Not Everything Brainless is Dead Read online

  Without warning, the headlights flipped on and the engine revved like an angry beaver. Then, the vehicle burst forth from the alleyway, squealing like a banshee—an angry beaver banshee. All around, commuters slammed on their breaks to avoid hitting this angry beaver banshee as it emerged from its hiding place and almost slammed head first into a brick wall. Angry beaver banshees do have a blatant disregard for the safety of themselves and everyone around them, so nothing less should have been expected.

  A few blocks away, the getaway van weaved in and out of traffic as it sped through the downtown streets of the city, spreading anger to all, not because the aging vehicle cut off or bumped against other vehicles, but because it held up traffic everywhere it went. The weight of the stolen goods made the not-so-performance-vehicle—not-so-performance-er. Sparks flew from its chassis as it scraped the asphalt with every bump, creating quite the light show.

  Inside, Captain Rescue was bending and twisting into ridiculous positions, attempting to break free of his binds. After some time, he decided he could not do it alone. His breathing slowed as his lungs practically stopped—it’s not like his brain needed the oxygen—and he tried his best to focus, which meant squinting as hard as he could. A calm aura overtook him, as if tapping into an amazingness buried deep within. Amazingness not readily apparent since Captain Rescue had enough trouble proving to people he was not mentally deficient, let alone amazing.

  Then suddenly, as if touched by God Himself, or even Herself (you never know), the binds that held Captain Rescue’s hands loosened and simply fell to the ground. The hero looked up to where the sky would have been if a metal roof was not obstructing it and nodded with approval. In his head he imagined God looking back down to him with a giant thumbs up. He almost waved up to God before realizing it would reveal his free hands to the robbers. With this makeshift plan set into motion, the time came for Captain Rescue to rid himself of his half-witted captors, who strangely enough, had about twice the wit he did.

  Captain Rescue had just the thing to rid himself of these would-be criminals, a small black aerosol can with a white stripe down the center, perfectly depicting the horror contained within. The label read “Concentrated Skunk Extract”, and next to it was a skunk with its tail raised high into the air, ready to fire. In parenthesis underneath the name were the words “(Now with real skunk extract, not that artificial junk)”. With knowledge of the gruesome fate that awaited the poor pitiful criminals, Captain Rescue slid the canister from his boot and grinned.

  However, his preparations did not go unnoticed. One of the lackeys motioned to his buddies to take notice of their seemingly bound hero.

  “Stop squirming!” The lackey said sternly to Captain Rescue.

  “Sorry, it’s difficult to plan breaking free without moving.”

  A pair of lackeys leaned forward to subdue the hero. As their fists beat against his gut, he pressed the top of the canister and dropped the skunk extract to the floor. It rolled around inside the van, unnoticed by the criminals, as a green mist started to mix with the air around them. Captain Rescue grabbed a small respirator from his belt and slipped it into his nose. Its existence had only been revealed to him earlier this evening, and he was not willing to admit the places he tried to put it before he discovered its true use.

  While Dr. Malevolent’s lackeys were busy investigating this suspicious green mist, Captain Rescue leapt to his feet with as much grace as his shapely body could muster. He then lifted his foot high into the air and prepared to kick the back of the van open. As before, his eyes narrowed and he took a deep breath, trying to tap every ounce of super hero juju he could muster. Then, just like that ninja he saw on television the other day, Captain Rescue repeatedly placed his foot against the door. However, what transpired next did not quite go as it did in the movie. He kicked and his foot connected with the door—but that was about as far as fate would allow. The force of the impact knocked the hero to his back. He must have drained his pool of super hero awesomeness; either that or his pools were dry from the start, a more likely scenario.

  During the commotion, a compartment overhead shook open and a blue blur tumbled out. Captain Rescue was startled to see the head of a bunny rabbit smiling down at him through the green haze. Shortly thereafter, a hand slipped down and fell beside the head. The motion of van as it swayed from side to side made it appear as though the hand was waving to the valiant hero. He giggled like a little school girl at his newfound friend until he realized this bunny was not real.

