Free Eyeheart Everything by Kevin Sampsell, Mykle Hansen, Ed Stastny, Kevin Kirkbride Page B

(Anti-Environmental Dampening System) we hardly notice. Bob cranks up the car stereo. The subwoofer thunders as we are pelted some more, by hot iron chains, by flaming spears. They bounce right off the impact-resistant windshield, although they do mar the top layer of Combat-Formulated Turtle Wax. Now we are pelted by actual cats and dogs. They are not happy about pelting us. We roll on over them, crushing their whimpering bodies. It’s surprisingly comfortable, riding in Bob’s brand-new 1999 Jeep Interloper with all the options.
    We are on the Black Island of Tartulia, in the South Pacific, climbing the Forbidden Path up the Volcano of Certain Smiting. The volcano doesn’t want us here, but Bob assures me that his new sport-utility vehicle is more than a match for any third-rate speed-bump of an island deity. The guy at the dealership gave his personal guarantee, says Bob. We scour along over the debris and broken meat and sharp volcanic stone, winding up the evil road. Bob hits the shuffle button on the trunk-mounted shock-resistant one-hundred disc CD changer. We listen to the Sugarcubes as we’re pelted with blades, with huge boulders, with flaming tires. Bob activates the four-wheel drive.
    Bob is my team-leader’s co-supervisor’s co-supervisor at work. Neither of us are sure whether or not that makes him one of my direct bosses, but he is a vice president of some kind and I am not. Among the stratospheres of management, he is the ozone layer, and I am fog. We were sent out here as ethics-assessment visitors to one of our assembly plants on the other side of the island. Bob organized the trip and got approval and funding from the board. I volunteered to accompany him as video camera operator because I figured it’d be a fairly easy way to do something ethical for Third-World workers, which was my New Years’ resolution. Bob says we’ll drop by the factory later, after we break in his new car.
    We round the ragged east side of the volcano’s slope and approach a great stone gate, carved with mythic runes of anti-invitation. Guarding the gate are a pair of three-headed hellhounds, snarling, spitting sulphur, black skinned, red eyed, their barks hollow and enormous. Bob switches the CD to Metallica, rolls up the windows and locks the doors with an automatic pop. The dogs scream. Bob honks at them. They howl. He honks. One dog growls and leaps forward, covering the distance between us in one leap, and its huge snout bangs against the windshield, and its red flaming eyes bore into our souls. Bob activates the windshield washers and sprays the hound with ammonia-based window cleaner. The other dog has gotten behind us, it’s chewing on one of our wheels, I can feel the suspension compensating. The anti-theft system is triggered. The dogs howl and bark and the car goes beep beep beep beep whoooop whoooop rrt rrt rrt rrt ooo eee ooo eee arp arp arp arp arp. The frontmost dog tears at the antenna with its powerful jaws. A mechanized voice demands: STEP AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE! THIS CAR IS PROTECTED BY AN AUTOMATED SECURITY SYSTEM! The front dog climbs onto the roof and claws viciously at the bike racks. Seeing an opening, Bob hits the gas and races ahead through the gates, scattering the dogs behind him, the car still shouting ARMED RESPONSE! ARMED RESPONSE! as we speed away up the steep incline, spitting volcanic gravel behind us.
    Bob is pleased with his victory, but expresses concern about the antenna, which is an expensive part, as are all of the other parts on his new seventy-three-thousand dollar all-terrain luxury adventure system. The rear left end of the car lolls a bit. Bob says we have a flat ... but don’t worry, the tires will patch themselves and reinflate automatically. They’re German. As the tire rejuvenates, we are pelted by human heads. Dismembered, screaming heads, and what they’re screaming is largely non-constructive. The self-reinflating tire has reinflated itself and announces this fact with