Torrent of Obscenity!

Steve Torrent stared at the television.

The screen was showing a blank sheet of blue, as when modern tuners and/or VCRs are only getting static.

The cable was out.

It had been out for the past hour, and Steve had been staring that long, thinking to himself that at any second it would come back.

Suddenly, the phone rang, breaking the silence.



Steve picked it up with an annoyed hiss "hello?".

"Is your cable out too?", inquired his next door neighbor Susan.

"Yep", Steve replied.

"Well, I've called the cable company, and they said they're working on the lines".

"Ah", mumbled Steve.

"Well, I just wanted to see if yours was out too, or if was just me".

"Alright then".

"Bye".

"Bye".

God, Steve hated Susan, what a boring whore she was.

"Well, I guess I could go masturbate", said Steve aloud to no one in particular.

20 minutes later, Steve had long since finished masturbating, and the cable was still out, so he decided gloomily to go out for some fresh air.

As he walked down his driveway, and out onto the street, he observed how lovely the clouds were.
The kind of clouds that writers with expansive vocabularies, and pretentions to match, go on about for at least 5 pages.

Steve didn't care.
Fuck the clouds.

And fuck the cable company while he was at it.

"Y'know, I just might do that", he blurted out.

"Do what?", said Susan from her living room window, as Steve was now walking past her front yard.

"Shuddup".

"..oh.....okay then....", Susan stammared.

So, it was settled, Steve was going to go fuck the cable company.

"Cable's back on", said Susan.

So, Steve abruptly decided to abandon his plan, and ran like a man trying to stop his child from going over a cliff back inside his house.

All that was on that was remotly interesting was "Spies like us", on Comedy Central, wich Steve had seen 6 times, and had hated the first time.
Steve watched it anyway.

Almost near the end, the emergency broadcast system cut in.

"Muthafugga", grumbled Steve.

He turned off the TV, and headed to the bathroom to do some more masturbating.

That's right about when when the mushroom clouds blossomed.


Steve Torrent stared out the bathroom window.

He observed how lovely the mushroom clouds were.
The kind of mushroom clouds that those pretentious wordsmithing type writers go on about until they fill a coffee table book about Hiroshima.
The kind of coffee table book about Hiroshima you always get re-gifted for christmas from a distant cousin who doesn't give a damn, and then you end up re-re-gifting to the black sheep of the family.
The kind that was sitting on Steve's coffee table.

Steve didn't care.
Fuck the clouds.

The bathoom mirror was showing a blank sheet of blue, as when modern tuners and/or VCRs are only getting static.

Well, that coudn't be good.

It had been out for the past hour, and Steve had been staring that long, thinking to himself that at any second it would come back.

Suddenly, the phone rang, breaking the silence.

Steve picked it up with an annoyed mumbled curse.
"Hello?".

It was the usual crap.
Telemarketer sobbing his way through his scripted spiel.
Women screaming.
Weird baby noises from hell.

"Yep", Steve replied, not really paying attention.

Telemarketer still sobbing.
Something gurgling menacingly in the background.
That creepy little girl singing they put in horror movies.

"Ah", mumbled Steve.

Clanking of chains.
Hogs squealing.
Civil war ghosts singing some battle anthem.

"Alright then".

"Help us!".

"Bye".

God, Steve hated telemarketers, what with always calling at the worst possible time and all.

Steve went to hang up the phone, but it melted in his hand, and oozed between his fingers.

Just as well, he thought.

Steve went back to the bathroom to wash his hand, and to see how the mirror was doing.
The picture was back, but that reanimated mummified kid from his nightmares was staring back at him, so, losing patience, and all interest, he again decided gloomily to go out for some fresh air.

As he walked down his driveway, and out onto the street, he observed once again how lovely the clouds were.
And how there were all kinds of dead things in his yard.
Birds, bugs, housepets, about what one would expect.

Steve made a mental note about how he had never really noticed how many critters there were whizzing about at any one time until they were brought all together in one place by sudden snapshot death like this.

He also noticed Susan's house was ablaze, and nothing was moving inside.

"Good", he muttered with a satisfied smirk.

So, with that, he contemplated hopping into the car to make a beer run.

But instead, he opted to fly to the store with the array of super powers he had discovered while masturbating during the bombing.

A more wordy poetic person may have ruminated more about the experience of flying, but Steve had a goal, and preferred to focus on that.

When he got to the variety store, and made his way past the other looters, the only beer left was Budweiser.

No Colt 45, no Sam Adam's spring ale, no nothing.
Just stinkin' Budweiser.
Goddamned pisswater.

Steve did something he normally didn't do.

He fell to his knees and wept.
Wept in gut wracking hyperventilating sobs like a little boy.
No spring ale.
Christ.



Steve Torrent woke up in a cold sweat.

Christ, that dream had been real.

Suddenly, his survivalist instincts kicked into gear as he hurled off the sweat drenched covers, and ran like a madman to the kitchen.

He hurled open the refrigerator door to discover to his relief that he indeed had plenty of Sam Adams Spring Ale.

He collapsed right there on the kitchen floor, and wept with relief for about 15 minutes.

Eventually, he fell back to sleep in the living room recliner, but only ater having packed away 3 of his precious Spring Ales.

Dean Koontz could have his bloody Guiness Stout.

Sam Adams spring ale was DELICIOUS.
Guinness, not so much.
To put it nicely, wich Steve wouldn't have.

Steve dreamt of Dean Koontz being boiled alive in a big cauldron in Hell in a bubbling broth of Guiness by the fat guy from "Pee Wee's Big Adventure".
He slept like a lamb.
He slept the sleep of the just.
Clutching an empty Sam Adams bottle like a teddy bear.

End part 1.

Dick Cheny sat at his desk in a small office deep in the bowels of his bunker fortress.
In front of him, on his desk, was a small pile of file folders splayed out in order of interest.
The file on top, wich most drew his attention, was a file on possibly reviving "project shazam", to help in the fight against Al Queda.

Cheny looked up from the file "are you sure we can pull this off, Tim?".

Tim Waverly, former chief administrator of project shazam, crinkled his 50-something black-ops sociopath face into an unnatural creepy grin.