  The hero rose to his feet and rubbed his sore butt; he then rubbed his eyes and wished they made respirators for them as well. On top of the irritated eyes, Captain Rescue started to feel faintly dizzy, and he was sure that he had breathed through his mouth at least a couple times. Even though he was sure the bunny rabbit would have been great to talk to, he resisted the urge to strike up a conversation. Other matters were more pressing. All around him, the green faced criminals had fallen to their knees with skunk-induced nausea.

  The hero waded through the sea of sickened criminals, careful not to bump any of them just in case they were primed to blow. He faced the door once more and for a moment thought about kicking it open again. Considering how that went the last time, he was smart to simply lift the latch. He waved back to the bunny, which was sad to see him go, he was sure of it—even if its wide smile and cheerful plastic eyes hid the fact. Just before stepping into the wild grey yonder of the busy street, Captain Rescue smiled in victory over the green criminals.

  Dr. Malevolent sighed; a green mist had started to seep in through the air vents, but Boris’ lactose intolerance had given her just the weapon to fight this biological war. She popped open the glove compartment and removed a pair of gas masks. The two (one of whom should probably be watching the road) glanced back at the lackeys, who were on their sides from the skunk-induced coma, and then in unison, slid the gas masks over their faces.

  Boris turned around to see what the road was up to just in time to discover he was no longer on it; either that or some wise guy had decided the middle of the street was the perfect place to put a mailbox. The van crashed headfirst into it, sending letters flying everywhere. Dr. Malevolent slid her rod from its custom-made holster and threatened Boris with wide eyes, but she realized it was probably a bad idea to assault the driver of your van, so she simply tapped him on the noggin while maintaining her wild wide eyes, lest he forget.

  During the mailbox shenanigans, Captain Rescue was sitting atop the van with his magnetized pants, resting after a bit of arduous crime fighting. Out of nowhere, poor little Sammy’s Christmas card to Santa smacked him in the face. The hero fell to his back and avoided any more letters that might have found their way to him, but as he lay there, his thoughts were only of poor Sammy. More than anything, he hoped that Dr. Malevolent’s antics would not rob the poor kid of his Christmas joy. He imagined a sad Sammy on Christmas morning underneath a bare tree, crying his eyes out. After Captain Rescue finished putting these crooks behind bars, he planned to write a card to Santa Clause to inform him of the mailbox mishap.

  After a few minutes of much needed rest, a frantic honking erupted from the side of the van, drawing Captain Rescue’s attention. He peered down to see his trusty steed, The Rescue Machine, driving itself with its high-tech autopilot. As the hero stood there upon the edge of the roof, admiring his vehicle, he could not help but to let his eyes drift to the pavement. The rushing grey asphalt made Captain Rescue increasingly dizzy; he jerked his head up and shook it off. The valiant hero then stood as straight as his pounding heart would allow, closed his eyes, and stepped off the edge of the van. A normal man may have called this a leap of faith. However, since Captain Rescue was not a man of faith, it must just have been an act of sheer foolishness. As he plummeted from the top of the van, a sound rose from the Rescue Machine, a sound that could only be interpreted as the poor vehicle electronically sighing as it attempted to catch Captain Rescue, thus rescuing him from becoming road kill. In a
move calculable only by a sophisticated computer, the hero landed safely in the driver’s seat and the chase began.

  Chapter 4: The Tortoise and the Tortoise

  Head to head, The Rescue Machine and its arch nemesis, The Getaway Van, screeched through the downtown streets of the city at breakneck speeds—or as breakneck as you would expect two veritable tortoises to be. In actuality, The Rescue Machine was not built to fight crime. When designing it (with crayons), Captain Rescue felt that speed and maneuverability were not high on its list of priorities. He had mostly hoped to pick up sexy ladies with it, a rather unsuccessful goal as of late. However, it was certainly not from a lack of trying, as he had the restraining orders to prove it—all of which made out to the “crazy man with that purple suit and weird car.”

