I know how that sounds, trust me. And it’s not the first time I wonder if the lack of sleep is making me crazy. Who knows what drugs they’re pumping into my body back in that Tallahassee hospital basement? I shake my head to clear it.
Nope. Still there.
The gigantic kaiju monster floats in space, its face frozen in a deadly snarl. Its mouth bares fangs the size of semi-trucks. Giant spines cascade down the back of the King of All Monsters, all the way down to its long and brutal tail.
“Oo! Scary!” Pepper squints. “Is he wearing sunglasses?”
She’s right. A pair of red Ray-Bans the size of a fighter jet are strapped on the monster’s face. As I steer Boaty MacBoatface cautiously toward the kaiju, I realize this is no Godzilla. The shapes of the spines are different, the tail is too thin, and the feet are wrong. It’s some kind of knock-off, just different enough from the real thing to avoid trademark infringement. The monster is gigantic, but looks like a cheap toy some back-alley plastics company would manufacture to sell on the sly in Tijuana gift shops. As I cruise closer, I realize it’s not made of plastic. And it’s not a toy.
It’s an inflatable.
You know those T. rex Halloween outfits? The ones that look stupid when they run because they’re basically a human-sized balloon? You have to know them; even I’ve seen those videos. It’s one of those: a polyester inflatable costume.
300 feet tall.
Absolutely Not Godzilla lvl11 Counterfeit Kaiju
Legally distinct from any other kaiju who might vaguely resemble this entirely unique and not-at-all derivative gargantuoid, ANG can grow to a maximum of 450 feet. Current Size: 71%
Weakness: Seams, Lawyers
“He’s so plasticy! Why is he not saying hello?” She waves out the Jetsons bubble. “Hello! Mister Lizard Man! Hello!”
I circle the kaiju, waiting for it to move or breathe atomic fire or blow up, but it just sits there hanging in space as it drifts past the backdrop of a blue spiral galaxy. Curious, I lean back against the tub and scratch my beard. “That thing is hollow.”
“It is?”
“Yeah.” I shift the joystick forward, steering closer. “And the SOS is coming from inside. We need to find a way in there.”
As we get closer, the polyester hide emits a static discharge that strikes my hull. It doesn’t hurt Boaty MacBoatface or cause us to lose pressure, but I back off a bit. I explore the kaiju’s rump, figuring the entrance to an inflatable costume would be down there, but find nothing. No backdoor visitors for Notzilla. I cruise the flank, looking for a zipper, but there’s nothing but a polyurethane seam. Nothing at the neck either. That leaves the head.
I angle around the face, creep past its snout, and finally peek down into the kaiju’s mouth. There’s an aperture at the back where his uvula should be. “That’s it.”
“We can’t go in there!” Pepper grabs my arm. “He’ll chew us up!”
She’s probably right. This whole setup has to be a trap. But whatever this thing is, it’s better than being stuck in a space bathtub. “The SOS signal is coming from inside, Cabbage Patch. If we’re going to find out what it is, we need to go down its throat.”
She grips my arm tighter. “Oooh. I don’t think I can do it.”
“Just tell yourself you can… and you can.” It doesn’t matter if she can or not. We’re going. I lever forward and head between the kaiju’s enormous fangs. As we move deeper into its mouth, a stripe headlight illuminates on the front bend of the tub. From here it looks like we’re being eaten.
Pepper squeezes her eyes shut. “You can do it, Self. You can do it, Self…”
I reach the aperture, a yellow plastic disc with several slits that meet at the center like a starburst. I can’t help but be reminded of a butthole. When you first get colon cancer, you get treated to a lot of pictures of your own ass. “Okay, down the hatch.” I accelerate to ramming speed and drive the tub into the aperture. Pepper shrieks.
There’s a weird rubbery sound as the aperture slides against Boaty MacBoatface’s glass and I get the sensation of being swallowed as we pass through the kaiju's throat. Once through, we emerge into the vast expanse of Notzilla’s insides.
Imagine being inside a clawfoot bathtub as it descends through the roof of the Dallas Cowboys stadium. That gives you an idea of how it feels. Uniquely weird.
Notzilla is empty save for a few metal supports that make up a basic internal skeleton for the arms, legs, and tail. Way down at the bottom of the inflatable, I can see a large machine, a set of internal blowers that should keep the balloon inflated, but it looks like they’re dead. The fans aren’t spinning and I realize we may need to get out of here in a hurry if this thing collapses. As I examine the blowers, my HUD flashes.
ANG Internal Pressure: 70.5%↓
“Whoa.” Pepper gazes at the expanse of polyester. “His tummy is so big!”
I see the interior of the inflatable is filled with dog-sized bug-robots. They seem to be doing repairs on Notzilla, but they’re not keeping up. One of them scuttles down close to me and I see my HUD flash.