"Sure Dick, nothing to it. The procedure is simple, and the survival rate is pretty good. We've refined it over the years since Vietnam, and our scientists tell me we've got pretty much all the bugs worked out".

Cheny shook his head, and exhaled through his teeth in in awed wonder "and to think we once had our own superheroes".

"And we can have them again, and as many as we want", Waverly beamed while still displaying his incincere mummified rictus.

Colin Powell spoke up from the corner of the room " well, you'd better have 'refined the process', the last batch gradually lost their powers, went insane, and killed themselves".

"Not all of them", Waverly injected.

"Oh yes, there was the ONE, and he's a pathetic drunken degenerate".

"Look, as I said, we've improved the process since 'nam, we won't have such a high casualty rate this time", Waverly whipped his head to the left to face Cheny "give us a chance, Dick! The process works, it's safe, and we've got some great recruits lined up. Whaddya say?".

Cheny scribbled his signature in the right blanks, making sure to push hard enough to activate the carbon papers (of course) "let's roll", he said with a crackly mummy grin of his own.


Steve Torrent sat out on the veranda, sipping his mixed drink of indeterminate nature.
The clouds hung overhead tinged pink by the setting sun.

"Kool-Aid clouds", he had called them as a child.

Steve decided he actually felt good about it.
He liked Kool-Aid clouds.
Mushroom clouds, not so much.
But Kool-Aid clouds pleased him.
Reminded him of Bill Alexander paintings.

Suddenly, Steve heard a helicopter off in the distance.

He tried to tune it out, and meditate deeply, imagining himself riding one of the Kool-Aid clouds like a magic carpet.

But that damned helicopter just kept getting louder.

Soon, it was REALLY loud.
In an ominous way that told Steve it was about to land in his back yard.

Helicopter coming in for a landing in the back yard, that couldn't be good.
Past experince had tought Steve this.

Sure enough, the helicopter started coming in closer, and closer.
Louder and obnoxiously louder it's motor noise bacame, until the windows shook.

Finally, it wobbled to a landing.
His back yard was juuuust big enough for it to land in. Whoever was piloting it was damned good.

"Yep, black helicopter, not good, government, life's probably ruined, have to wait and see though", Steve mumbled to himself.

Tim Waverly got out of the copter.
"Yep, life's ruined alright, fuck", mumbled Steve sadly.

"Well, nothing to do but face the firing squad, here goes", Steve grunted with determination, as he stepped foreward to meet Waverly.

"Steve Torrent! Damn, it's been a long time, hasn't it old friend?", Waverly said with that phony mummy grin of his whilst extending his knobby kuckled old grim reaper hand for a shake.

Steve took the hand and gave it a couple quick pumps before letting go as quick as possible while at the same time not looking like he was hurling it away like a radioactive dog turd, wich was how he felt about shaking Waverly's evil talon.

"So, can I get you a drink?", Steve offered lazily, as if selecting from a computerized menu of lame pleasentries.

"No, that's okay, I prefer to get right down to business if you don't mind", Waverly said condescendingly.

"Alrighty then", Steve demurred.

Steve showed Waverly in through the sliding back door with an over dramatic Vanna White prize disply wave.

"You old piece of death! Trip and fall and break your hip. Come on, fall! Fall you bastard", Steve mentally hissed.

No dice, Waverly navigated the step up through the door just fine.

"Well, might as well go in and see what his 'business', is.
The fucking old reptile", Steve thought with a stomach yanking sense of morbid doom.


Tim Waverly looked at the man who had once been Earth's mightiest hero.

Pot bellied, bald as Kojak, bad posture, stubble faced, shuffling around in pajamas and a robe in the middle of the afternoon, and with a perpetual sneer on his lips as if he was always about to say "fuck you", to the world in general.

Steve raised his eyebrow, and widened his smirk "so, what's this all about? Bottle drive, Tom Watts, bowl-a-rama pledges"?

Waverly shrugged it off "your government needs you again".

Steve breathed a faint chuckle and sarcasticly parodied a line from Rambo "oh geez cap, can we get to WIN this time"?

Waverly raised HIS eyebrow this time "I don't see how you can be so bitter, look at what your government has given you, the juice has turned out to be a fountain of youth for you! Sure, you've abused yourself so you look like a man of 30 who looks like a man of 50, but the point is, you'd look a hell of a lot worse if you physically WERE 50 like you're supposed to be".

"Yeah, I get comments from my beautician all the time. Look, get to the point, why do you want my washed up obsolete zitty ass back in project shazam?", Steve paused in thought "something's gone wrong hasn't it? You've fucked up royally, and I've got to pull your ass out of the fire before the Prez finds out".

Waverly flinched.

"That's IT isn't it? So, what happened, another of your secret wars in South America got a little bloodier than expected, so you need Captain Blam to swoop in to save the day?"

"Something vaguely like that", Waverly said with a perfect poker face.
Waverly set his briefcase on the kitchen table, and opened it; suddenly, with a flicker of a few green LEDs, a 3-D hologram of Earth formed above the briefcase.

Steve grinned "nice toy, very Return Of The Jedi".

Waverly pulled a remote control out of the briefcase, and tapped a few buttons.
A spot in the Atlantic Ocean zoomed in until a tiny island became visible.

"As you've no doubt guessed, thanks to this whole Al-Qaeda business, the U.S. government has reactivated project shazam.
We used a new improved version of the juice to create a whole platoon of super soldiers.
Our intelligence told us that this island was being used as a base of operations for several cells of Al-Qaeda.
We sent in our Squadron Superior to bust it up. Unfortunately, the same old troublesome side effects of the juice came into play, and they all became homicidal berserkers.
Sure, they killed all the Al-Qaeda agents, went through 'em like butter, but then they kept on going from there, and now they've made themselves the warlords of this island. We've since lost contact, and one can only guess what they're plotting now".

Steve rubbed the bridge of his nose "I get it now, and since I'm the only one who has a freak immunity to the side effects of the juice, you want me to power up, and beat the super villains".

"Precisely", Waverly said with a grin.
That hideous grin.

