Earth vs. Everybody (14 page)

I tried several
times to send a thank-you note to 300 million years in the future, expressing
my thanks to the brains for the use of the time machine, and to see how they
were doing, but the first two came back stamped ‘Time Period Not Known” and the
last one came back stamped “Refused”. So I guess they’ll never know how
grateful I am.

I told the
Central City officials what I had done, and how I had saved the Earth and
defeated the environment and everything. Most of them didn’t believe my story,
but a few key gullible members of the administration felt that if what I was
saying was true, I deserved a reward.

“How can we thank
you?” they asked. “What would you like? Just name it. Anything.”

“I’d like to rob
the 1
^st
National Bank.”

“Well, we said
anything,” they said, unhappily, “so, go ahead.”

So I did. There
wasn’t as much money in there as I thought there would be. A bank should have more
than ten bucks in it, I would have thought. But at least I finally robbed the
damn thing. So I can stop worrying about that.

So that’s how I
saved the Earth, more or less, after causing most of the trouble in the first
place. Some people consider me a hero. Others aren’t so sure. Depends on how
you look at it, I suppose. 12% of the people say I’m worse than Dracula. I
don’t see how they can say that. Read Dracula’s story again before you make
wild statements like that. What’s the matter with you people?

This
isn’t exactly a happy ending, unfortunately. The Earth is so filthy now that
the rest of the galaxy has sent a big garbage truck here to haul us away to
some dump they have out there. Oh well, it’s a happy ending until the truck
gets here for us. That’s pretty good, I guess.

THE TIME MACHINE
DID IT (2004)

DOUBLE WONDERFUL
(2005)

HOW I CONQUERED
YOUR PLANET (2006)

THE EXPLODING
DETECTIVE (2007)

DEAD MEN SCARE ME
STUPID (2008)

EARTH VS.
EVERYBODY (2009)

THE LAST DETECTIVE
ALIVE (2010)

THE FIFTY FOOT
DETECTIVE (2011)

Copyright
© 2009

by John
Swartzwelder

Published
by:

Kennydale Books

P.O. Box 3925

Chatsworth,
California 91313-3925

All Rights
Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from
the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

First Printing
March, 2009

ISBN 13
(paperback edition) 978-0-9822736-0-9

ISBN 13 (hardback
edition) 978-0-9822736-1-6

ISBN 10
(paperback edition) 0-9822736-0-6

ISBN 10 (hardback
edition) 0-9822736-1-4

Library of
Congress Control Number: 2008911680

This book is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the
United States of America

EARTH
VS. EVERYBODY

John
Swartzwelder

Kennydale Books.

Chatsworth,
California