model Avengers Tower; she printed a thumbs-up. Tanksy nodded his assent.
"Hey! Lady!" Felicity waved vigorously at their waitress as she wiped the pasta from her face. "Can we get the check?"
Carla stalked over to the table from hell, check held before her as a shield. She slapped it down in front of the Scarlett Johansson impersonator. "Ok. Please, pay, and get out."
"Sure thing! Oh, wait, I've got a coupon. Well, I've got a few coupons." She rummaged in her purse for a moment and pulled out a ziploc baggie full of various newspaper clippings, printouts and promotional flyers. "So this one's for my friend's chicken parm, here's one for the margarita, this one's a manufacturer's coupon for the Mountain Dew, it's my birthday today so this one gives me an entree for free, this one's good for thirty percent off the whole thing, Cass is only three so this one means she eats for free, this one is a ten-dollar rebate, and this one's a groupon." She presented the stack to Carla with a smile.
"I…" Carla was rendered speechless. She was pretty sure that this was bullshit. "Let me talk to my manager."
Todd, her manager, was up front by the register. "Hey, Carla, what's up?" He saw the stack of coupons. "Oh, Christ almighty. Lemme see those." He ran them through one by one; against all logic, each one scanned. "Shit. Uh. Well. I don't know how they did that. But here's the new receipt."
Carla stared at it. She had faced down Mafia hitmen, foreign dictators, dark sorcerers and worse without blinking; but this, this frightened her. She turned away without saying a word, and went back to the table, fire in her eyes.
"Your total," Carla said, dripping venom from every word, "Is five dollars and thirteen cents. Congratulations."
The woman smiled. "Awesome! Hey, Tanks, looks like yours came to eighty-seven cents. You got a buck?"
He reached into one of the pockets on his jacket and pulled out a thoroughly crumpled dollar bill. He smoothed it out, and handed it to Carla. Someone had vandalized it pretty thoroughly; Washington had a big bushy beard, and there was a website scribbled across the bottom.
"Make sure to check out that site. It's my podcast."
"Jeez, Tanks, we're supposed to be undercover." She winked at Carla and produced two crisp hundred-dollar bills. "Sorry for being a pain. Keep the change. Have a nice day!" She grabbed the 3D printer, and her buddy heaved their hungover friend over his shoulder. Carla was still staring at the bills as they left.
"They're counterfeit, aren't they."
"Yyyyyyyyep." Todd had called her into the back office. "I mean, some of it's my bad. But, Carla, you gotta check any bill over a twenty."
"I'm sorry, I know, it won't happen again."
"No, it's fine. I just…" Todd sighed. "The bills I understand, but what kind of person counterfeits coupons?"
"A real asshole, Todd. I'm taking my 10 minutes." She went out back to the dumpsters, and pulled out her phone. The woman was still an enigma, but the man had given her the name of his podcast. She dialed, and three hundred miles away, an assistant manager at Red Lobster answered.
"This is Charles."
"Chuck. Protocol Sigma-Three. Target's alias is Tanksy, the Tankie Banksy. Neutralize him and any associates."
"Roger that, ma'am."
Carla snapped her phone shut and smiled. They would regret the day they crossed the Directorate.
« wowwee un kill ursefl | Joey and Overgang and Rita and Molly and Zombies »
tags: tale ruiz-duchamp cool-war-2 canon2020
JORMZ
"Well, fuck me."
Overgang Dood was sprawled across the backseat of the van, waiting for the rest of the crew to wake up. They were in a Dakota, though he wasn't sure which; yesterday had been less about precise navigation, and more about getting as far away from Seattle as possible before the Men In Black caught up.
"Mmm?"
Molly stirred in the driver's seat. She'd fallen asleep as soon as they parked, without even turning off the engine.
"Don't worry about it, go back to sleep."
"Nnnn. 'M awake." Molly's eyes cracked open. "Hmmm. Dark."