Steve let out a morbid sigh "just what I need, more nightmare fuel".

Waverly blinked, and Steve could have swore he saw a third eyelid "will you help?", he asked in that phony elementary school counselor voice that all authority figures, self imagined or otherwise seemed to have been trained in from the age of six.

Steve rolled his eyes "what choice do I really have? Sign me up, and dose me up, I'll kill your malfunctioning toy soldiers for you before they pull a Dr. Doom on the planet. You'll save face with the big boss, I'll get to see the world, and collect some knick-knacks, maybe get a T-shirt, everyone's happy".

Waverly gave another of those ugly grins "excellent", he tapped some more buttons on his remote. The image of the Earth was replaced by an animation of a man being injected in the spine by an automated armiture "we've made a lot of improvements, and you'll be glad to know you won't have to withstand the spinal injections to recieve the juice".

Steve rolled his eyes again and smirked "goody".

Waverly continued "since you still have your neo-organs in place...", Waverly pressed some buttons, and the holographic man's abdomen became transparent, and then the image zoomed in so only the abdomen was visible. Then, the neo-organs in question lit up in day-glo green "...you needn't have to go through metabolizing the catylizing agent again. So, all you need to do now to reactivate your old powers is to take the juice, wich as I said has been improved apon, so you can either take it orally, or intraveinously".

Steve raised a hand "orally".

Waverly nodded "fine", he slid a box over to Steve "it's the same formula either way, you can empty the syringes into a drink, or dribble it right into your mouth. I'd recommend putting it into a drink myself, I hear it's nasty. Anyway, standard rules apply, take the juice, get a boost. Boost lasts 2-3 hours, side effects...well, you know about".

"Yeppers".

Waverly pulled out a piece of scrap paper, and jotted down something "so, show up at this address tommorrow morning at the time specified, and we'll give you the details of the operation, your equipment, and your particular objectives".

Steve gave a phony grin to match Waverly's "super, can't wait to get started".

They exchanged a few more fake pleasantires, and Waverly was escorted by goons back to the helicopter, and it took off.

"Fucken-a", Steve grumbled "I gotta get up at 8:00? Who's together by then?".


Steve pulled up his pants, and zipped his fly.

"Don't you be a stranger now, Steve", Susan said with a playful grin.

Steve tuned her out "say, did you see where my other shoe went?"

Susan reached underneath her 400 pound girth, and dug out Steve's shoe from a mystery fold "ah, here you go", she tossed it to him.

Steve caught it in mid air "yeah, thanks. So, same time next month?".

"If you want, but by my count, you're payed up for 3 months, but you can come by anytime you want".

"I'll take that under consideration", Steve lied.
Steve checked his watch "well, I gotta get up early tommorrow, starting a new job y'see".

Steve bolted out as casually as he could.

Well, at last the 'rent', was all paid up.

He had used the juice to make sure he had payed up extra in case he was gone longer than expected.

Oh lordy, how he hated 'rent' day.


Part 3.

In a way, Steve was glad to get several miles between him, and Obscenity Wyoming, but he'd always hoped it would be aboard a plane to Hawaii, or in an oversized casket.

Ah well, blackmail indentured black ops atomic supermen can't be choosers.

Steve listened to the soothing rythm of the train tracks, wich really wasn't soothing, because he was on a plane.

Staring out the window, he looked at the clouds.
"Clouds don't have to worry about tax returns, and staying clothed in public, they just go where the wind takes 'em", Steve whispered sadly.

Steve caught a couple hours of fitful shallow sleep, before the trouble happened.

He was awoken by alarm claxons, and people running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

He looked out the window, and saw the funnel of a big ass, mean ass tornado.
An angry savage motherfucker of a tornado.
The kind of tornado his dad had labeled "the eggbeater of God".
Christ, his dad said some stupid shit.

After calmly watching the captain throw a desperate tear soaked fuck into the stewardess for a couple minutes, he suddenly remembered the syringes of juice he had stored in one of the inner pockets of this denim jacket.

He pulled three of them out, and also pulled out his flask of rum he kept in the other pocket.
Then, he emptied the syringes into the rum, tossed them aside in turn, and took a belt off the flask.

He noted that outside the window, the plane was being sucked into the funnel of the tornado, and inside it's very heart there appeared to be an apature of purplish energy.

Just then, the effects of the juice started to hit him, and the victory theme from Popeye began to play in his head.

He looked out the window again, and the plane had long since passed into the purple vortex, and all kinds of trippy psychedelic energy patterns were swirling about, and buffetting the plane.

Steve guessed it really DIDN'T pay to take a shortcut through the Bermuda Triangle.

Steve felt a burning fevery itchy sensation, and noted that his muscles were enlarging, and his pot belly was metabolizing away like a warped version of a Charles Atlas ad on the back of a comic book.

Luckily for Steve, his polarized invulnerabilty aura had kicked in to full power, because just then, the plane ripped apart like a wet cardboard box in a wind tunnel.

As he was hurled about like a superball amongst the plasmatic paisleys of the Bermuda Triangle's wormhole, he suddenly remembered that he forgot to activate his VCR program to tape Osbournes before he left the house.

"Fuck!".


Tim Waverly stood anxiously at the doorway to Dick Cheny's office.

"Yes, Timington?", said Cheny.

Waverly cleared his throat "um, yeah, there's been a bit of a mess up".

Cheny adjusted his jacket "you mean worse than our super soldiers turning into super villains, and having to rely on Steve Torrent?".

Waverly thought for a second "well, let's put it this way, the good news is Steve Torrent is dead. The bad news is that Steve Torrent is dead".

Cheny sputtered "What!? How!?".

Waverly hung his head in fake empathy "freak tornado off the coast of Florida. Ate the plane like a cookie".

Cheny shook his head "well, that's just great. Well, then we'll fall back to plan B. Nuke the fucking island. Oh, and Waverly, you're fired. Security, escort Mr. Waverly to the parking lot".

"Arruuarraarrg!! Raarrr!! Snarrll!! Groooaar!!", said Waverly dissapointedly as he was dragged away.


Steve hammered the last bolt into place, stood back, and marveled at his handywork.

