The Losers: The Manikin

Catch up on the Losers by reading, in chronological order, Chapter One Part One, Chapter One Part Two, Chapter Two Part One, and Chapter Two Part Two. That's not confusing, is it? Chapter Three deals with Silica, who's like an alien or something.

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The Manikin

  She woke up on the side of the road, moonlight hitting her featureless face, limbs twitching in stunned surprise. Every process was a shock, from the heaving of her chest to the grinding of her teeth, and she lay there a while as her eyeballs solidified in their eye sockets to take in the satellite’s illumination. This is how they think, she thought, hearing the words in her head as though they were spoken aloud. Who are they? Who am I? Panic rose up suddenly as she realized there was nothing in her head besides a vague directive to hide. Hide from what? An image rose up out of the depths of the ether, and she banished it immediately, knowing that her current form could not handle the implications. They can’t come themselves. They will make emissaries. She struggled to her feet and looked around. Those were trees, this was a road, that was the shimmering distortion of the prison. She grasped the meaning of the words but thinking in this manner was a new process, one that would require some adjustment. Nothing would run as fast or as smooth as before. What is this feeling? Regret? The circumstances of her flight could not be reviewed; this was a defensive measure, as was the relatively blank slate condition of her mind. Tabula rasa. No, that wasn’t accurate. Flee. Run. Hide.

   Two lights approached at an accelerating pace up the hill, so she fell back to the forest and hid behind a tree to watch. A vehicle called a pickup truck, male specimen at the wheel. Going much too fast to see her. She didn’t need to see it collide with the prison wall. No way out through there, only oblivion. A heat death, a slow disassembly of molecules. The only way to retain her individuality was to successfully assimilate and hope that they would abandon the search.

   Another vehicle (a car) had stopped, and its driver stepped out to marvel at the destruction of the pickup. Another male, should continue to avoid. This thing did not look dangerous, however. Its shoulders were stooped, its face small-featured, the eyes showing empathy and disbelief. The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another. What were shoes? The things on her feet.

   Before she could stop herself, she had walked out from behind the tree. “Jesus,” said the male. A god of resurrection. It seemed appropriate to invoke such a deity after witnessing the bizarre demise of a fellow sentient being, so she tried the word on her tongue. What was that growth on his face? A beard, essential to the masculine image of many men. Why was he staring at her with a look of total befuddlement? He sees what he wants to see. Silica he asked, his intonation rising at the end of the word to indicate a question. Sure, why not? She could be Silica. She had to be somebody.

   “Silica,” she replied. The name felt right, as though it had always belonged to her.

   “How…” he asked, word failing him.

   “I came from the other side,” she replied.

   “Switzerland County?”

   “Where is your domicile?”

   “My what?”

   “Your home. Place of residence. Humble abode.”

   He pointed down the hill toward the faint lights of a small town.

   “I need a ride.” Also acceptable: I require a lift.

   “To my house?” he asked. Was he mentally compromised? You haven’t done enough to explain the situation.

   “I’m on the run. I need help. I need a friend.” Succinct without really revealing any information.

   Her comments had the desired effect, for he opened the passenger side door and beckoned, face still wearing an amazed expression as though he’d just seen a ghost. Specter, spirit, demon. His car smelled like a used piece of underwear. Garment worn beneath clothing to prevent bodily soiling of top wear. He looked at her for a long time before finally starting the engine and turning the vehicle back toward town.

   “I left a pair of gym shorts in here during the day,” he said suddenly. “That’s why it smells so bad.”

   She said nothing, her eyes on the forested landscape rushing past.

   “My name is… Cretin. I mean, that’s not like my actual birth name. My mother didn’t name me Cretin. But it’s the name my friends use. The Cretin, like it’s a title. Silica can’t really be your name, can it?”

   “It is,” she said. It was the only name she’d ever had, after all, even if she’d only claimed it for a few minutes.

   “So, am I dead? Is this a dream? I don’t understand how you can look like… my old girlfriend.”

   Seven billion individuals on this planet. Explain the mathematics.

   “There are a lot of people in the world. Duplicates happen occasionally.”

   “Yeah, uh, maybe, but not to the extent…”

   “If something is unlikely, that does not mean that it is impossible. Given enough chances, you should expect the extremely unlikely to occur.”

   “That’s not much of an explanation,” complained the Cretin. She shrugged. She didn’t have a lot to go on at the moment, either. Wing it—an expression indicating an improvisational approach.

