The Search for Ball Zero (24 page)

“
Can we take this many?”
Tony asked the crowd.

“
Yea human, no problem.”,
a chimp said, emerging from the crowd. He

must’ve been the driver. He had very short
jean shorts frayed along the bottom with a huge set of keys
attached to a belt loop, and the other distinguishing feature was a
big growth on his cheek. It kinda reminded him of Lemmy from
Motorhead. “I’m Lemmy.” He said. Tony should’ve guessed. Lemmy was
loading a bunch of those Elohssa computer Stacks into a compartment
below the back seat. He secured them with a strap and smiled.
“Gonna be bumpy ride.”

“
Hey Lemmy.” Tony said,
then continued,”I just gotta say, if the human police

see a Jeep with all of us in it, they will
try to capture us.” He doubted the entire trip now.

The monkeys and primates looked at each
other, most shrugged and didn’t seem to care. One orangutan and one
chimp stepped out of the crowd. “No go.”
“
Police in my
land like to shoot and kill.” Tony went on.

“
Cmon. Why you scare us?”
Lemmy replied.

“
I crush.” The one gorilla
in the group said. With short tight movements of his

body, a chain with a round ball at the end
swung around his body in a figure eight motion. It looked
effortless. He then reached out one of his hands and the ball’s
heavyweight slapped to a stop in his hand.

They didn’t understand, Tony thought, but he
also was pretty sure he wasn’t going to convince them otherwise. He
shook his head.

Lemmy took the shaking of Tony’s head as an
A-OK, even though that's not what he meant. Lemmy leaned into Tony
and confirmed and asked at the same time, “So just go South?” Then
yelled out to everyone in the garage, “Let’s go!” Then he ran over
to the garage office to grab something, his super short jeans
shorts made this look funny to Tony. All the primates and monkeys
in the garage swarmed towards the Jeep disappearing like clowns
into a clown car. Some hopped on top, some hung off the side,
others disappeared into the crowd. Tony had no idea how they all
fit, but now he knew what all those hand holds were for. They had
at least 20 living beings in and on the Jeep right then. Lemmy
hopped in the driver’s seat and turned the key, the engine feebly
tried to turn over. A bunch of monkey’s in the Jeep shook their
heads like “Not again.” One chimp jumped over the windshield and
hopped on the trunk with a loud BAM, BAM. Lemmy turned the key and
the Jeep let out a growl of black smoke and started humming. Lemmy
gave the engine a couple revs, smiled and then looked over at Tony
as the Jeep jerked into gear

While still in the garage a few monkeys
jumped up in frustration, seeming to say to Lemmy, “Go faster!” He
looked back for a long moment, then floored it. Heading straight
for the open garage door, all of Tony’s driving instinct alarms
went off. It was too fast, they were going to flip if he tried to
turn at this speed.

The Jeep zipped out of the garage, they had
to turn in about 100 feet. Tony grabbed onto the “Oh shit” handle
with both hands, preparing to crash. Lemmy touched the brake,
downshifted and hit the gas. Dirt flew in a rooster tail behind the
Jeep as it slid sideways. In any vehicle Tony had ever been in,
this would be a crash. But the Jeep unnaturally gripped the dirt
and drifted around the corner. Tony looked behind him and all of
the monkeys were leaning into the turn. To Tony’s right, Primates
hung off the Jeep, using all their weight to help the Jeep
turn.

“
Holy crap.” Tony
thought, scared shitless. Then once he felt like they
weren’t

going to crash his thought turned
to,”Cool!”

They were heading down the mountain, a giant
drop off was coming up. Tony’s

brief thought of “Cool!” quickly turned back
to “Holy crap!” as they caught air. Massive air. Tony looked behind
to see a sea of Monkey and Primate’s smiling. They were having the
time of their lives. A few looked like they were in free fall,
holding onto the Jeep like they were doing a Superman trick. One
chimp did it with his tail, extra style points for him.

It felt like they were in the air for 10
seconds, but it was probably only a few. Lemmy shifted into some
gear and the engine revved, tilting the Jeep to land at the correct
angle. They hit the ground and the shocks of the Jeep gave all the
way to the ground with a thud,a scrape and a the sound of a bunch
of monkeys slamming into a Jeep.

