Minister Faust by From the Notebooks of Dr Brain (v4.0) (html) Read Free Book Online Page B

him to the F*L*A*C for that cracker-ass crack—”
    “Listen, sonny, those two heroes—yes, heroes, ” said Festus, “were wounded terribly in the line of duty. Mentally poisoned, probably by the Destroyer—but possibly by L-Raunzenu. But even given the awesome extent of their mental damage, they would never, I’ll say that again, never plot against our Founder.”
    “Even though both of them plotted to kill the rest of you—”
    “Even if they did, which was never proven in court—”
    “Come on! Hawk King recruited them into the original F*O*O*J, and he used the Udjat to uncover their plot! He built ’em up and he took ’em down. Don’t you think that in their current state they might just want revenge?”
    “Why now, Edgerton? Can you answer me that? Why would they or anyone else want to move on Hawk King now ?”
    “You’re the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Detective. Why don’t you tell me?”
    “Damn, dawg,” said the Brotherfly, “fuck this.”

    Stages of Grief: Boundless Contempt

    E ven Hnossi Icegaard’s lips parted at that outburst. Even more than Power Grrrl, André Parker, HKA the Brotherfly, was the most fun-loving, unflappable, and glibly superficial member of the group. Because no one could have expected his reaction or even his capacity for deep feelings, no one spoke—not even Kareem or Festus, at whom the intense psychemotional verbalization was targeted.
    “André?” I asked. “You just psychemotionally verbalized intensely, targeting Kareem and Mr. Piltdown. Can you tell me about that?”
    “I mean, bzzzt, Doc,” said André. “Look, I’ont know about them fools, but fuh real, the King was the shit, knawm sayn?”
    “So…you disliked him, then?”
    “Naw, Doc— the shit, see, that means ‘good’—”
    The Flying Squirrel: “Then for the love of Greenspan, could you simply goddamned say that?”
    “Festus, please. André, continue,” I said. “You were saying that in your view, Hawk King was ‘the shit.’ ”
    “Damn skippy, Doc,” he said. “I was actually blessed to meet the King when I was just a shorty, like, back in ’82? I was one of twenny-fi schoolkids—our class won a contest for essay writin—‘Why would you like to meet Hawk King?’, you knawm sayn? I mean, he’d already been up in his self-imposed exile an shit for, like, seven years by then—ain’no kids getting to go t’see the King no how, but, like, we was, son. Just about to turn thirteen, an I get to meet the King!
    “So us an Miss Jackson, we take the ferry over to Sunhawk Island, his Ka-Sentinels guiding us through the gates, then through the portal of the Blue Pyramid, down the shafts, up the shafts, right up into his Celestial Chamber…all them turquoise hieroglyphics on them black-silver walls, movin like they alive, like they talkin to each other an the stars.
    “An he sittin there right in the middle, right on his Sapphire Star Throne, like a sunrise in space, knawm sayn? Golden beak, black body, hands holdin on to his maces an shit…but the eyes. Never forget them eyes. Whole room was hummin, vibratin, an them eyes, like radio transmitters beamin inside my spine.
    “Changed my life, dawg, goin there. I still dream about it, every week since I was a kid for like thirteen-fourteen years, of havin the chance, the blessin, you knawm sayn? to go back. But…y’know, thangs don’always work out how we want.”
    He cleared his throat.
    “Anyway, I made up my mind right then—” he said, crackling an electrical charge between his antennae for emphasis without even saying bzzzt!, “I was gon be a superhero. Man changed my life. I owe him. We all owe him.
    “An now…he’s dead. An my aunt, she’s, she just—look, it’s like, after my…my uncle died…the King was the one thing in the world she could count on that would always make things right, knawm sayn? But now she caint stop cryin. You hear me?”
    He shook his head, then jutted one antenna each in the