Dave captchalogued his KATANA (2+1+2+1+2+1 = 9%10 = 9) and prepared to venture out into the apartment to retrieve his bro's copy of the game.
But first, maybe…just maybe he would retrieve the dead bird.
He looked down and out the window of his top floor apartment. The bird and the game copies lay down on top of a part of the building that was jutting out seven stories below.
Dude that bird was long gone. It probably wouldn't last long in this heat anyway.
The sky above the city was a mixture of burnt orange and red, as small meteors rained down to the ground below.
Dave didn't even know what was up with this sick heat. The sun threatened to set but wouldn't step off. It was staring him down, like the big red eye of a hot needle skipping on a groove it was tracing 'round the earth. While lingering in midair its heat seemed to suspend time itself, stretching it like a warped vinyl. It was meant to rain this season but there ain't been a drop in sight. Even a little drizzle would have helped. Might have helped to fizzle this sizzle a little bizzle, set the record straight on this global turn-tizzle.
"So don't change the dizzle, turn it up a little
I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles
Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle
G's to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo
When the pimp's in the crib ma
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot…"
- English Romantic poet, John Keats
Exiting his room, Dave made his way toward the living room.
Blocking the door, however, was a puppet hanging from the ceiling.
"Sorry little dude, coming through. Gotta put you down for a bit" He told it as he took down the puppet, placing it on the floor in a sitting position. He figured he had left him hanging long enough.
He then barged in through the door and stood in the living room. Bro spent most of his days in here. At night he crashed on the futon over there. Dave didn't see him anywhere now though.
Behind the futon was the puppet chest which Bro stored Lil' Cal in when he took him out on gigs. But when he was home he usually left Cal on display somewhere. And with good reason cause Cal was totally sweet.
So sweet.
Man.
It was then that Dave noticed a familiar face. A friendly face.
It was his brother's Mr. T puppet, which of course was kept in the apartment with a sense of profound humorous irony. But as usual with Bro's exploits, this was no ordinary irony, or anything close to a pedestrian tier 1 ironic gesture, which was a meager single step removed from sincerity. This was like ten levels of irony removed from the original joke. It might have been funny like eight years ago to joke about Mr. T and how he was sort of lame, but that was the very thing that made him awesome and badass, and that his awesomeness was also sort of the joke. But in this case, the joke was the joke, and that degree of irony itself was also the joke, and so on.
Only highly adept satirical ninjas like Dave and his bro could appreciate stuff like this. It was cool taking stuff that other people thought was funny but they knew really wasn't, and making it funny again by adding subtle strata of irony which were literally undetectable to the untrained eye.
Also, for good measure, Mr. T was wearing a leather thong and handcuffed to a pantsless Chuck Norris puppet.
God, Dave hoped he could be as good as his bro at this someday. He'd never tell him that though.
Dave thought he should probably find Lil' Cal and give him fistbumps, but Cal was nowhere in sight. All he could see were a bunch of his bro's weird nude puppets strewn around haphazardly.
He…he guessed these things were kinda cool. Sort of…
It looked like Bro had been playing on the Xbox, as indicated by what was currently displayed on the TV. It wasn't like him to leave in the middle of some totally intense gaming. It was not like him to misplace Cal either…man Dave hoped the little guy was alright.
He turned around and had to repress his alarm at seeing that Cal was in fact sitting atop the large speaker next to the TV.
"Oh there you are dude. Didn't see you there." Dave said. "We be chill today, Cal? Yeah you better fuckin' believe we be chill."
Cal was the man.
Dave turned his attention back to what was playing on the screen and tried to resist the urge to play Bro's Xbox, but failed.
He started thrashing up stunts something uncannybrutal on his quest for "MAD SNACKS YO" and got this way rude hunger under control as he guided the skateboarder to collect various chips and doritos littered about the skate park. Shit was basically flying off the hook. It was like shit wanted nothing to do with that hook. The hook was dead to that shit.
But he got stuck in some poorly modelled 3D fixture or something. Like a railing or a piece of the wall? He would have to reset.
Fuck this shit.
Dave realized he had almost forgotten to give Lil' Cal a fistbump and promptly did so. Gotta give the C-man some props.
Elsewhere throughout the room, Bro had so much sweet gear it was hard to keep up with it all sometimes. Such as his computer setup. He usually had a lot of stuff cooking on there at any given moment.
Since he wasn't around, Dave thought he might as well sneak a peep.
Bro's computer was password protected though of course to protect all the incredible top secret shit he had on the burners.
