Chapter Five

wherein the author, now thrice deprived of sleep, bemoans his readership's participatory decline

You step out of the capsule. Never in your life have you felt so refreshed. You have no idea what sort of technical wizardry went on in there, but somehow as the glass had begun to steam up, you could feel yourself being separated from your clothes. When the ultrasonic water jets hit you, they seemed attuned to your very pores. Layers of filth hitherto thought impenetrable flaked away like so much phyllo dough. The steam must’ve been laced with a drug because you felt a dizzy euphoria with every inhale. Something massaged your scalp, and you could feel your hair getting silkier by the instant. Something tiny buffed the spirit gum off your upper lip. It was difficult to tell, but you felt like you might also be getting a laser shave. At one point you’d opened your mouth, but not by your own will. And it was soon filled with minty pulsations over each of your teeth in turn. Why, this thing even washed away last night’s shame.

Then after the drying fans went to work, the capsule filled with a sweet fragrant smoke, and you could once again feel your clothes being returned to you, now washed, dried and pressed. Even your false mustache had received the salon treatment, and waited silky and waxed in the breast pocket of your tailcoat.

How was it all possible? The capsule did it all without any cooperation or assistance from you. You didn’t even have to raise your hands over your head to get your shirt off and back on.

Now, back outside the capsule experiencing the platonic ideal of cleanliness, you wonder why you might ever want to return to the surface. You don’t have any money, sure, but you could just walk around and window shop for the rest of your life. Maybe work at one of the places. The longer you spend down here, the more the fake smiles and cool air really begin to grow on you.

“I’ve taken the liberty of checking your umbrella and bandoleer,” says Kimberly or something. “You won’t be needing them down here.”

“Very well,” you say. “I’ll just pop round for them on my way out.”

You slowly make your way down the promenade toward Post-Apocalyptic Spencer’s Gifts, certain they’ll have the perfect blow-up doll for any occasion. As a bit of tedious world-building, the shop was opened by Post-Apocalyptic Spencer with all the money he made playing Robert Urich in Post-Apocalyptic Spencer for Hire.

Now in a tedious bit of world-destroying, the author so desperately wanted to make a Robert Urich Acid joke here, but he couldn’t think of any good ones because he’s a bit sleep-deprived at the moment. Something-something, gout, something-something Ice Pirates. Is that a good one? Is that a good joke?

The best comedians have such good timing, they could sell it even if it was terrible. Something-something… gout! Something-some… thingicepirates! Did I sell it? Go back and read it again at the funniest pace ever.

After writing that, the author was so pleased with himself for inciting roars of deafening laughter that he went to the kitchen to celebrate with a tin of sardines. No joke. And he was so pleased with the first tin of sardines that he decided to celebrate the first tin with a second one. Imagine his surprise when he returned to his scribblings to find you all still in the midst of your standing ovation. Please, please, take your seats.

Sardines…

You stop in your tracks. Why are you buying this stupid blow-up doll anyway? The chow down here is bound to be infinitely better than whatever the old man’s keeping in that cart of his.

You swivel 180 degrees and backtrack toward the food court. Rounding the bend by the Radioactive Orange Julius, whose hot dogs smell better than they have any right to, you see just the thing to hit the spot: Gelatinosbarro. It beckons, and you’re helpless against its gravitational pull. You soon find yourself in line.

“Excuse me, do you have any sardines?” you ask the bony Roman-nosed chap working the cafeteria line.

“Sardines?!”

“I can’t explain it, but I could really just devour a tin of sardines right about now.”

“Can’t you read, pal? This is Sbarro! Now point to the pile of goosh you want me to scoop, and go off and pretend it’s pizza!”

Dejected, you point to the blue one.

“A calzone! Excellent choice!” Slorp. “Next!”

You pick up your tray and study the undulating calzone scoop as you make your way to the register. Listen, the author thinks he used the word undulating two chapters ago, and it was wrong of him. It was the wrong word at the wrong time. Now, though, it’s the right time. If ever there were a perfect adjective to apply to your calzone, it would be undulating. Try to read it as though you’ve never come across the word before, yet you somehow know exactly how to pronounce and spell it, perhaps because it’s just so apt to describe this blue scoop quavering on your tray, and it’s one of those cases where you don’t need a footnote because the contextual clues are so vivid.

“That’ll be $6.79,” says Eunice, whom you know is called Eunice from her name tag that says Eunice.

“I don’t have any money.”

“£9.47?”

“I still don’t have any money.”

“Let me guess—¥12,000.”

“Don’t have that either.”

“Don’t tell me! Wait, wait, can I phone a friend?”

“Um… sure.”

“Hey, Carmine!” she calls out. “Help, I’ve got 30 seconds to answer, this is to win the bedroom suite!”

The bedroom suite?

“Try 32¢!” says the Roman-nosed chap. “No, 33¢! Tell him 33!”

Eunice looks back over at you and begins to sweat.

This is it, it’s all on the line. “33¢?”