   “Sometimes you have to wing it. Do you understand?”

   “No,” he said, shaking his head, “I don’t.”

   As he drove, she said nothing further, keeping her cards close to her ridiculous chest. Mammary glands, used to feed human infants, also a secondary sex characteristic. The road followed the river, which gleamed pale in the moonlight, and the trees gave way to homes, large Euclidean constructions arranged in blocks, wheeled vehicles sitting in driveways, a few outside lights on, illuminating the night, sending signals, perhaps, or just wasting electrical energy. She didn’t see any people; they turned themselves off during the night, lying horizontal with eyes closed like inanimate, lifeless things. Every revelation was torn from the thin air, supplied by her human brain, which granted her knowledge at essential intervals. What a messy way to think.

   His own domicile was a small rectangle with blackened windows, covered, she assumed, because he was a private creature. Privacy—state an individual obtains when one is obscured from view. He parked in the driveway, and they exited the car and entered the house. The same soiled undergarment stench was present in the living room, which was furnished with a fungal orange couch and a large rectangle for remote viewing. A considerable pile of stained socks was located to the right of the remote viewer, and she hypothesized that this was the source of the smell. A picture of a hypermuscular man clad in brightly-colored underwear hung on the wall opposite the entryway. Why does this picture have such a place of prominence? Was it an announcement, a way of telling the guest that the Cretin had a fetish for muscular men who wore bright colors? No answer came from the information dispenser in her head, so she put aside the query and sat down on the orange couch, right next to another small rectangle, this one decorated with a bearded male making a box with his hands around his face.

   “Ever seen that?” asked the Cretin, who stood in the doorway of his kitchen, one hand on the refrigerator, as though waiting on her answer to open it.

   “No.” Digital video disk—an obsolete format for viewing digital media

   The corners of his mouth turned upward to gradually reveal his eccentric denture. A smile. She couldn’t say that she appreciated the facial deformity. It made him look bestial, as though he might bite her finger if she extended a hand.

   “It’s the weirdest movie you’ll ever see. You have to be a little inebriated to appreciate it. Lemme get you a beer.”

   Beer—alcoholic drug consumed to decrease neurotransmission, resulting in a reduction of anxiety and an increase in euphoria.

   “No,” she said. She couldn’t afford to compromise her nascent brain with whatever swill he kept in his refrigerator.

   “Oh,” he said, visibly deflated. “You don’t want to watch Freddy Got Fingered?”

   Was it wise to refuse such an offer? If she was a human being, then she would have to participate in human rituals.

   “Maybe some other time,” she replied.

   Someone knocked on the door with a meaty fist. The Cretin furrowed his brow and then his face collapsed into a saggy, hairy mess.

   “Oh shit. Mustache cop. Larry.”

   “Hey, where’s the doll, buddy? There ain’t jack on your porch,” said the voice on the other side of the door.

   “I changed my mind. Go away,” shouted the Cretin. “I’m trying to sleep.”

   “You know you’re illegally parked out here? Your car’s facing incoming traffic. That’s like a one-hundred and sixty dollar fine.”

   “Who is that?” she asked. An emissary, searching for you.

   “Just an idiot cop who forced me to give him my…”

   “Where’s my silicone woman? Where’s my big tittied girl?” yelled the voice.

   Silica jumped up from the couch, looking for an exit. It’s likely that someone’s covering the back of the domicile. She pushed past the Cretin, went through the kitchen, peered through the window and saw herself lying in the moonlight, stiff as a statue, vacant eyes staring up at the prison. Why was she out there, paralyzed? Had the Cretin murdered her original and left the body lying in his backyard for her to see? Was he an emissary, a collaborator, or just a murdering fiend? She felt his breath on her shoulder, sensed his hands waiting in the air to clamp down, to pin her against the wall as the rest came to tear her to pieces. With a hard jab of her right elbow, she connected with his stomach, and she heard the air shoot out of him as he fell backwards, deflated. There was only one way to go now, with two of them behind her, so Silica opened the back door and sprinted through the yard, not pausing to stare at her dispatched doppelganger. With a leap, she caught the top of the fence and vaulted over it, landing in a crouch. A church parking lot, wide open space. Sticking to the fence, she moved parallel to his street, legs turning swiftly through the wet grass, stopping before the edge of the fence to scan the surroundings. There was no one visible in the moonlight, although her eyes could not discern as much detail as she would have liked. They have projectile weapons capable of killing from a great distance. It is possible that an emissary would be armed with such a device. Still, something told her that she may have misjudged the situation, that the Cretin may have meant her no harm. The body in the yard. How to you explain that? She couldn’t. She’d have to be more careful and even less trusting of strangers.

