Hill Sign

   Jack and the other two exited the dilapidated building from the rear and found themselves in a small concrete lot.  It, too, was largely barren, save for an empty dumpster and some junk in a corner.  Jack's eyes paused on a large, hazy hill just beyond the lot.  It was covered in naked trees and brown grass, and Jack couldn't take his eyes off it.

   "I'm gonna have to go up there," he announced.

   Jack and the two climbed the short trail up to the hill. At the summit, there was a small wooden sign upon which some rough characters had been scraped. Jack stared at it for a long time.

  "Z, 3 :34," Jack read aloud.

   The others saw the sign and wondered.

Hallway Intoning

   The halls were crowded with students as Jack made his way to the entrance. He was feeling particularly agitated - the previous venture had been stressful and it had left him with an aggressive lack of patience.

   Two twin brothers appeared out of the crowd. They were tall, but only slightly more so than Jack, and had on matching white sweaters with horizontal black stripes.  As they walked passed Jack, one brother purposely collided with the metal case Jack was carrying, tugging it backward with the general flow of traffic. The brother smirked at Jack, who yanked the case back angrily and continued walking. Clearly these two had mistaken Jack for another measly student and thus had demonstrated their contemptible idiocy.

   "Hey," remarked the other brother as he walked pass, "what's that smell? It smells like manure!"

   Jack whirled around instantly, already fed up. Of course it was manure, what else would it be?  He strode up to the brother and stared him straight in the face, their noses inches apart. The brother looked surprised at Jack's confidence.

   "It is horse shit," explained Jack in an even tone, barely containing his boiling rage.

   The two stared at each other momentarily before Jack turned around and continued on his way. As he walked to the exit, the rush of students increased and Jack realized the brothers might not be satisfied with how he had parted with them. He increased his pace, but just before the brightly-lit exit, the brothers caught up with him.

   Ah, thought Jack, I suppose they are more in practice with navigating throngs of students. I did not count on that.

   They began to pummel Jack mercilessly. He left his body and watched, an inactive participant, as he was beaten nearly to the point of unconsciousness.

   This must be painful, thought Jack. Almost...intoning.  He watched from a few yards away as the word "intone" appeared beneath his forehead.

Revolution Dais

   Jack watched from his disembodied position floating a short distance away as Jack-not-Jack stepped out along with Bernie and Marseille Doubletree. They were garbed in fanciful and effeminately hued robes as befitting their royal status. The dais protruded a ways out from the side of a slanting coliseum wall crowded with the kingdom's citizens. Marseille Doubletree was slightly rounder than he remembered her, and he wondered briefly how she had landed this role. Like the other two, she had a hood on, made of the same silky fabric as her layered robes, but in addition a gauzy veil obscured much of her face.

   "Come, let us greet the people and introduce our guest," said Jack-not-Jack.  The trio stepped to the edge of the dais.

   "Here is Marseille Doubletree, come to visit Prince Bernie!" proclaimed Jack-not-Jack, and the crowd cheered. The trio bowed to the acclamations.

   "And they have just declared revolution!" Jack-not-Jack shouted, his voice taking on a carnivorous edge. The crowd quieted instantly, and Bernie and Marseille Doubletree stepped back in surprise.

   "That's right!" Jack-not-Jack continued, "According to the laws, a prince stepping forward and bowing in this fashion is a declaration of intent, an assertion of royal matrimony. Clearly, then, this is an act of revolution!"

   The crowd gasped, and Bernie paled - this court aristocrat had brazenly engineered the situation towards his own ends, and Bernie had no idea what to do.

   "Excuse me," said Marseille Doubletree softly. Though her voice was quiet, it carried an air of authoritative rage that had no problem penetrating the great distance of the coliseum. She turned and addressed Bernie as the camera zoomed in closer to her face.

   "It hit me now, unlike how you hit me in back, like an animal. This man has stated it. It is how things ought to be presented." She paused for a moment and her mouth opened slowly wider and wider, almost exceeding the confines of her face. It was strangely visible through her veil and disturbingly bereft of teeth.

   "However," she exploded, unleashing her full rage and turning to Jack-not-Jack, "let none be fooled! I will not let this man misrepresent us. I will not let this little miscreant cling to his pathetic ...Periclesian masculinity," she finished in a venomously low tone, practically spitting her contempt into the aristocrat's face.

   "There is no revolution," she turned once more to address the crowd, She removed her veil as her voice became inflected with a tinge of bitter sadness. "Just a man..." she gestured to Bernie," ...and his wife...standing before you."  The crowd cheered, the tension broke. Bernie hugged Marseille Doubletree in relief, and she hugged him back, though clearly still distraught at what she had given up for the man.  Jack-not-Jack stormed off the dais in a rage.  A moment later, the rest of the royal party followed.

   An old, slightly out-of-touch gentleman in the crowd near the dais remarked to no one in particular, "Marseille Doubletree...like the parking lot?..."