“What?”

A bell sounds, balloons are released and two confetti guns shoot off on either side of the cash register.

“I did it! I did it!” Eunice calls out, raising her hands above her head and doing her best to jump up and down. Carmine runs out from the wings and engulfs her in a hug that lifts her off Sbarro’s floor.

You pick up your tray and make for your seat, shaking your head the whole way. At your table, you stare at your calzone. They didn’t give you any silverware, and you certainly weren’t going back up to ask for it now. Eunice was being joined onstage by her friends and family, and a well-dressed silver-haired man was approaching her with one of those giant checks made out to her in the amount of 33¢.

Well, here goes. You wince, stick out your tongue and slowly lower your head down onto your lunch. Not… terrible. Hey, not bad at all! Really just like a meat lover’s calzone! Not that you’d ever tasted a meat lover’s calzone. Meat was scarce enough, and none of the readily available kinds were all that lovable. Whatever it is, this undulating blue scoop sure is delicious. You tuck in, no hands, just like Ralphie’s little brother Randy in this movie your grandad always claimed to have loved.

You leave Sbarro just as the subterranean mall news team turns up to interview Eunice about her big win. Walking back toward Post-Apocalyptic Spencer’s you’re struck by the idea that perhaps your umbrella and its little projectiles might be worth something down here. A gun seller or umbrella seller might trade you some currency for it. It’s worth a shot. You plan to be down here for a long time, and you could use all the leg up you can get.

You’ve now come back to the atrium welcome center. Kimberly or something stands ready to meet the next visitor, looking as dead inside as ever.

“Hi, I wonder if I might have my umbrella and bandoleer back.”

“Sure, do you have a claim ticket?”

“Well I can see them.” You point. “They’re the only umbrella and bandoleer back there.”

“But without a claim ticket…”

Just then, a tube spits another unwitting visitor onto the bed of soft pillows. Kimberly or something gets ready to give her speech, which by this point has become so rote as to be nearly autonomic.

“Hi. My name is Kimberly or something. Kimberly or something the impeccably uniformed, impeccably clean mall greeter…”

You seize the moment to reach over the counter and grab your things. Kimberly or something is incapable of stopping her programming to alter course and respond.

You turn round to see that the visitor is in fact your old friend, the post office assassin from chapter one. He rises from the pillows and dusts himself off.

You throw him a wave. “What brings you here?”

“Welcome to non-Muto Mall,” Kimberly or something carries on, “where if you have any type of bionic implant or bovine mammaries protruding from you, you’re more than welcome to refrain from being here…”

“Just here on business!” says the assassin with a warm smile. “You know the saying, ‘rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail…’”

“Well if you’re hungry, the blue calzone at Gelatinosbarro gets my highest…”

And here the assassin draws his gun from his breast pocket, takes aim at Kimberly or something, and shoots her between the eyes.

“…built this underground consumer paaaaaa…” And with a paaaaaaaaaa that continued all the way onto her back, Kimberly or something became Kimberly or nothing.

“Kim—! What the—?! What’d you do that for?!”

“‘Fraid she had a credit card offer waiting to be picked up.”

“Credit… card… offer?”

“And one of those pesky political circulars. I always bin those straight away myself.”

You know how in your grandad’s old JRPGs, sometimes someone will just say dot-dot-dot? This is precisely what you say here.

“Well I’ve worked myself up quite an appetite!” The assassin smiles as he puts his gun away. “What were you saying about that calzone?”

Still staring at Kimberly, you point vaguely toward Sbarro, where you don’t realize it but the Mayor of non-Muto Mall is giving Eunice the key to the city.

“Oh but let me check my next contract here real quick!” says the assassin, and is careful to act all showy as he pulls out his pocket watch. Flipping it open, he reveals a hologram—the rotating bust of a very frightened, very pathetic-looking… you.

“The post office,” he says theatrically, “only gives us half an hour for lunch. See you soon!”

And with that, he snaps the thing closed, stuffs his hands into his pockets, and strolls off to the food court, merrily whistling that Four Non-Blondes chorus.

Do You:

A. Shit yourself.

B. Get the f*** back up to the surface. Of course you have no idea how. As far as you can tell, the tubes only go one way, and it doesn’t seem as though anyone down here would have the faintest notion how to leave even if they wanted to. Well, maybe Kimberly or something, but she was otherwise unoccupied, as it were.

C. First at least try to pick up the old man’s inflatable doll from Post-Apocalyptic Spencer’s. You had rather bonded after looking around together, and you hated the idea of going to all this trouble only to come back empty-handed. That is, if you did come back at all. But surely the last thing the assassin would expect you to do while running for your life would be to pop in for a little retail therapy. Could be the best way to lose him.

D. You’ve got the umbrella and bandoleer. Figure out how it’s all meant to work, run in guns blazin’, and give him a shootout John Woo would be proud of. As proud as your grandad for seeing you mentioned in the same sentence as John Woo.

The voting period for this chapter has ended.