A steam powered spaceship.

And it had only taken 50 years, give or take a month.

Careful rationing of his remaining juice had slowed Steve's aging to a crawl, thus he'd only physically aged 17 years.
And most of that had been from the last 4 years since he'd run out of juice.

Gordon poked his head out a viewport "well cap, the problem we were having with the exhaust port is all patched up, we can take off at any time".

Gordon was the utah raptor Steve had raised from a hatchling.
First as a pet, then as a sort of adopted son.
He had taught him to speak english, then how to read and write, then math all the way up to calculus, physics, chemistry, melalurgy, and anything else he could think of.

Having Gordon around to talk to not only had made the last 25 years in the Jurrassic era bearable, but his help had been invaluable in constructing this ship.

It was slow going at first, but once they had gotten the smelting forge going, and the first steam generator had been built from the metal that had produced, things had run at an inevitable pace from there.

And now it was ready for it's first flight.

"Well then, fire her up, I'm coming aboard! To the future, or bust!".


The Kool-Aid clouds hung over Steve Torrent's house as if to say "where are ya, Steve? It's time for Osbournes!".

Suddenly, with a flash of pseudo lighting, a popping like a giant pickle jar being opened, and a big whiff of ozone, Steve's starship appeared in the sky.

But not the raw junky steam driven 'spaceship' of the jurrassic era.

No, this had undergone extensive refit in visits throughout time via guided wormhole jumps.
Now, it looked like an insane Picasso/Dali-esqe Frankenstienian kitbash of several ships from at least five different SF universes.

It sported the following upgrades.

Hull and frame reinforced with advanced materials, a fusion reactor, self repair nanobots, and a food and beverage nanobuilder all from the 24th century.

Tachyonic computers, and a quantum super-position hyperdrive from the 50th century.

An emergency escape quantum digiporter from the 100th century.

Telefractal shields from the 60th century.

Quark beam guns from the 30th century.

Superstring redshifting matter dissolver warheads from the 70th century.

And finally, a cloaking device from Reticulans in the 28th century.

And to top it all off, neon green racing flames painted on the sides, and red snake eyes on the front.

Baaaad asss!

Anyhoo, the ship wobbled to a landing in Steve's back yard, and then the cloak was switched on, perfectly concealing it's existance from the neighbors (who were miraculously all at work, or shopping at the moment).

A ramp lowered from the invisible ship, and a youthful, svelt, and spritely Steve Torrent (having been medically rejuvinated in the future) ran down said ramp, and to the varanda door, and into the living room of his house.

Steve did a Jackie Chan flip into his recliner, grabbed his remote, and put the Osbournes on.

"Try and make ME miss my fucking shows will you, government, history, and laws of physics? Well, I sure fucking showed you, cocksuckas! NO ONE makes Steve Torrent miss his shows!".

Gordon and Iggy (an evolved gorilla they met and picked up in one of the distant futures) caught up with him a few minutes later.

On the first commercial break, they got their snacks together, and began their path to pot bellied slothdom.

The American fucking dream.
Aw yeah!

Part 4.

"I'm bored, let's go commit crimes", said Steve through a mouthful of Doritos.

"What sort of crimes?", inquired Iggy.

Steve swallowed his Doritos "I dunno, maybe some murders. Y'know, good ones. And maybe if we can think of a way, one that violates the laws of time".

Gordon perked up from his TV stupor "hey, the other you hasn't got on his plane yet!".

Iggy stroked his chin thoughtfully "hey yeah, we could set the other Steve free, making a paradox, just to see what happens!".

Steve's eyes bugged excitedly "yeah! And we could kill everyone in sight to free me!".

Steve, Gordon, and Iggy stood in a triangular huddle and overlapped hands.

"EXCELSIOR!!!", they screamed triumphantly in unison.

The plan was under way.

Tim Waverly was about to lead Steve Torrent to the boarding ramp onto the plane, when suddenly, he heard sounds of violent struggle, followed by screams of anguished agonizing pain.

Just as he turned to see what was going on, a flash of someone or something running past unbelievably fast flicked past his peripheral vision, immediatly followed by the feeling of having a baseball bat whammed into his abdomen wich dropped him to his knees.
In the next few seconds, the impact zone across his body began to burn, burn, burn like...a cut!
Exactly the type of burning pain along the area of a cut, a razor cut to be exact.
It wasn't a blow,..it really WAS a CUT, his mind slowly assembled.
Then, the burning began to subside a teeny fraction, as it was washed with warm gushings of frothing blood.
Then, a hot excretion like feeling as his intestines spilled out, and onto the floor.

As Waverly began to sink into blackness, he heard more screams of terror and pain, an ugly merciless wet chopping sound, and assorted small arms fire.

The last thing he saw before blackness utterly swallowed his awareness was a head of a guard, severed at the upper jaw, rolling across the floor like a novelty bowling ball.


Steve wiped his gore soaked katana blade off onto Tim Waverly's corpse.

"Man! That was some great killing! I feel better already!", he exclaimed as he nodded to Iggy to hand him the decapitation clippers.

"I agree, this is some to the best killing I've been involved with since we left the Jurrassic era", said Gordon, picking bits of flesh from his teeth, and patting his belly.

Waverly's head came off with a satisfying celery-ish crunch as the clipper blades went through the bone with one easy snip.
"Nice little gadget. Best 350 bucks I ever spent", Steve said admiringly of the decapitation clippers.

Steve picked up the head "I'm gonna have this mounted, keep it in the den maybe. What do you guys think?".

"The den's the perfect place for it", chimed in Iggy.

Gordon belched, then said "So, how are we getting home? The Mamba's digitizer, or old Steve's car?".

Old Steve spoke up "ah, that explains the resemblence, you're me from the future. Hmmm, somewhere along the line I get youthified, do I?".

Young Steve responded "Yeah, pretty much so. This could get confusing. How about I go by Steve, and we call you Torrent?".

"Good enough ", said Torrent.

"Alrighty then", said Steve with a nod.
Steve then turned to finally answer Gordon's question "I guess we could all fit in the car. I dunno, using the teleport feels like using a cheat code in a game. Losing the feds on the road seems like it would be more exciting".