   She heard the Cretin suddenly, calling her name, his voice a plaintive wail of sorrow. What would have happened had she watched the movie? Would she have been frozen like the original Silica and hauled out into the backyard to lie with her double? The policeman’s voice brayed out her name like a dying ass, and the hair rose on the back of her neck. With a mad dash, she crossed the parking lot and stopped in the church entryway, panting beneath an arch. Through a window she saw a light on inside, and to her surprise the door was unlocked. With a final look behind her to make sure she wasn’t being followed, Silica entered into the church seeking sanctuary.

The Losers: Know-it-all Nick Part 2

The Losers takes a turn into horror with the second half of the second chapter. Catch up by reading chapter one here, and here, and then move on to the first part of chapter two here.

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   “I’m not worried about it,” she said as she started to walk up the hill toward their tiny house. He followed her, the lump in his throat tightening with every step. What the hell is wrong with me? His anxiety seemed to be increasing by the day. Nothing dramatic had changed in their life. He had food, water, shelter. No murderous hordes stalked the area. Yet the banal complications of life had him gasping for air. Gretchen can’t know. She didn’t need to worry about him; he also clung to his masculine image like a life preserver. He might be suffocating, but no one would ever know.

   He followed Gretchen into their four-hundred square foot house, which consisted of a living room/kitchen and a bedroom. Everything was within arm’s reach, and they didn’t have very many things. If they needed space away from one another, they’d go outside. A pellet stove kept them warm in the winter, and by the time the summer heat rolled around, they’d acclimated themselves to constant sweating from working outside.

   Gretchen had discarded her clothes and jumped into the shower. Nick had an inclination to join her, but the shower stall was too small for two people, so he sat down on a rug and leaned against a chair, concentrating on his breathing. The wolves had not resumed their howling, which bothered him. Through the twilit sky the moon appeared like a ghost, dead and barren. Surely it’s not the pesticides. His breaths quickened, coming in short, ragged gasps. With deliberate calm, he took another drink of his beer. There was a change coming, some dangerous element that would shake up the terroir, shred his routine, upend the circle. No organism liked change. A creature adapted to a particular habit went extinct when that habitat changed. What habitat am I adapted for? What ecological niche am I occupying? The little red spec he had observed earlier came to mind. He saw it burrowing down into the earth, hyphae spreading tendrils, a mycelium of glowing red coils bleeding into the soil, changing it, draining nutrients to create an unrecognizable substance that writhed in strange rhythms like the inner workings of an alien organism. To erase the image, he rose to his knees and shook his head like a dog.

   “Eduardo had a good idea,” said Gretchen, emerging from the shower. “He said we should make video diaries of our farm for Youtube. Might get people invested in us, build an audience, maybe get funding that way.”

   Nick said nothing. He thought Eduardo was a sleaze who had more than a friendly interest in Gretchen, but he knew well enough not to say such. A black shadow moved past the window, darting out of the moonlight like a specter, followed by another fleeting image. Say something. His mouth was dry, tongue fat and slug-like. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

   “What’s wrong?” asked Gretchen. She had on a TPM t-shirt, his old band, the letters purple and fading.

   “Look and tell me what’s outside,” he managed, his voice a croak.

   He saw her squint her eyes, watched the surprise register on her face.

   “There are wolves out there. Must’ve got out. We should call the sanctuary.”

   “Wolves,” he said, eyes closed. “You are sure? Do they look normal?”

   “Nick, what’s wrong? Are you having a panic attack?”

   Yes that was it. A panic attack. A bizarre vision spurred on by miasma of fears sitting like stagnant water in the swamp of his mind. He was no seer of doom, no oracle bleating prophecy. The wolves running about the farm were just escapees, half-domesticated beasts fleeing the captivity forced upon them. Then why are you so scared to look out the window? He didn’t trust himself, that’s why. Gretchen had opened the door, peered out, her long neck craned. Get in the goddamn house he wanted to scream, but he also wanted her to reassure him, to tell his beating heart that there was no reason to pound like a bass drum.

   “Come here,” said Gretchen. “Look at this.”