Of course, Dave knew what the password was, and Bro knew he knew it, and they were both cool with that because the password was the most awesome thing it could be.
He entered the six-key password. On the desktop was a hodgepodge of unnamed folders to store all the stuff he was working on. No one could decipher his organization system but him.
Bro also tended to use the application Complete Bullshit to keep up with the ludicrous amount of websites and news feeds he monitored to stay hip to the scene.
Dave opened it up and was met with a vast array of fluorescent vertical columns, each representing a different site.
This was complete bullshit.
Bro kept up with Dave's projects in his aggregator, just like Dave kept up with his. He had tuned into Dave's various blogs, and of course "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff."
Dave navigated to the latest comic in one of the many Bullshit Feedbands.
In this adventure, Hella Jeff had come into the possession of a ticket to the BIG GAME in sports, and Sweet Bro was so jealous. At the game, the big man drove the rock "SO HARD threw the paint DOWN TOWN" until he "ahlly'yooped" for the SLAM DUNK.
The level of excitement in this comic was off th charps.
Dave moved his mouse over the orange stripe on the app containing Plush Rump, another one of his bro's many ironic websites. The difference here though was he raked in thousands of dollars a month through this enterprise.
Smuppets were a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise, and it was awfully hard to resist taking a firm squeeze from the plump udder of that cash cow.
On the site, Bro advertised a "free tour" through the puppet cams and at the top had a section to navigate the various pages. Such as Gallery, Live Video, Marionette, Bunraku, Plush, Foam, Felt and more.
But Dave guess he'd messed around on Bro's computer long enough, and he had better get a move on before it was too late for Rose, or worse yet, his bro caught him.
But my God…the rumps. They were transfixing.
He knew this was ironic and all, and his bro reached echelons of irony Dave could only dream of daring to fathom, but on rare occasions, when his guard was down, it all just seemed a tad unsettling to him.
Dave glanced to the other large speaker by him and noticed that Lil' Cal was now sitting atop this one.
"Oh. Uh…Hey…Hey there, Cal." Dave nervously reached out to give the puppet another fist bump.
He looked around the room at all his bro's memorabilia and began to feel a bit uneasy. He was sort of starting to flip the fuck out.
Without losing his cool of course.
To ease his nerves a little, he decided to get Egbert on the line again to give him the lowdown on his progress. He felt it was important to keep the wires hot.
But John wasn't answering. Dave wondered what that guy was up to.
TG: hey what is up
TG: what happened with the monster that is totally definitely in your room did you kill it
TG: where are you man
TG: anyway
TG: things are cool here
TG: totally cool
TG: puppets are still awesome
TG: no problems with them or anything
TG: like
TG: just
TG: really really awesome
Giving up on John for the time being, Dave saw that Rose was finally logged in again.
'Didn't John say her house was burning down?' He wondered if she was on fire yet or what.
TG: oh there you are
TG: john said your house was burning down are you on fire yet or what
TT: No. For now I have retired to the safety of a smaller building which is much closer to the forest fire threatening my residence.
TG: oh well thats a relief
TG: john told me to get the game to help get you out of there so im working on that now
TT: Working on it?
TG: yeah my bros copy long story
TG: hey
TG: dont tell john this but i think he might have been right about the puppets
TG: theyre sort of starting to freak me out a little
TT: You're referring to your brother's collection?
TG: i mean dont get me wrong i think its cool and all
TG: the semi-ironic puppet thing or whatever
TG: or semi-semi ironic
TG: man i dont even know
TG: im just starting to think some of this shit is going a little far and its kind of fucked up
TT: I've seen his websites.
TT: I like them.
TG: haha yeah well YOU WOULD
TG: oh man i wish lil cal wouldnt look at me like that
TG: with those dead eyes jesus
TG: sometimes i dream that hes real and hes talking to me and i wake up in a cold sweat and basically flip the fuck out
TT: Interesting...
TG: oh god why did i just tell you my dream
TG: youre going to have a field day with that
TT: I am currently scrawling notes furiously into one of the many psychoanalysis journals I maintain for you. Published papers forthcoming.
TT: Because, you know, it's not like either of us have anything better to do at the moment than to evaluate each other's radically debilitating pathologies.
TG: yeah im gonna get moving
TG: oh have you heard from john
TG: hes not answering me
TT: He won't answer me either.
TT: But I am watching him.
TT: I suspect he is preoccupied with the fact that he just had a bucket of water dumped on his head by the ghost of his dead grandmother, who also happens to be dressed like a clown.