"Exactly what I would have said", injected Torrent.

"Alright, by car it is", replied Gordon.

"Will all our junk fit in the trunk?", asked Iggy as he crammed Waverly's saran-wrapped head into the same duffel bag as the guns, knives, and swords".

"It should", replied Steve and Torrent simultaneously.

This time, Torrent spoke alone "anyone got to piss before we go? Cuz I ain't stopping anywhere. You? You? You? No? Okay, we're on our way then".

Part 5.

Dick Cheny was watching events unfold on Fox News.

The news helicopter was showing images of a swath of utter destruction on the interstate highway.

Crashed and exploded cars strewn about as if tossed around by a tornado.
Exploded oil trucks.
Tanks torn apart by missle fire.
Crashed and smouldering black hawk helicopters.

And out at the leading edge of this wave of destruction, Steve Torrent's rusty beat up station wagon.

Cheny shook his head "well, that's just great. Well then, we'll fall back to plan B. Nuke the fucking island".


After losing what few cops and military personel were left alive in the whole state through some rural backroads, Torrent finally made it back to his house and parked in his garage.

Torrent ran inside, and went right back to watching his shows, whereas Steve, Gordon, and Iggy beamed back aboard the Green Mamba to see about extending it's shields around the house in case they somehow had still been followed by helicopters and such.

"I think time is catching back up, this is all starting to look and feel sorta familiar", Steve remarked to Gordon in mid-beam.

Gordon merely replied with a casual "if you say so, I just want to go poop".


The smart neutron missle was on its way at supersonic speeds to the troublesome island where the super villains were based.

The missle had a neural net CPU, and answered to the name "Joey", for that is the name it had chosen for itself.

Joey whistfully contemplated what it was going to be like in missle heaven once he martyred himself to strike a blow against the mutant infadels.

He wasn't really sure he believed the whole thing, really.

But, he gloomily decided that he'd find out soon enough.


Lord Fulcrum stood in the balcony of of his fortress of ultimate wickedness.

Behind him, in the throne room, were strewn the carcasses of his former compatriots.

He had drained their lifeforce, and thus assumed their individual special powers.
Now, he had every known super power.
The only limitation was that it was excruciatingly difficult to choose wich one to use at a time.
Moments ago, he had used his plastic powers to handsome-ize his face to look like Chris Sarandon.
But what next?
That question had been tormenting him now for several hours.

This train of thought was abruptly broken by his mega hearing and magna vision revealing a nuclear missle coming in fast.

Fulcrum chuckled incredulously "oh! REALLY!?".

Fulcrum attuned his aura to explode a pocket of air around him, creating a ramjet effect hurling him up into the air, and making him build speed until he easily matched the velocity of the missle.

Within a matter of seconds, he caught up beside it, and grabbed onto it.

With a couple microscopic precision laser vision zaps, he disabled it's neural net.
Then, with a good hard shove, the trajectory of wich was guided by his magna vision, he sent it hurtling back to America.

Obscenity Wyoming to be exact.

Fulcrum levitated in place, and clucked his tongue and mumbled "sad, and that's really the best they've got too".


Torrent stared grouchily at the TV.
All that was on that was remotly interesting was "Spies like us", on Comedy Central, wich Torrent had seen 6 times, and had hated the first time.
Torrent watched it anyway.

Almost near the end, the emergency broadcast system cut in.

"Muthafugga", grumbled Torrent.

He turned off the TV, and headed to the bathroom to do some more masturbating.

That's right about when when the mushroom clouds from the multiple neutron warheads of the Fulcrum lobbed missle blossomed.

As he watched the mushroom clouds gradually dissipate, he mumbled with mildly awed recognition as the final missing pieces to a mental puzzle finally tumbled into place "Ahah! The forcefield from the cloaked ship out back! THAT'S how I survived the bombing and the radiation! That part always bugged me. Now I know! Well, that's a load off my mind".

Steve Torrent felt energized.


Part 6.

Sweet Jesus, how can you miss it!?

Steve sat watching TV in the lounge area of the Green Mamba wich he had mocked up to be an exact replica of his living room.
Well, except for the classic Asteroids, Centipede, and Gauntlet machines.

Steve reached for the remote, but suddenly, the ship shook like a washing machine, making his other arm shake his bowl of popcorn all over the place.

"Oh!! Cock....SUCKA!!", exclaimed Steve indignantly.

He ran to the Asteroids machine, fiddled with the joystick, and tapped the right combo on the buttons, and called up the external sensor screen.

There on the screen was a mushroom cloud.
Steve nodded in comprehension and calmly uttered "ah, well that would explan some things".

Steve tapped another button combo, and saw that the ship's shields had maintained a safe radiation free environment in and around Torrent's house.

He waved at the screen dismissivly and grumbled "eh, he'll be alright", then tapped another button combo, called up shield control, and shrunk the shields so they just surrounded the ship, concentrating their protection.
Another button combo, and a navigation/steering control screen came up, and Steve immediatly began flying the ship upward, and towards the projected origin point of the missle.

Iggy and Gordon raced to the lounge/bridge, and instinctivly took their positions at the Centipede and Gauntlet machines.

"Time for a little game of Global Thermal Nuclear War, fellas", Steve remarked with a sardonic smirk.

Gordon twisted his raptor face into a rough approximation of a smirk in return "how about a game of chess?".

Steve breathed a faint inaudable chuckle "not this time good buddy, maybe next time".

The Green Mamba continued to gain speed, and hurtled inexerably closer to the source of the missle.

And the source was waiting, with cold robotic patience.
Wearing Chris Sarandon's face.
And Shaq's pecker.
Just like one would expect evil incarnate to be.


Gordon craned his head to face Steve and said "wait, why don't we just use the Bermuda triangle to go back and stop the missle?".

Steve grimaced "well YEAH, we COULD if we wanted to do it the EASY way...".

Gordon stared him down.

"....oh, alright, I suppose we could", Steve completed with an accompanying eye roll.


Joey was on his way at supersonic speeds to the troublesome island where the super villains were based.