   It was not what he wanted to hear, but his body complied. His arms pressed against the door frame, his head planted on his wife’s shoulder.

   A wolf sat on its haunches, staring at them with amber eyes. There was a red spec lying on its nose like a snowflake; the wolf was covered in glowing red dots. Nick noticed that it was raining, the crimson colored particles coming down heavy like ash. One spec landed on a dandelion by their door; he watched in horror as the plant shriveled up and died. The wolf growled, a bassetto rumble that seemed to emit from the bowels of the earth. Some instinct made him look at the dandelion again. A bright red phallus had emerged from the dead flower stalk, an uncanny fungal reconstruction. The wolf’s tongue flicked out to lick a sliver of saliva from its muzzle. Its eyes measured them by alien criteria, and Nick knew that none of his anxiety had been misplaced, that he had always been right to worry about everything, because nothing was impossible and they were just two struggling creatures on a planet that had always been hostile to individuals, and for all their sentience, they had no more value than the mutilated dandelion or the wolf arbiter that judged them. He felt Gretchen’s body move backward inch by inch; slowly she withdrew her head from the doorway, all the while keeping eye contact with the wolf. When she had finally shut and bolted the door, they both collapsed against it, as though an inch and three-eighths of wood could keep them safe from the strangeness that was falling from the sky.

   “What in the hell’s going on out there?” asked Gretchen.

   “What do you think that shit is doing to the apple trees?” managed Nick.

   “Nothing good. Maybe there was a chemical fire. Oh god, maybe a nuclear power plant blew up.”

   “I don’t think radioactive fallout is red,” said Nick.

   “I didn’t know you were an expert! I’m just looking for a rational explanation, okay?”

   “Did you see the dandelion?” he asked, almost in a whisper.

   “What? I was looking at the wolf. Did you get a sense that it was…”

   “Judging us? Measuring us in some manner?”

   “Yes. Wolves are really smart, aren’t they? They’re not just wild dogs.”

   “No, they’re apex predators.”

   He’d been terrified of wolves as a child, likely a result of seeing The Howling when he was eight years old. Of course, wolves and werewolves were different, the latter being a monstrous version of nature made monstrous by the mixing of human vices with the mystifying wild. Yet he still conflated the two, the animal and the monster, like a caveman whose imagination attributed supernatural powers to an eater of flesh.

   Gretchen called the wolf sanctuary but no one answered, so she called the police, who advised them to stay indoors while they investigated. After calling his parents, she then made them both a cup of tea. They didn’t talk much more, and eventually she retired to bed while he stayed up, staring out the window, watching the red rain falling down, wondering to what extent his farm was transitioning into a biome of the bizarre.

…

  There, past the apple trees do you see it, the little box, the home of the two-legged things that fall and tear so easily, that run so slow, that scream so loudly that it is a relief to take their throats in between our jaws and clamp down so that the red blood comes and flows like the red rain that sticks to our coats, warming us and telling us how special we are, what excellent creatures we are, reminding us of our function which is to run and howl and eat, and so we live to please it, so we roam to please it, so we search to find the one that escaped, who has fled amongst the two-legged things to hide like a deer in a glen, and her smell is the ripe stench of fear, a wet coating that sticks to grass and sweet earth like blood she will eventually shed, and so we will comb the earth for her, for the red rain, for our function, to revenge ourselves against all that have caged us, killed us, beaten us, and taken away the forest from our kin.

   When we find her it will be such a sweet, sweet moment, a happy feast, and she will know what it is to be eaten to completion.

The Losers: Know-it-all Nick

Know-it-all Nick is based somewhat on myself, although he's a composite of many ambitious young farmers who have more passion than business sense. He's one of the Losers, but I think the Cretin will end up being the main character. Check out parts one and two for continuity's sake.