  And thus, the crazy man with the purple suit and weird car and his nemesis dangerously slammed their weapons of choice into each other, sparks flying in every direction. All the while angry old ladies in their luxury sedans swerved around the two, their fists raised into the air as they made obscene gestures and faces that, if properly harnessed, could wake the dead. This everlasting road war between the two tortoises lasted but a few city blocks. Then, the one hindrance that could halt their adventures reared its ugly head: a red light.

  Boris cranked the wheel to the left, aiming for the sidewalk, until Dr. Malevolent screeched, “Stop!”

  “What boss? We always do this instead of waiting for red lights,” Boris replied as he came to a stop behind the red light.

  Dr. Malevolent pointed at the roadside vendors, “Those men are hardworking individuals, and I’m sure many of them have families to support, bills to pay, and mouths to feed. We’re not going to just parade through them and wreck their entire livelihood to get around a red light a few seconds sooner.”

  She huffed, rant complete.

  “Wow boss, I had no idea you felt that way. I thought you were a complete misanthrope.”

  “Well, I have a soft spot for a few select people. But you’re not one of them, so shut up.”

  She did have a soft spot for these roadside vendors. In fact, her father was one of them. Dr. Malevolent had nothing but fond childhood memories of leaving the house and skipping around the block to get a free hot dog from her father while he was at work. But like all fairy tales, this one had to end. Dr. Malevolent’s father died suddenly during her youth, poisoned, she suspected, by a greedy corporation who were upset at her father for stealing business from their cafeteria. Sure, it was entirely possible, and quite likely, that her father died of natural causes, but this fabricated story molded her into a successful criminal she was today.

  Captain Rescue pulled up next to his nemesis and, as the two vehicles sat side-by-side, waiting for the light to change, Dr. Malevolent slowly turned her head towards Captain Rescue and made some of the most ridiculous faces imaginable. Their eyes interlocked and an eternal staring contest began. With the battlefield set and the stakes high, the victor would only be determined after the brain of their opponent exploded and rained grey matter across the heavens.

  Boris leaned forward from behind Dr. Malevolent, fixating on the hero with the sole purpose of melting the man using only his mind. As luck would have it, Captain Rescue was an all-state staring contest champion, so Boris’ vain attempt at meltification went unnoticed. To further her efforts, Dr. Malevolent unsheathed her inanimate carbon rod and started to beat herself over the head with it. While this almost broke her own concentration, Captain Rescue remained steadfast. Her strategies exhausted, she shrugged and flashed the hero, a plan almost certain to break his concentration, and indeed, she was victorious.

  A honking erupted from behind the two vehicles. The other commuters felt that a staring contest, no matter how epic, should not hold up traffic. Confused, Captain Rescue glanced around, he was too enamored with the gift given to him to notice that the getaway van was well—getting away. After enough honking had transpired to break the trance that had befallen the hero, he put the pedal to the metal. However, that is what he normally did to attain the blazing speed of 27 miles per hour. Once The Rescue Machine had caught back up with the getaway van, their struggle continued.

  The pursuit lasted for miles as sky rise after sky rise inched by and commuters released their anger in the form of honks and shouts. Inside the van, as all this action morphed quickly to monotony, Boris drifted off—lost in his mind, fantasizing about a hot red fox he had met the weekend before. The two had shared some lovely moments. They laughed and they giggled. They bumped their plush little bottoms together and danced the polka until the wee hours of the morning—a happy-go-lucky pair of larger-than-life animals. The night ended with a moonlit walk along the beach, red and blue hands intertwined—a fantasy to trump all fantasies. However, like all fantasies, this one had to end.

  Boris found his thoughts too enthralling to be bothered with the fact that he was drifting into oncoming traffic, and Dr. Malevolent remained oddly calm as the sea of vehicles parted for the getaway van. She believed her status as a super villain (a self-granted status at that) made her all but invincible, although up until now she had been, so you never know. She turned to face Boris, who still had a glazed look of joy over his face—behind each of his eyes, a miniature Charlie and his fox friend beat helplessly upon the lenses. Their inaudible screams persisted as they pointed frantically at the road ahead until throwing their hands up in defeat and wandering into the recesses of Boris’ head.