He whistfully contemplated what it was going to be like in missle heaven once he martyred himself to strike a blow against the mutant infadels.

He wasn't really sure he believed the whole thing, really.

But, he gloomily decided that he'd find out soon enough.

Suddenly, he was abruptly and violently yanked to a sudden stop.

He turned the angle of is scanner to see that a decent sized spaceship was holding him in place with a blue energy beam.

The ship was M&M shaped, and about the size of an average McDonalds.
It's finish was mostly metallic black, but on the front end it was metallic green gradiating to the black side with flames. The flames also extended along the sides.
On the green front area were what looked two red demon eyes, wich glowed in such a way as it was clear they were some kind of emitter diodes, possibly energy weapons.
In between the eyes was what looked like a spoiler.
Along the very lip of the saucer, in front of the "eyes", and spoiler, was a chrome bumper, sculpted to look like it had snake fangs.
Protruding from the ship in the back were what looked like 2 drag racing rocket turbines, and on top of each turbine, was a chrome fin. In the same general area as the turbines, but on the underside, were what appeared to be folded up legs with giant sneaker like feet.
Protruding from the front on the underside of the bumper, were small robotic arms with disproportionatly big hands.
The elbows were tucked in, and each hand was holding what appeared to be a giant revolver.
In between the arms, right under the bumper was the seam for what appeared to be a closed ramp. This ramp, combined with the fanged bumpers, was clearly meant to give the image of a mouth.
This ship was one mean mother.

Tracing the path of the tractor beam, joey saw that it was being emitted from an almost invisibly small emitter centimeters under the bumper, almost tucked under it.
He had to zoom several magnifications to get a good look at it.

Joey wasn't really enthusiastic about his mission, so he didn't struggle much as the ramp opened, and he was towed into it's bay.


Iggy stepped back from his labors at the Gauntlet console.
"I'll go deprogram the missle, I have a degree in psychiatry", he said, before jogging down to the hold.

Steve nodded, and lazily muttered "you go do that", then went back to playing Asteroids.

Steve didn't know how long he had lost himself in blasting away at Asteroids, but suddenly, the Green Mamba started to shake violently.
Steve switched the game screen over to external scanner mode.
"Ah, there's the problem, a flying Chris Sarandon in a maskless Darth Vader suit with Superman powers is beating up the ship".
Steve called up a series of menus, and keyed in the proper commands to make the external robot arms swat at Fulcrum.
"Come on, evil Chris Sarandon Superman, get off the frigging hull! Christ, this thing is worse than a bee!".

Steve fired one of the thrusters, making the ship spin, and finally hurling Fulcrum loose.

Then, he stabilized, and made the right robot arm aim it's six-shooter at Fulcrum, and fired.
The bullets of said gun were of course the superstring redshifting matter dissolver warheads from the 70th century.

The torpedo hit him dead on, and made a bright purple starburst.

Unfortunatly, when the flash cleared, Fulcrum was still there.
His invulnerability aura, magnified by the absorbed lifeforce all of the other super soldiers had protected him.
But even then, the blast had hurt like a bitch.
And now, as an inevitable result, he was pissed.
Steve could tell, because now, he looked like the vampire morphed version of Chris Sarandon from "Fright Night".

Steve did something he rarely did anymore.
He raised an eyebrow.


"Alright, fuck this shit", Steve hissed.

Steve took the ship into a dive towards Fulcrum at ramming speed, and then apon impact, made the left robot arm swoop down around Fulcrum's neck into a choke hold, effectivly making the ship tackle Fulcrum.

"Let's see how you like THIS hot chocolate, muthafuckaaa!", Steve growled with a crazed look in his eyes.

Gordon looked over from the Centipede machine "that didn't even..".

"SHUT UP, BITCH!!!", screamed Steve as he rammed the joystick foreward, sending the ship hurtling toward the Bermuda triangle.

Within 15 seconds, they penetrated the singularity.

Steve still had that creepy gleam in his eyes as he uttered "I'll just take him all the way back to the big bang, and let the cleansing light of Jesus roast his FUCKIN ass! Oh YEAH!".

Gordon backed away slowly and carefully.

Suddenly, Iggy walked in, followed by Joey the missle who was using his rocket engine on low power to hover upright.

"Well, it worked, I was able to resolve our friend's parental abuse issues, and thus was able to deprogram his indoctrination", beamed Iggy proudly.

"Lovely", Steve said, and then immediatly knocked Iggy out with a stun pulse from his portable microwaver box "now go to sleep".

Joey looked down at Iggy, then back up at Steve "geez, that wasn't very..".

Steve held up his weapon and cut him off "you want some?".

Joey made a sound like a sigh "..okay, I'll just be quiet now, and sit over here...".

Just then, Fulcrum tore the left arm of the ship off.

Steve's reflexes were quick, and he immediatly made the right arm whip around, and blast him with another superstring redshifter bullet.

Fulcrum hurtled off into the paisley void being buffeted around like a pinball.
Steve lost sight of him very quickly.

"Well, that's the end of all that", Steve said with little satisfaction.
"Time to go home".

The ride back through the wormhole was quiet and awkward.
Steve turned on some 80's music to fill the silence.

"Here we go, making our way back out", Steve suddenly announced five songs later.

"What the..!!?", Steve exclaimed.

"What?", Gordon inquired nervously.

Steve fiddled with the controls, and patched his sensor image into the big screen TV for everyone to see.

In place of the Obscenity Wyoming they knew, was a sprawling futuristic city straight out of the Star Wars prequels.

And worse, featured prominantly was a giant Liberty sized statue of Lord Fulcrum.

"Muthafugga", grumbled Steve.

He turned off the TV, and headed to the bathroom to do some more masturbating.

That's right about when when the defense fleet opened fire.


"Mah-velous!", Fulcrum chuckled to himself, as he stood with his fists on his hips, and watched admirably as a group of six fighters towed the broken hull of the Green Mamba with criss-crossed tractor beams in towards the landing strip atop his fortress.

Soon, the beaten and humiliated Steve Torrent would be brought before him in kinetic binders, and then this whole little melodrama could finally come to an end.