Season 2 Heartware Activated:
Make_friend.exe (y/n)
It’s the same alert I got when I abandoned the Little Jimmy empathy module. I’m almost certain this is the thing that turned Pepper into… whatever she is. I’m already being guilted into a rescue mission, the last thing I need is another Pepper. I hit No, and the alert disappears. “There.” I point at the center of the inflatable monster. Right where its heart should be, suspended by a web of wires, is something that looks like a log cabin. “That’s where the SOS is coming from.”
“Oh, poor Mister Lizard! Let’s go save him.”
I cruise toward the log cabin to get a better look. I realize it’s actually a Season 1 pirate shanty, one of the little scraggy little hovels I saw in Trader’s Point. Like Boaty MacBoatface, it has evolved to meet its new environment and has a metal airlock for a front door.
For a moment, I can’t figure out how to connect without climbing outside, then I remember I’m in space. I turn the bathtub vertical like Boba Fett’s Slave-1 ship, and approach the airlock that way. The Jetsons’ glass presses against the airlock and I hear a pneumatic hiss as they make a seal.
Arcade Physics Enabled
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Because fun > science. Docking complete. Internal pressure nominal. Seal integrity: 99%.
Boaty MacBoatface’s glass dome slides back and the airlock handle is right in front of me. I spin open the hatch and feel a smile creep over my teeth. “Okay. Let’s go be heroes.”
I open the door.
Blaster fire explodes everywhere. Sparks fly as energy bolts ricochet from the doorframe. I duck out of the way as lasers sizzle past me and hit the porcelain of the tub. The barrage of fire rains into my ship, threatening to rip it to pieces.
This is what comes from trying to be a hero.
As the gunfire continues, I realize I can’t stay here. The only way out is through. “Pep! Thought Bubble!” I watch a blue shimmer appear around her like a force field. I throw up my Shellshock shield and charge through the door. Blaster fire smashes into the Oolith, but the magic egg remains unbreakable. It’s pitch black inside the cabin, and I can't see a thing except for brief flashes from the blaster. I throw myself out of the line of fire toward the nearest cover, which turns out to be one of those plastic race car beds. “35… 34… 33…” I count down, keeping track of how much longer Pepper’s Thought Bubble force field will last.
Glancing over the side of the bed, I see a flash of a huge, armored barbarian that looks like two Arnold Schwarzeneggers combined with a Scandinavian ogre, easily eight feet tall. He’s got two of the biggest guns I’ve ever seen, and he hasn’t stopped firing yet. As blaster fire shreds the race car bed, I realize we’re in trouble. Pepper can’t activate Goldfish Mode while her Thought Bubble is up. I need to draw fire and give her room to do her thing. “27… 26… 25…”
My Air Jordans kick in and I sprint toward the next bit of cover, a metal couch covered in stickers. The space ogre sees me move and turns his guns on me. I don’t get enough steps to activate my Parkour Pilgrim, but I’m fast enough to get cover before he sights me in. Blaster fire and couch fluff fly into the air around me.
Pepper pops up from cover and nails him.
Goldfish Mode
Failed vs Juggernaut Helm: Psi-Immune
Great. Her psionic powers are useless on him. “15...14...13…” We’re out of time. It’s up to me.
While the ogre blasts at Pep, I spring up from the couch and hurl my Kaboomerang at his head. It smacks him in the face and explodes. Enraged, the ogre snatches the frying pan and hurls it behind him.
I go with it.
The tether at my wrist yanks me into the air and I land at the ogre’s feet in a heap. A heavy foot comes down on my back. I feel bones crack as my health drops 40 points. “Augh!”
Grinning yellow tusks, the ogre grabs me by the shirt and yanks me into the air. I struggle in his fist as his ugly face, still smoking from the explosion, leers at me. Hell’s bells. O’Cavity’s right, I’m not even going to make it one day into Season 2.
The ogre growls and wipes the soot away from his eyes, ready to bite my head off, until his expression suddenly changes. “Oh!” He smiles a snaggletooth mouth. “Hi!”
Not sure what to do, I just stare at him, mute. What the f—
“Hi!” chirps Pepper. “You said hi!”
“Hi!” The ogre’s voice is deeper than a bass guitar, but he sounds… happy? “I thought you were bad guys!” He spreads his arms in a big apologetic gesture while I hang from his fist. “Sorry!”
Pepper nods. “Could you let my friend go?”
The ogre realizes he’s still holding me. “Oh! Yeah! Sure!” He sets me gently on the ground and pats me on the head like I’m a puppy. “Sorry, mister!”
He steps out of the shadows and I see:
Tankpocalypse Rex lvl4 (LL)
Race: Brogre | Class: Gym Reaper
I realize there’s a LivingLegend logo over his head. Holy crap. This guy’s one of us.