Tony’s head bashed the dashboard so hard
blood started flowing down his forehead. Lemmy looked at him and
laughed. Tony didn’t laugh, it hurt. He felt the warm wetness and
reached for it, the ride was so bumpy he slapped himself in the
face. But he did see the red and confirmed he was bleeding. Nothing
else he could do at this time. They caught big air again, Tony
braced his head this time.

Once they hit the bottom of the mountain
they began cruising. Tony noticed the speedometer was between
40-50. They might get there in an hour. The Sun was almost down
now, if they got there in an hour Treetop would still be open. It’d
probably be best if they wait till it was closed and then snuck in.
They’d have to play it by ear. He thought this could get messy
quick.

For over an hour they drove. Every few
minutes Lemmy would look for a bump

or ramp to catch air off. If nothing was
around he’d swerve some heavy corners just to get some action, his
passengers knowing exactly how to lean. On a few of the really
sharp turns, Tony saw some primates hanging so low their feet were
skimming the ground.

Over the hill to their left, Tony noticed
something moving. It was people

cresting the hill and running over.
“Cannibals.” He thought. He saw spears protruding from their arms.
Tony pointed and nudged Lemmy. Lemmy had driving goggles on, he
looked in that direction. He saw them and turned. “Towards them!”
Tony thought in his head.

Lemme looked over to a gorilla behind him
and smiled. Primate and monkeys

both let out hoots and hollers. Lemmy
floored it, the Jeep lurched forward accelerating. There were 10 or
12 cannibals. As they approached, the hooting and hollering
approached on drawn out scream. Lemmy adjusted his angle at the
last minute, plowing over the first cannibals, his adjustment
allowed him to hit a few more behind the first.

Bodies split in half over the trunk of the
Jeep as it crushed a few more cannibals. Spears clanged
ineffectively against the front of the Jeep. A chest and head slid
up towards Lemmy, he laughed and turned so the head would spill off
the side. As the head fell, a gorilla grabbed it, held it up to his
own face and made a mocking scream, then tossed it on the ground as
the other primates laughed.

The front of the Jeep was covered in blood.
Tony thought,”Ahh, driving around a bloody Jeep, that should make
us even more inconspicuous.” He looked behind and saw 3 cannibals,
still running after the Jeep like stupid AI in a game.

They’d been driving for more than an hour.
The Sun down now, but the sky looked strange to Tony. It wasn’t a
normal night sky. The fence should be around here Tony thought.
Just as he was about to say something about that to Lemmy, they all
saw the fence. They all watched for a minute or two as the fence
approached. Tony pointed with his thumb to the right, and Lemmy
turned.

They drove few a few minutes until Tony saw
the area with the hole they had

crawled through to start this adventure. He
remembered it was still a 2 or 3 hour hike to Valley Forest. He was
thinking they couldn’t bring the Jeep through the hole, so they
would have to walk.

The Jeep slowed and rolled up to the hole in
neutral. A few monkeys jumped

off the Jeep. It was a giant hole now. It
had tracks going in and out of it, tire tracks, human tracks,
animal tracks. The Jeep could easily fit through, a tank could
drive under the fence here. Lemmy motioned to the monkeys and they
jumped back on, he didn’t even come to a full stop. He went down in
the hole slowly, but then hit the gas on the way out and the Jeep
did a wheelie. Primates and Monkeys in the back leaned further back
and held the wheely up a for a while. “Crazy ass monkeys” Tony
thought squeezing the Oh Shit handles.

Lemmy pointed South, Tony nodded. The drove
a few a minutes in silence. Tony again noticed the air seemed
different, it was hard to tell anything in the dark, but something
felt different, maybe it was the air, maybe he’d been gone for too
long. He peered his head up, trying to look over the trees. The tip
of Treetop emerged.

“
There it is!” Tony
yelled.

Lemmy yelled back,”Where are all the
murderous cops you were scaring us with?”

“
Ohh they’re out there!”
Tony replied.

They rolled up to the trees behind Treetop
Games. It was the North part of town, on an already abandoned
street, they should be able to park here and go up without being
noticed.