  Dr. Malevolent cleared her throat with the hopes of drawing Boris’ attention. After the first cough had no effect, she did it again—louder than the last time. Still nothing. The final cough spewed mucus all over Boris. The disgusting display pulled the man back into reality and away from his alter ego, Charlie. He rapidly swerved back into his own lane just in time for their little joy ride to come to a crashing end.

  Just ahead, a curve approached, and the careening van made no apparent attempt to avoid it. As Boris realized the shenanigans about to transpire, he smiled. The man had two main aspirations in life: one was furry stardom, an aspiration very nearing its zenith. The other dream he had since childhood was to be a stunt car driver, a goal that sat nicely wedged in the back of his mind, unfulfilled. As he approached that curve, the little boy deep within took over, the one who dreamed of sending flaming muscle cars over locomotives. The world around Boris faded away as he gunned the van, which was in no way a muscle car of any kind. Nevertheless, it sure did smash into the curb like one. Time dilated as the force of the impact sent the van rocketing through the air.

  As the seconds elapsed, the projectile’s destination became painfully clear—a parked car. That was not even the bad news. One simple fact made a three-ton van crashing head first into a parked vehicle much worse: the parked vehicle just so happened to be a police cruiser. Yet another simple fact made the previous fact exponentially even more terrible: the police cruiser just so happened to be parked outside a police station. Time came to a halt inside the cab as Boris and Dr. Malevolent locked eyes. Boris’ mouth started to form the word “sorry”, but her rod interrupted them before it could find a way out. Then the getaway van ceased its getaway in a spectacular metal-twisting feat. The nose of the van smashed head first into the police cruiser and the back bounced high into the air. The cruiser’s sirens started to wail, assuring the commotion pulled the police officers away from their donut dinners. After spinning around like a giant top, the van finally came to a rest on its side.

  The wreck left Dr. Malevolent and Boris squished together against the driver side window miraculously unscathed. She made quite the face at him: part disgusted, part excited, and part happy to be alive. Regardless of her feelings, this was closer than she cared to be to the imbecile right now (or ever). As she became increasingly aware of where they were and what they had crashed into, she started to beat her driver and partner in crime repeatedly with her inanimate carbon rod. Since Dr. Malevolent paled in comparison to Boris, even with her rod in hand, he decide
d to let her assault him in order to relieve her stress. She even took off her white lab coat in order to attain better movement in her arms. The coat was just for show, anyway. No one in his or her right mind would be foolish to give the woman an actual doctorate. She just ran across the coat one day and decided it looked fashionable.

  Attracted by the bright lights and sirens, Captain Rescue was waiting patiently at a turning lane munching on a hot dog he had procured from a roadside vendor just prior to arriving at the scene. Hunger was an injustice greater than any Dr. Malevolent could commit (a statement written in bold in almost any super hero manual, and he has skimmed them all). A look of utmost horror appeared across his face as he cruised into the parking lot. He had missed a tremendously exciting car crash. The price of hunger was high. He looked down at his hotdog. His eyes then traveled to the crash and then back to the hotdog. Eventually he decided that yes, it was worth it.

  This outcome to the bank heist was just another failed excursion by the “super” villain and her lackeys. So far, Dr. Malevolent’s criminal career has been less than successful, but when you set your sights on world domination, it was easy to fall short. Like moths to flame, the police officers poured out of the precinct and surrounded the van, guns trained on Dr. Malevolent.

  Captain Rescue, never one to miss an opportunity to strut his stuff, hopped out of The Rescue Machine and looked at himself in its side view mirror. Kneeling down and juggling his hot dog between his hands, he brushed his hair and smiled widely, on the lookout for any stowaways between his teeth. After assuring everything was in proper order, and that he was as pretty as he could possibly be (not at all), Captain Rescue thrust his chest out and swaggered over to the police officers.

  The hero cleared his throat with a load cough and grinned at the officers, “I see you found the present I left you fine boys!”