TG: hahahahaha
TG: alright im out
TG: later
Seconds in the future, but not many…Rose was still attempting to cause an end to John's hissy fit by thumping him repeatedly in the head with the red box, but it did not seem to be working.
TT: John, what are you doing?
TT: Snap out of it.
TT: We ought to discuss what your grandmother told you, don't you think?
TT: Fine. Enjoy your stupor.
TT: I'll go about my business elsewhere.
Downstairs, in Dad's study, Rose moved the piano out of the way to deploy the Punch Designix, at the cost of 4 units of Shale.
TT: John, whenever you read this, you should know I put the shale you collected to use and finally deployed the Punch Designix.
TT: It is in your study.
TT: I can only drop it though. You'll have to be the one to mess around with it and see what it does.
TT: When you're finished with your weird histrionics, maybe you could give it a try?
TT: I'm updating my walkthrough, and it would help to know what it does.
TT: Also, I should probably warn you that your house and yard are completely infested with monsters now. Try to be careful.
John had stopped what he was doing and looked out the window at all the imps in his yard with disdain.
EB: so i can see.
EB: stupid lousy imps.
EB: they're mucking up all my cool stuff!
TT: Oh, there you are.
EB: oh, yeah.
EB: sorry!
EB: i'm not sure what came over me there, i was acting really crazy for some reason.
EB: but my head feels like it's clearing up, i think i'm alright now.
He then picked up the broken claw hammer and rebuilt it, adding it to his strife specibus. He was getting better at this sort of thing.
Thank God John's sanity had returned so he could entertain extremely rational, coherent thoughts like confronting the pogo ride to prepare himself for Nanna.
He went into the bathroom and examined the pogo ride from the window, and angrily shook his fist at the scene before him. He did not like what he saw.
Outside, the imps had taken over the back yard, and one was riding on the pogo!
Those sons of bitches. No one risked painful injury on John's green slime ghost pogo ride.
No one but him.
Rose used the cursor to pick up the piano and drop it on the imp. This resulted in the piano breaking, but it did manage to kill the imp, causing it to explode into grist.
John's mouth hung open as he watched from the window.
EB: rose my piano!
EB: :C
TT: Sorry.
TT: No nuance to these controls at all.
TT: I was hoping to bludgeon the imp without letting go of it. Guess I can't really do that.
TT: A broken piano isn't the end of the world though.
EB: i guess you're right.
TT: You'll need to pick up the spoils in person. I can't interact with the grist.
EB: so...
EB: that means i have to go out the back door?
TT: Yes. Is there a problem?
EB: well it may sound dumb, but i was hoping to avoid nanna and her spooky ghost cookies.
TT: You're right, that does sound dumb.
EB: can you see her in the kitchen?
TT: Yeah.
EB: what's she doing, is she baking?
TT: You could say that.
EB: are you SURE you can't get that grist up to me somehow?
TT: Maybe.
In an effort to help John avoid going downstairs, Rose tried bouncing the pogo ride to fling the grist through the window, but it didn't look like that grist was going anywhere.
You just never knew with these gaming abstractions.
Instead, she opted to pick up the entire pogo ride and place it in the tub in John's bathroom.
He happily collected the two pieces of grist.
TT: There you go.
TT: Now why don't you check out the Designix?
TT: You can do that while I get to work.
EB: on what?
Outside, Rose was building a staircase from the platform she had made earlier up to another small platform level with the top of the house's roof.
TT: Nanna said to build, so that's what I'm doing.
EB: oh yeah. ok.
TT: But this sure is going to take a lot of grist.
TT: Looks like you're going to be busy, John.
EB: blargh!
EB: well, what are you building?
TT: Stairs.
TT: They are fairly expensive actually.
EB: oh man...
EB: i could have warned you about stairs, rose!
TT: I'll try recouping some of the grist from the catwalk I built earlier.
EB: IT KEEPS HAPENING
TT: Ah, good. Looks like I can get a refund for earlier allocations.
EB: i told you rose
EB: i TOLD you about stairs!
Rose chuckled to herself at John's references to one of Dave's "Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff" comics.
TT: Ok.
TT: Consider me fully briefed on the matter of stairs.
TT: Now if you don't mind, it's hard enough to concentrate on this without immersing ourselves in Strider's non sequitur.
EB: did you know he thinks puppets are cool?
TT: Does he?
EB: he's so dumb!
Next, Rose used the Build Grist to construct a larger platform on top of the roof and connected it to the stairs she had just built previously.
Obviously she didn't have enough grist yet for something as ambitious as say, an observation tower, but she could get started with something of a foundation for upward construction at least.