He titilated himself with various grand dragged out torture scenarios, but ultimatly, he realized that the dying was all that mattered.

He no longer cared if Torrent wept, or sniveled, or drown in his vomit, or cursed his forefathers and political philosophy, or whatever before his passing.
So long as he simply died.

After millenia of waiting, with rewriting history to suit him as his only pastime to ease the crushing boredom, Fulcrum just wanted it over with.


Steve Torrent began to walk down the landing strip from the battered hulk of the Green Mamba, his hands bound in bulky handcuffs, wich contained kinetic redistribution fields akin to the particle shielding on the Mamba.

Steve was followed by Gordon, then Iggy, and heading up the rear, Joey.

Just then, all three of them dissolved in a whisp of teleporter sparkles.

"What the fuck!?!?", screamed Fulcrum.

A fully repaired duplicate of the Green Mamba decloaked overhead, and then shot away, building up to mach 2 in a matter of seconds.

"Cocksuckaaaaaa!!!", wailed Fulcrum with enraged despair, as he fell to his knees, and pounded fitfully at the macadam.


Once the sparkles cleared, Steve looked around, and saw he was again on the bridge of the Green Mamba.
But, some things had changed.
For one, everything was in perfect repair again, and second some systems had been upgraded with various extra sticky-out doodads who's function he could only speculate on.

"Allow me to explain", said a voice behind him.
Steve whirled around to see yet another duplicate of himself.
This version had all his hair, but it was greying at the temples.

Steve instantly understood "ah, time travel, should have guessed", he said with a simultaneously satisfied and annoyed smirk.

The other Steve spoke "yes, I'm you from the future where I had to escape from Fulcrum, defeat him, steal back the Mamba, and do various thankless quests and monkey jobs to pay for it's repair and upgrade".

The first Steve replied "and let me guess, like everything else we get stuck doing, it took a decade or two, so you figured you'd speed up the process".

"Exactly", replied Steve-2.

"We always were impatient, weren't we?", replied Steve-1 "Hmm, say, we've got to sort out the name thing again, what should I call you?".

"Well, we haven't used my middle name yet".

"Reinhold?", okay, fine, you be Reinhold, I'll be Steve.

"Dammit, I wanted to be Steve", whined Reinhold.

Steve smirked "y'know, you'd think I'd be sympathetic, but I ain't".

"We never are", said Reinhold with a duplicate smirk.

"That's what makes us so fucking cool", said Steve, imitating Fulcrum's fist on hips pose.

"I think I may retch soon", commented Gordon.

"Shut up, Polack!", shouted Steve and Reinhold in unison.


Steve heard footsteps, and turned his head to see their source.
In walked the crew of the future Green Mamba.
A future version of Gordon with a mustache, and grey hair on his temples, a humanoid/mantid robot with a metalic navy blue finish with black trim, who Steve conjectured was a memodled version of Joey, and a short skinny blonde woman with short spiky hair, wearing a red usherette uniform, complete with organ grinder monkey hat, and white gloves.

Steve started to speak "who's..".

Reinhold interrupted him with a harsh whisper "that's our wife, Karen. We met her in this Fulcrum world", Reinhold then lowered his voice to a softer whisper "and she's into dirty Sanchez".

Steve whispered back "but I hate dirty Sanchez".

Reinhold nodded, and whispered "I still do, but she keeps asking anyway, and I keep saying no, it's really disturbing".

"Why are you telling me all this?", Steve asked.

"Just thought I'd prepare you", Reinhold said with a wink.

Reinhold then walked Steve over, and introduced him to everyone in turn.
The robot was indeed a remodeled Joey, apparently, he had plugged into the ship's computer, and used it's self repair nanites to rebuild himself.
Older Gordon was indeed older Gordon.
Then there was Karen.

Then, it finally jumped out in Steve's memory what was bothering him.
"Hey, where's Iggy?", he asked.

Reinhold got a guilty look on his face.
"Well y'see, in one of our adventures, Fulcrum tried to shoot me with this ray, and Iggy jumped out in front of it...".

Steve interrupted "so,...he was killed??".
His eyes began to water, and all the memories flooded in of what a deep complex gorilla/person he was, and all the good times they had shared, and all the character growth he had undergone thanks to lessons learned from Iggy.

Reinhold spoke up "oh no, he wasn't killed, see what the ray did, was turn him into a frog. Took us ages to figure out how it was done. Eventually, we were able to figure out that the ray used intermediate vector bosons to cause his lysosomes to emulsify. Of course by then, he was dead. Joey accidentally stepped on him".

Joey hung his head.

Steve fell to his knees, and wept.

Karen walked over, and hugged him, and patted his shoulder.
Then she propositioned him for some dirty sanchez, and Cleveland steamers.
Steve wept even harder.
God, how he wished he had his Sam Adams spring ale right now.

No spring ale.

Christ.


Minutes later, just before Fulcrum's royal defense fleet could catch up, and get another weapons lock, the Mamba vanished once again into the Bermuda triangle.

Reinhold stood at the controls with relaxed confidence.
"We can't ever truly be sure how far back in time Fulcrum went, but given the architecture and cultural stage of his world, it had to be somewhere within the era of man for him to build apon. Therefore, if we go for broke, and go way back to before the existance of humanity, we can cut off his influence at a closer shutoff valve as it were", he explained matter of factly.


Steve hammered the last bolt into place, stood back, and marveled at his handywork.

A steam powered spaceship.

And it had only taken 50 years, give or take a month.

Gordon poked his head out a viewport "well cap, the problem we were having with the exhaust port is all patched up, we can take off at any time".

"Well then, fire her up, I'm coming aboard! To the future, or bust!".

Suddenly, with a flash of pseudo lighting, a popping like a giant pickle jar being opened, and a big whiff of ozone, a strange starship with the appearance of a mechanical frog appeared in the sky.

Gordon ran down the ramp, and stood next to Steve to get a better look.
The strange ship unfolded it's robotic legs, and proceeded to land right on top of their steam ship, crushing it like a balsa wood model.

Steve fell to his knees and wept, bemoaning not for the first time, his lack of spring ale.