Pepper glances at me and whispers. “He’s a good guy, right?”
“What are you supposed to be?” The ogre looks down at me curiously, as if we weren't in a gunfight five seconds ago. "What's DDD mean?”
I eye him warily. His biceps are bigger than bowling balls. “Don’t Destroy Dave.”
He smiles as his deep voice rattles my bones. “I’m Tankpocalypse Rex!”
“And I’m Pepper!” The penguin chirps. “We’re here to save you!”
“Hey thanks lady!” He hits a switch and emergency lights flicker on. “Can you fix my boat?”
The entire pirate cabin has been turned into some kind of command deck. At its center, among the bed, the couch, and a bunch of pizza boxes, is a twenty-foot wide PlayStation-style controller. Looking at the control panels, I see the outline of Notzilla, and realize there are controls for its arms, its legs, its tail… every part of the kaiju.
And the whole thing is dead.
“Some boat.”
“Yeah, isn’t it great?” Rex grins through tusks. “It was just an inflatable robot toy when we found it. You know, like BayMax? BigHero 6, did you see that movie? It’s great! Anyway, the Elite guys didn’t want it and said I could have it. And then I got a bunch of Embiggen potions. Have you gotten any of those? They make things bigger! So I just kept making it bigger and bigger until I could get the remote inside and steer it from here. It made a pretty good boat, it floats super-great. Cool, right?”
I have to laugh at his enthusiasm. If he’s dying of cancer or on an iron lung, he’s pretty chipper about it. “I’m from Tallahassee, how about you?”
“Milliken. Do you guys not have any weapons? What was that thing you threw at me?”
I’m not sure how to take that. I snap my Kaboomerang back into my loadout. “What are you in the hospital for?”
He looks at me and blinks. “What hospital?”
Oo. “That’s… that’s where we are.” Rex doesn’t seem to understand. “We’re… did they not tell you that?”
“They who? I just woke up in the game.” Rex smiles. “It’s so much fun, right?”
Okay. Either HumanAsset is just plugging in people off the street, or the big guy here was in some kind of traumatic event that put him in a coma or something. I guess the tutorial doesn’t mention HumanAsset, or that they’re using us for profit. I wonder how many more of us are like Tankpocalypse Rex, LivingLegends with no idea they’re plugged into a breathing tube.
I’m not going to be the one to tell him. “Yeah, it’s awesome.”
“So you can fix it, right?”
I’m not terrible with electronics, GenX had to fix our own gadgets, and at the end of the day, this whole kaiju ship is just a big remote control car. It’s a simple machine any ten-year-old could operate. But no matter how many buttons I hit, the display screen stays dark. Notzilla is dead as a doornail.
“There’s nothing I can do. The battery’s completely shot, you need a new one.” I watch the barbarian’s face fall, and feel half-guilty for not being able to help. It’s worse than he thinks; without power, I’m guessing the Looney Tunes physics of this balloon won’t hold. If the kaiju blowers don’t turn on soon, he’ll run out of air. “Sorry.”
“Can we go get one? A battery?”
“Sure!” chirps Pepper. “We can get you one!”
I turn to her and frown. “We can?”
“Yeah!”
I stare at her, angry and dumbfounded. “Where?”
“I don’t know!” Pepper’s smile sparkles. “But you’ve just got to believe… You can do it, Self!”
Christ Jesus save me.
“That’s fire!” Rex pumps his fist. “All right, tight-tight-tight!!”
It’s time to put a stop to this circus. Pepper means well, but she’s a 1-year-old and has no idea what she’s promising. On the other hand, Rex is a bona fide killer space barbarian, and our little team of two can use all the firepower we can get. While I’m busy thinking, I lose my chance to cast a vote.
“Before we get your battery,” Pepper holds Rex’s ankle. “There’s someone else we need to save. An SOS person like you!”
“Sure! Totes! I’ll go with you, Pepper!” He smiles tusks. “You’re so cute!”
“Thank you!” She beams as I wonder how I managed to become the third wheel in this conversation. My HUD flashes red.
“Oo!” Pepper squeaks. “Is flagged good?”
“Only if you like being watched.”
Five minutes later, I’m jammed inside a bathtub with a penguin and a barbarian the size of the Incredible Hulk. The three of us are packed in like sardines; I can barely breathe or operate the controls with my face pressed up against the glass. Rex, who is apparently strong enough to survive in space for longer than any human could, has tied Notzilla to one of Boaty MacBoatface’s clawfoot legs. I send up the SolarSail and set course for the ping on my map, dragging a giant inflatable kaiju behind me in space like it’s a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
This is turning into the stupidest rescue mission ever.