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   Know-it-all Nick unwrapped the box of pesticides and stared glumly at the two large plastic bottles. One contained the insecticide pyriproxyfen, an insect growth regulator he’d bought to control an apple pest called San Jose Scale. The other bottle was full of Captan, a protective fungicide. He’d stayed up most of the past night reading contradicting studies on the effects of pesticide use, and now he felt like the two bottles before him contained radioactive waste. Jesus, if Gretchen finds out. He’d have to apply the pesticides while she was at a farmers market. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the repercussions of his wife finding out that he was risking their organic certification, not to mention their reputation. What about your values, Nick? What was the point of having an organic farm if you weren’t truly organic? Unfortunately, Nick was a little more attuned to reality than his wife, and the cold hard truth was that they were broke. When they’d founded Dirtbag Organics seven years ago, they had subsisted on buzzwords and enthusiasm. Permaculture, homesteader, farm-to-table, no-spray, sustainability, heirloom—Know-it-all Nick rattled them off in his head, as he often did for customers while delivering his spiel. They’d planted a vineyard, an orchard full of antique apple varieties, peach trees and Japanese plums, Asian pears, a huge vegetable garden, built hoop houses and a walk-in cooler. The land had been cheap—ten acres directly behind his parents’ house—but the initial costs were staggering. They’d taken out a small business loan to buy a tractor. They lived in a tiny house with no electricity, the plan being that they’d expand once the farm was profitable. That day had never come, and Nick was starting to believe that it never would. Running a farm, even a small one, was incredibly hard work. The grapes got brown rot and shriveled in the hot rain. The apples were full of worms and deformed from fungal diseases. Most of the peach trees died from borers and cold weather. The Asian pears did all right, but the plums were always frosted out in the spring. The vegetable garden was moderately profitable, but they had to compete with other farmers, all of whom grew tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash. Gretchen would spend five hours at a market and come home with thirty bucks, much of the produce spoiled from sitting in the hot sun. Drive up business was better, but Nick had to haul ass from the fields every time he heard someone honking in the driveway. They had try a different strategy this year if they wanted to remain solvent.

   Nick put the pesticides back in their cardboard box and pushed it underneath his workbench. Tomorrow, in the morning, I’ll do it. Visions of bright red, spotless apples danced in his head like dollar bills. It was amazing how much your material philosophy changed when you were being harassed endlessly by creditors and scrounging in the couch to find change to pay the electric bill. Just a temporary measure. If he could just pay off the tractor, then they would be fine. They had no car payment, no mortgage, no cable television package. If they needed to use the computer, then they meandered down to his parents’ house. It was natural for one to be dependent to some degree on their parents. Gretchen, of course, disagreed with him, but she didn’t understand that the modern tendency toward single-family dwellings was a new and unsustainable development. “I feel like a child living in the backyard,” she had told him last week. She didn’t talk to her mother, and her father was a washed up professional wrestler still going from indie gig to indie gig, so the idea of a continuous familial relationship was alien to her. Nick had once had very different plans, back when he was involved in the Cincinnati punk-rock scene, but music had been a dead end; you could only play the same empty bars so many times before you realized the futility of your actions. There was a nobility to farming that made up for the scarcity of cash, a purpose in working the earth, in watching the literal fruit of your labors blossom before your eyes. There was romance in running a failing organic operation in your parents’ backyard, just as long as your perspective remained ridiculously optimistic. Nick told himself this while opening the garage refrigerator and removing a bottle of fermented cider. It was hard stuff, liable to knock him on his ass if he didn’t watch his intake, but the partaking of intoxicating beverages was a daily routine that helped keep that aforementioned perspective in focus. Nothing like laboring drunk under the sun.

   He went out to the tomato patch and started weeding. The rain had been mild so far; no sign of bacterial-spot. The electric wire had kept the deer away—now he only need to build a decent deer fence. The conventional method of farming, involving monoculture (endless fields of one species of domesticated or engineered plant; soybean, feed corn), disrupted habitats, destroyed insects, and erased biodiversity. Of course it was ridiculous to imagine farming as anything other than a disruption of natural processes (he’d had this argument more times than he’d wanted to with Gretchen), but there was a better way to do things, and that’s what he was doing, by letting nature take its share. He’d fight the deer, try to prevent their entry, hunt them when he was able, but he wasn’t erasing their habitat by turning a meadow into a field of genetically modified soybeans that could be sprayed with herbicide. That insecticide you’re planning on spraying will likely kill more than just San Jose Scale. “Shut up, conscience,” he murmured, pulling up a wild onion.

   A tiny spec of red floated down to land in the disturbed earth next to his hand. It was unnaturally red, extremely vivid, akin to a burning ember, but animated in a manner that seemed artificial. He looked at it for a while, watching as it sunk slowly into the earth but did not reach out to touch it.