Canine Guinness

   The cafeteria lounge was largely empty, which suited Jack because he was busy fiddling with the computer projector. However his focus was soon broken by a sharp jab in his ribs.

   "Hey, Guinness is back!" said an eager voice belonging to a dopey, scraggly-looking dog. Jack pushed Guinness away, but not unkindly - he loved Guinnes, but was often annoyed with how aggressive the dog sought attention.

   "Sorry 'bout that," said Guinness optimistically, "gotta remind people you're still around, heh, heh."

   "I guess so, skip," said Jack, softening a bit.

   "So, what's up? What's new?"

   "Well," replied Jack, "that emperor left today." Guinness looked up at Jack quizzically.

   "You know," said Jack, "that kid we watched that movie with?"

Neo-American Hero

   Jack sat down at one of the long, cheap tables, his back to a pillar. Since the store was technically closed, most of the lights were off, but there was enough illumination to light the racks of clothing and other merchandise surrounding the meeting. There weren't nearly enough employees to fill all the seats, but people were scattered here and there.

   Jer sat lazily near the front, his bulky frame partially blocking the projected image behind him. He tossed Jack a piece of candy, followed quickly by a second. Jack missed catching both, but was not bothered because, unbeknownst to Jer, he already had some candy.

   "As we all know," Jer said, beginning the presentation, "ten thousand years ago, a more perfect union was formed." Canned patriotic music tinkled in the background as a jingoistic caped figure appeared on the projection. It reminded Jack very strongly of Captain America, but with a more futuristic costume.

   "Occasionally, a hero is needed to defend this union. Currently, the most likely candidate is this man."

   On the screen stood the figure of an enormous, metallic exoskeleton perched solidly in a stone plaza.  It was several times the size of a normal man, which was only clear by the fact that there was a man partially entombed in the middle of the structure. Lightning shot from the exoskeleton's eyes, which were protruding off the side of the head piece on enormous, elephantine lobes. As Jack watched, the exoskeleton began to move at the behest of the man inside, stomping and slaughtering various posturing aggressors dotted around the square. This slaughter continued for some time, and Jack was continually impressed with how acrobatic the man in the exoskeleton was, even when compared with the clearly skilled attackers it was facing.

   Eventually, a double team was able to get the best of the metallic man. As one attacker distracted the metallic man, the other quickly dodged the exoskeleton's arm, flipping around to disable one of its legs.  The man in the exoskeleton let out an electronically-amplified roar, grabbing the attacker and crushing him even as he fell. The exoskeleton was able to utilize the momentum of his fall to strike and crush the other attacker, killing him but disabling the suit.  Gears whirred and the man inside the skeleton emerged from the metallic heap, wearing a much smaller but very alien outfit, one that presumably had allowed him to link and control the now-destroyed exoskeleton. The man ground his teeth and growled loudly as he stalked back into the center of the plaza.

   "Now," interrupted Jer, "he has one problem, which is that he doesn't exist here, and so cannot see matter in our realm without technological aid."

   The view on the projector transitioned to an image of the man. His suit came up partially over his head, curving to a stop in the middle of his forehead. Around the man there was a swirl of red, green, and blue numbers and lines. He looked around, confused - Jack assumed this was what the man would see without the aid of his equipment.  Sure enough, the perspective switched back to normal to reveal one of the attackers who had snuck up and charged the man. At the point of contact the attacker went right through the futuristic man as if he were not even there. Both men looked around confusedly. To Jack's perspective, the futuristic man seemed more and more alien as the film progressed; it was difficult for Jack to pin down, but while the futuristic man's outward appearance did not change, he seemed to be becoming more inhuman.

   "See?" Jer explained. "He can't see them, they can't get to him. To counter this, he has a helmet."

   There was a click and the futuristic man materialized back into the normal realm. Instantly, he saw the attacker and killed him from behind with a quick swipe of his fist. The slaughter continued as other attackers closed on the man's position.

   Eventually, Jer piped in, "And here we see a female attacker." The visuals on the film turned cartoon-like and two-dimensional. The female was quickly subdued, but not killed, by the futuristic man. Jack was thankful for the new hand-drawn animation, for he sensed what was coming and preferred not to view a live-action rendering.

   The man pinned the woman to a column and extended a comically long, reptilian tongue toward her face. He flipped his tongue around casually bet ever inward, twisting the membrane almost flirtatiously. The woman was still breathing heavily, though was not resisting nearly as much as one would expect. Soon, the tongue wrapped multiple times around her lips, extending them outward into an absurdly long pucker.

   "And now," explained Jer, "the two have achieved sexual union. He will loop his tongue around the woman's lips. He will do this for some time, occasionally also looping around her nose." Jack watched as the extra slack in the man's tongue reached up to her nose and slung itself lazily across the bridge and underneath the nostrils.

Jack understood the meaning - this was how the futuristic man seeded his victims, continuing his own species. He could not tell if the woman was struggling anymore, though she was breathing heavily.

"He gets perturbed if she exhales too loudly," offered Jer.