"Yeah, it's like…" Overgang looked over his sunglasses at the tiny digital clock in the dashboard (his laptop was locked on the 24.5 hour Martian day, and wouldn't be anywhere near in sync with local time for at least a week). "Four-thirty. You've only been out for a few hours."
"Ugh. Why'd you let me sleep up here?" She was sounding more coherent now. "My neck is gonna be so goddamn sore in the morning."
"Rita tried to move you downstairs, but you sleep-threatened her with a palette knife."
"Yeah. That sounds like me." She stood up with a groan, stretching as best she could in the cramped van.
"How are ya now, dad?"
She flipped him off. "So what was that earlier?"
"Hmm?"
"The 'fuck me'. Unless you were cybering with some hot elf babe, in which case I don't want to know."
"Oh, uh…" Overgang turned his laptop screen around. Molly flinched back, covering her eyes.
"Fuck, too bright, too bright."
"Shit, sorry." He turned the brightness down, and tapped the screen. "This thread."
"Nnnnhn still too bright. Read it to me."
"Remember Ruiz Duchamp?"
"Uh. Vaguely?"
"Kind of an asshole but good with exploits? Hate-boner for the Critic's clique? Offed himself a few weeks after the Exhibition We Don't Talk About?"
"Oh, yeah. Weird dude. Actually, like, had shows in real galleries. Who does that?"
"Yeah. Anyway, someone stole his corpse."
"Huh." Molly's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're not fucking with me 'cause I'm half asleep?"
"Scout's honor." Overgang pressed one hand to his heart and raised the other in a two-fingered salute.
"You were never a boy scout."
"Cub scout for like, six months. I think my dad's still got my uniform somewhere in the attic."
"Still can't tell if you're fucking with me. Need more sleep." Molly pulled open the trapdoor and started heading down the ladder into the non-euclidean mansion beneath. She paused when she was about neck-level with the floor. "You should also probably sleep?" She didn't seem quite sure that was the case.
"I'm nocturnal now." (He was also locked on the 24.5 hour Martian day, and wouldn't be anywhere near in sync with local time for at least a week.)
"Oh." Molly took that one in stride, and finished her descent into the basement. Overgang kicked the trapdoor shut after her, and went back to the internet. The internet never doubted him.
It was a good four hours after Overgang's chat with Molly. He hadn't moved from his seat or taken his eyes off his laptop screen since then. The trapdoor swung open, and Rita peered out, squinting at the sudden brightness.
"Mornin', Rita."
"Gh." It was barely even a grunt. "Breakfas'."
"There should be food in the kitchen, unless you want to try and find the nearest Denny's or whatever."
"No." Rita glared at him. "Joey. Food. Now."
Overgang nodded, and followed her down the ladder. By the time he made it to the kitchen, she was already asleep at the table. Joey was by the stove, doing something eldritch to a pan of bacon, and Molly was glaring at the coffee machine like it had killed and eaten her family.
"Overgang. Fix the caffeine before I do something drastic."
He reached over and plugged it in. It played a cheery little jingle and started brewing.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Hey, so, remember what I was telling you earlier?"
"No." Molly was maintaining eye contact with the coffee maker, as if it would suddenly stop working when not observed. "I remember nothing between the exit ramp and my bed."
"Oh. Well, that's fine, I can tell you guys too. So remember Ruiz Duchamp?"
"Uhhhhhh." Joey flipped his bacon, a pensive look on his face. "Betamax guy?"
"Yeah, Betamax guy."
"Betmax guy?" Molly’s face was practically pressed against the coffee pot, watching it fill.
Joey nodded. "Betamax guy. Like every other time he was in a show, or at a party, or whatever, he'd show up with all his work on Betamax. Never brought his own player, and like, who has a Betamax player? So I've never actually seen his stuff. What's he up to?"
"I dunno." Overgang grabbed a seat, nudging Rita's head back to make room for his laptop. "He's been dead since like, a few weeks after the Exhibition."