Tony looked up at the once familiar Treetop,
it looked like one of the big bay windows overlooking the city was
cracked or broken. Above Treetop, dark grey clouds flowed and
splashed through the sky like an angry river.

Lemmy killed the motor. “That it?” He asked,
but he knew the answer. “Everyone grab a Stacker before going up.”
The clown car of a Jeep emptied. Most of the primates and monkeys
stayed behind Tony, heads tilting around in curiosity. Tony noticed
the elevator lights were off, those usually stayed on even after
closing. He walked towards the stairs and started jogging up. His
partners mostly ignored stairs, since to them that was the slowest,
most energy consuming way. They swarmed around the stair supports,
climbing up it in all directions. From the outside, it looked like
one of those big CG shots in the Planet of the Apes remakes.

They got to the top, Tony was tired. The
door was locked, he looked passed the

doors and saw trash on the floor. That never
happened. He looked closer, it wasn’t looted, at least not
fully.

A gorilla grabbed the door and pulled apart,
it bent then ripped and the glass

shattered. The gorilla looked at Tony. Tony
took the first step in, then the Monkeys and Primates quickly but
silently entered around him. Their eyes all opened with wide
interest.

Tony tried the light switch, nothing.
Monkeys were picking up things and

examining them. They were all keeping pretty
silent still. He walked across the main floor of Treetop from the
elevator towards the bay windows. Looking left, right and at the
ceiling, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It seemed to be
the good ole Treetop Games he remembered, it kind of looked like an
Earthquake had knocked a few things over, but that was it. He
approached the window, it was cracked, and he looked out and saw
Valley Forest, in rubble.

“
What the?” He cried out
without trying.

Lemmy was at his side, “What’s wrong?”

For a moment Tony said nothing. The angry
river of dark clouds above him

swam by. He looked down at the town he grew
up in, in ruins. It looked like a future scene from the first
Terminator. It was that destroyed. No building was left standing.
Tony’s, L’s and Perry’s apartments gone, the whole buildings were
leveled to the point it was hard to make out what street was which.
The few areas that weren’t rubble were craters. There were no
lights, no electricity it seemed. A few places thin wisps of smoke
rose to the sky.

Park street was untouched. Although it had
been abandoned long ago and everything except Treetop Games was a
boarded up shell of a building. The buildings on Park Street were
not destroyed. Treetop was a little mess, but it seemed ok.

Tony stared longer. Certain areas seemed to
stand out now. There were

warstore tracks going through the heart of
the city. The Telnet warstore corpse was still on the edge of town.
The Old Shitty Walmart was completely destroyed. Perry’s Taco Bell,
gone. He turned around, almost all the Monkeys and Primates were
standing behind him silently.

“
You home?” One of them
asked.

“
Yea, right there.” Tony
pointed to a pile of rubble, “Something bad happened

here.” He felt the need to explain,”It
wasn’t like this before. 80,000 people lived here 2 weeks
ago!?”

His friends looked at each other puzzled,
thinking “Oops.”
“
All your tribe dead?” The crowd
asked.

“
My tribe already dead.”
Tony replied,”Just memories.”

“
Then let’s party!” Lemmy
said, holding up a dangling white worm.

The Monkeys and Primates dispersed. Some
stayed to enjoy worms, others opened up games, looking at the
packaging. They didn’t know about old school, classic games. They
didn’t know what a treasure museum they were rummaging through. To
them, the cash register was just as interesting as an NES system,
or the original Pong arcade cabinet Treetop owned.

Lemmy did a worm, he shook and danced as it
entered his nasal cavity. Just as Tony was about to do his worm a
chimp’s head popped over his shoulder.

“
Show me that one game.”
Bob Marley said.

“
K, hang on.” Tony sniffed
really hard and sucked up the worm. He reached down and held onto a
rack full of games. Euphoria filled his eyes and head and he slowly
looked over at Bob, eyes moving first, head trailing behind. “It’s
over there.” He said and stumbled over. He tried to get up, but a
game was stuck to his hand, Superman N64. He laughed out loud,
“Worst game ever! Ha” And threw it like a left handed baby, it flew
randomly and bounced into spot it would never be seen again.
Good.