Then, with a flurry of purple sparkles, and a quick whiff of ozone, eight persons stood before him, presumedly, the occupants of this strange craft.

His jaw dropped in shocked recognition when he saw who it was.

A younger skinnier version of himself (but still bald), an older version of that younger version (but with hair!), an identical copy of Gordon, except with a raygun slung on his hip in a custom houlster, another copy of Gordon, but with a mustache, and patches of grey hair on the sides of his head, a gorilla in a sweater and khakis, a vertically hovering nuclear missle with what appeared to be sad glowing blue eyes, a blue metalic robot with those same eyes, and a woman in an usherette outfit.

Steve instantly understood "ah, time travel, should have guessed", he said with a simultaneously satisfied and annoyed smirk.

Later that night, after averyone had been introduced, and the spagetti of timelines they had originated from had been properly explained, Steve and Gordon (the ones native to this jurassic timeline) snuck away, wich was easy with the confusion of two extra Steves and Gordons running around, and stole the Green Mamba.

Now, they were on their way to the Bermuda triangle, and then, hopefully home.

Suddenly, Steve heard footsteps, and turned his head to see their source.
In walked Karen, and robot form Joey.
Apparently, she had been sleeping, and Joey had been recharging.
A quick lie about deciding to shave his head, and everything seemed to be okay.

A few minutes later, they crossed the threshold of the wormhole, and on their way back to 2003.

But, when they emerged, they found yet another alien world.
It looked like a city made of upside down shampoo droplets.

Steve smacked his forehead "RIGHT! I left everyone behind. I should've figured their descendants and technology would screw things up. Just goes to show what happens when I rush into things without thinking".

"Sonovabitch! I knew that 'shaved my head' story was bullshit!", screamed Karen.

Steve rolled his eyes "oh come on, like it matters, I'm the same guy".

Karen thought for a moment "yeah, you're right. Um...sorry..honey...I guess".

Steve nodded "alright then".

Eventually, they found what looked like a landing strip, and brought the ship to rest on it.

They were greeted by a group of five humanoids with lizard skin wearing white robes who could only be dinosaur descended (in Steve's estimation anyway).

One of them produced a glass pyramid from a pocket in his robe which proceeded to project a series of holographic images wich explained their evolution and history, and said something or other about that they were the ones who built the wormhole machine that generated the temporal wormhole in the Bermuda triangle.
Something like that, Steve wasn't really paying attention.
He had Joey Tivo it with his computer brain for later.

The details didn't matter, because the part that DID catch his attention, was that they had the technology to switch between the various timelines created by travel throught he wormhole, wich meant they could finally go home!

And that technology was the holographic glass pyramid itself!

Steve snatched it like a starving bread thief, and ran back to the Mamba with it.
Within scant moments, he had it rigged up to an optical chip reader, the code hacked into, the software interfaced with, and the shields modulated by that software to tune the ship back into thier timeline once they jumped through the wormhole.

A few scant moment later, Karen and Joey were aboard, and scant moments after that, they had taken off, and were under way.


"Alright, fuck this shit", Steve hissed.

Steve took the ship into a dive towards Fulcrum at ramming speed, and then apon impact, made the left robot arm swoop down around Fulcrum's neck into a choke hold, effectivly making the ship tackle Fulcrum.

"Let's see how you like THIS hot chocolate, muthafuckaaa!", Steve growled with a crazed look in his eyes.

Gordon looked over from the Centipede machine "that didn't even..".

"SHUT UP, BITCH!!!", screamed Steve as he rammed the joystick foreward, sending the ship hurtling toward the Bermuda triangle.

Within 15 seconds, they penetrated the singularity.

15 seconds later, the Green Mamba carrying Steve, Karen, Gordon, and robot Joey, emerged from the singularity.

Torrent stared grouchily at the TV.
All that was on that was remotely interesting was "Spies like us", on Comedy Central, wich Torrent had seen 6 times, and had hated the first time.
Torrent watched it anyway.
When it got over, he went to masturbate.

Suddenly, with a flash of pseudo lighting, a popping like a giant pickle jar being opened, and a big whiff of ozone, the Mamba appeared in the sky over Torrent's house.

The ship wobbled to a landing in Steve's back yard, and then the cloak was switched on, perfectly concealing it's existance from the neighbors (who were miraculously all at work, or shopping at the moment).

A ramp lowered from the invisible ship, and a youthful, svelt, and spritely Steve Torrent ran down said ramp, and to the varanda door, and into the living room of his house.

Steve did a Jackie Chan flip into his recliner, grabbed his remote, and put the Osbournes on.

"Try and make ME miss my fucking shows will you, government, history, and laws of physics? Well, I sure fucking showed you, cocksuckas! NO ONE makes Steve Torrent miss his shows!".

Karen, Gordon, and Joey caught up with him a few minutes later.

Torrent flushed, and emerged from the bathroom.

He saw his strange new guests, and instantly understood "ah, time travel, should have guessed", he said with a simultaneously satisfied and annoyed smirk.

On the first commercial break, they got their snacks together, and began their path to pot bellied slothdom.

While they did so, they seemed utterly oblivious to Torrent stealing the Mamba.

They wouldn't have cared anyway, he could have the damned thing, adventures sucked.

Watching TV was what life was really all about.

Then, something horrible happened on the TV.
Worse than the emergency broadcast system.
Jack killed Minnie.
Karen burst into hysterics, Steve held her, and began himself to weep, weep with gut wracking mucousy sobs like a little boy.

Joey suddenly had an idea.
He'd end their pain.
He activated his neutron detonater.
The pain only lasted a nanosecond, and then there was finally peace.


Torrent stared grouchily at the TV.
"So...Jack DIDN'T kill Minnie? Ah, it was all a joke! Well that's just sick!".

Torrent admired his lovely new mansion he had purchased with his profits from going back in time, and investing in IBM and Microsoft when they started.

The investment capital he had aquired with a quick liquer store robbery.

His counterparts were wrong.

Watching TV WASN'T what life was really all about.

Watching TV in A MANSION was what life was really all about.

And he proceeded to do so.

Forever, until one day, he happily died.

THE END!!!!!