"Oh. How'd he die?"
"Suicide. Froze himself with liquid nitrogen."
"Dang."
"Yeah. Anyway, yesterday someone stole his corpse." Overgang turned his laptop to show Joey and Molly a local news article. Grave Robbery At Holy Cross Cemetery. At the top was a photo of a freshly dug grave, under a headstone reading “RUIZ EDWARD DAVID WILSON”. Someone had crossed out the “WILSON” with spray paint, and written “DUCHAMP” underneath.
“Double-dang.” Joey poked at the bacon, and seemed to come to a conclusion. He dropped some on a plate and slid it over to Overgang. “Here.”
Overgang prodded it suspiciously. “… What does it taste like?”
Joey shrugged. "No clue. I’ve been trying a new thing. Randomizing my flavors."
"Hmmmm." Overgang sniffed the bacon. It smelled like bacon. He took a bite. "It… It just tastes like bacon."
Molly finally had her coffee, and was looking less murderous by the second. She dropped a second mug by Rita's head. "Lemme try." She chewed for a moment. "It's… Turkey bacon."
"You made pig bacon taste like turkey bacon?"
"Not intentionally. I told you, I randomized my flavors. I'm trying to be more spontaneous."
Rita, eyes still closed, reached out and cradled the coffee mug. "Mmmm. Whatabout betamassguy?"
"Drink your coffee, kiddo," Molly said. Then she stole another piece of turkey-bacon-flavored-pork-bacon from Overgang's plate.
"Notakiddo." Rita sat up, eyes still closed, and took a sip of her coffee. "Jus' turned twenny. Adult. Betamax guy?"
"Betamax guy."
Rita's answering glare would've killed a lesser man. Thankfully, Overgang had spent the last several years developing an immunity to Rita's glares. "What. About. Betamax. Guy." She punctuated each word with a sip of coffee. It definitely didn't have the effect she was going for, unless that effect was "mild secondhand embarassment".
"Someone dug up his body. OR SO WE THOUGHT." Overgang opened another tab, this one a YouTube video. "This morning, copies of this video were found in the offices of Anartchy, the Village Voice, the Augur-Haruspex, DVORAK, the Soho Chronicle-Press, and probably a number of other newspapers, magazines, et cetera, that I don't follow on Void."
"Aren't the Press a front for the MIBs?"
"Yes. That's not the point. The point is that they all got a copy of this video…" He paused dramatically. The others seemed more confused than excited, so he ended his pause a whole half-second earlier than his customary 2.3 seconds. "On Betamax!"
"Other people can use Betamax. Hey, Joey, I think this one is soy bacon." Molly held out a half-eaten rasher for inspection.
"Hmmm." Joey grabbed it with his tongs and sniffed. "I think my randomization algorithm didn't go far enough in flavor-space. The ones I've tried have been fried ham, pancetta, and pork rinds. So what's on the video?"
"A whole bunch of pretentious bullshit about the need to revitalize the anart world after the collapse of Are We Cool Yet?" Overgang took a bite of bacon, so he didn't have to deal with the punctuation of that sentence. It tasted like salt-cured pork. "It's a manifesto. But it's a manifesto delivered in Ruiz Duchamp's voice!"
"Who's Ruiz Duchamp?"
"Betamax Guy, Rita."
"Oh. Betamax Guy. Right."
"So," Joey said, cracking an egg over a fresh pan, "he's come back from the dead? After like, three, four years?"
"He'd be pretty gross, wouldn't he? Like, full zombie-mode." Molly poured herself another cup of coffee, and very pointedly ignored Rita's pleading look and outstretched mug. As soon as she put her own coffee down on the table, it started inching slowly over to Rita, as if being pushed by an army of highly trained invisible arachnids. Molly was too busy contemplating Ruiz's state of decomposition to notice. "Plus he froze himself to death. So total frostbite-face. Gnarly."
"I mean, he's still got vocal cords, I guess. Maybe he was brought back to life in a non-zombie manner. Divine intervention, or superscience regeneration, or dark sorcery." Joey flipped his egg. "No, I guess dark sorcery would probably zombify him. Unless he's a lich?"
"Or a revenant. Or a wight. Probably not a vampire, I don't think you can vampirize a corpse," Molly said, reaching for her mug. It wasn't there. "Rita, I swear to god, I will put down spider traps."
"First of all, you wouldn't dare, I taught them to avenge their fallen sisters like, ages ago. Second of all, those are from D&D, not from real life, and third of all, he's not a zombie, because he didn't dig himself up."
"Hold that thought." Overgang spun his laptop around. It was showing a Void thread about Ruiz's resurrection. Someone had managed to get crime scene photos of the grave, and an email from the Archbishop of New York to the head of the Pontifical Commission on Necromancy and the Undead. "The Church thinks he did. And these photos are pretty convincing."
Molly was on her phone, furiously googling. "Last night, there was an assault in Soho. A couple coming back from a play was attacked by, quote, 'some homeless guy with a skin condition' who 'smelled like death' and who 'tried to eat my brain, swear to god'. Height and hair color match Betamax Guy."
"I mean, it's a weird correlation, but it's not like it's gotta be him," Joey said as he slid the egg onto Molly's plate. "Maybe it was just a homeless guy with a skin condition. Hey, Moll, what's this taste like?"
Molly took a bite. She took another bite, and contemplated it for a little while. "… Laminar flow."
"Too abstract?"
"Mhmm. Confusing. Oh, and the attacker was shouting about Dada and postmodernism, which is not a typical random homeless guy move, but is absolutely a typical Betamax Guy move."
"Could be worse," Rita said, sipping at Molly's coffee. "I mean, a single zombie artist? What's the worst he could do? It's not, like, zombie plague apocalypse time."
Overgang froze, staring at his laptop in sheer terror. "There have been," he said, after few deep breaths, "three new exhumations in the city of New York in the last 24 hours. One of them was a mausoleum. The door was shattered. From the inside."
"So that's two of the rifles, three of the tomahawks, one shotgun, the harpoon launcher, six cases of fireworks, one broadsword, the cattle-catcher for your van, a couple rolls of razor wire, a nail gun, three packs of Pokemon cards, a tank of propane, and the mentos. I miss anything?"
Overgang shook his head. "Nope, that should be it. I just stick my card in here?"
"No, the chip thing's broken, sorry hon. Gotta swipe it." While Overgang swiped it, the cashier looked over at their overloaded cart. "So you folks starting a militia? Because my cousin up near Devil's Lake has a whole compound all set up, if you want to join."
"No ma'am." Joey was probably laying the country on a bit too thick, but the cashier seemed charmed by it. "We're going hunting."
"Well gosh. What are you gonna hunt with all that?"
Joey looked at Overgang. Overgang looked at Molly. Molly tried to look at Rita, but Rita had stayed in the van, so there was nobody to pass the buck to. "Uh. Zombies?" She froze. "I mean, uh, zombies aren't real, haha, I meant… Zebras?"
The cashier winked. "Can never be too careful. End times are just around the corner, and the dead'll be rising to eat us any day now. You kids have fun. And thanks for shopping at Walmart."
tags: tale cool-war-2 are-we-cool-yet ruiz-duchamp
some asshole poseur anartists dig up Ruiz's corpse and start signing very public anart displays with his name to make it look like he's still alive
other groups hear about it, freak the fuck out - Agent Green & the Foundation, Tangerine Nobody, Joey & Overgang & Rita & Molly (> 008. Joey And Overgang And Rita And Molly And Zombies ?),
ends with an anart exhibition a la the Friday Exhibition, where they try to telekinetically weekend-at-bernies him around the place to freak people out