   A dissonant chorus of howls stirred him from contemplation. It was the evening, the sun was low, and the time for work was finished. He left the tomato patch and headed back to the garage for another beer, a dull ache forming in his head. The prospect of a new season usually invigorated Nick and help to shake off the winter doldrums, but the pesticides sitting in his garage deepened the depression and anxiety he had been feeling for months. At thirty-four years of age, he’d thought he would have accomplished more. Ten years ago, he had planned to be a successful farmer, an author, a musician. Now he was struggling to pay his debts, stuck in a cyclical existence, fretting about everything, it seemed. Gretchen worried too. He was always worried about Gretchen.

   The howling died suddenly, as though someone had cut off the volume. Nick put a beer to his lips and watched as Gretchen’s rusted white van pulled into the driveway. The engine died like a suffocated man, a patch of corroded metal falling off the frame as his wife opened the door and hopped out. She had thick, curly hair, brown skin, and long legs that she never hid in overalls or other unflattering work attire. Despite his problems, looking at his wife always provided a temporary panacea.

   “Hey,” she said, walking past him to open the fridge and get herself a beer.

   “How was the market?” he asked.

   She shrugged and looked out at the sun setting behind the hills of Kentucky.

   “I think it’s always a mistake going this early. We have hardly anything to sell.”

   “Did you make gas money?” he asked.

   “What do you think?” she said. Her eyebrows furrowed into a slight V.

   “I had someone drive up for cider. Sold him what we had left.”

   She nodded almost imperceptibly. His throat had begun to tighten ever so slowly, making it hard to breathe.

   “Why don’t we just start selling pot?” he suggested. “I’ll round up a few kids, have them hit the playgrounds. First we hook the kids, then we hook their parents. We’ll get my dad to sell to the old people. We’ll buy off the cops. Then we’ll never have to go to market again.”

   “We will have to organically certify our weed,” said Gretchen.

   “We’ll just ditch the whole organic thing. It’s a pain in the ass. It could free us up, you know, to sell other things.”

   “You serious?” she asked.

   “Maybe. I’m tired of not making any money.”

   “Then why are you a farmer?”

   “Nothing else I did ever worked out.”

   “And this is working for you?”

   “Obviously.” He made a grand gesture. “This is the best stinky old garage money could buy.”

   “You don’t even own it.”

   “Think of all that I will inherit one day.”

Rise of the Tomb Raider Review

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the quintessential triple-A single player game. It's gorgeous, it's semi-open world, it has a bombastic plot full of action movie cliches, and it's entertaining but a little forgettable. I played it on X Box Game Pass for PC, from which it is currently about to vanish, and although I found it a fairly enjoyable experience, I think I'll remember it about as well as I remember 2013's Tomb Raider, a game I have almost no recollection of playing.

I played the original Tomb Raider, released way back in 1996. My version crashed frequently, and it was also pretty difficult, especially in the era where guides were purchased in stores rather than found on Youtube. Tomb Raider 3, the next game in the series I played, was fairly similar, but with better graphics, more locations, and generally better design. Laura Croft was a sexy Indiana Jones; or rather, she was a version of the Indiana Jones archetype designed to sell to teenage boys who compromised the main demographic that played video games back in the 1990's. I didn't play any more games in the series until the Tomb Raider Anniversary remake, released in 2007, which more or less kept the formula the same. 2013's Tomb Raider rebooted the series, modernizing the three pillars of its design, while adding a more cinematic approach. Rise of the Tomb Raider builds on the reboot's foundation. The settings is now Siberia, and Laura is trying to redeem the work of her late father, who was searching for a Mcguffin that will grant immortality. Said Mcguffin is protected by some white English speaking dudes who live in a geothermal valley full of giant lynx and other endangered species. One of these English-speaking dudes turns out to be a Byzantine prophet who smuggled the Mcguffin out of the empire ages ago. The bad guys are Trinity, who I guess return from the original game, but are about as memorable as any improbably well-funded paramilitary organization. They are led by Laura's dad's ex-wife, who is dying of cancer, and her brother, who is your run of the mill standard action movie psycho, except he has stigmata. The plot is a load of nonsense, and so incredibly cliche that I think your average freshman English major could've cooked up something much more original. It's not that much of a problem, except for the game takes itself way too seriously. A joke will not be cracked at any time during Rise of the Tomb Raider. The Indiana Jones movies were funny! Tomb Raider is a similarly ridiculous premise. Some humor would've gone a long way. As a character, Laura is fairly likeable; however, there is a contrast between vulnerable, human Laura, who we see suffering from post-tramatic stress disorder in the opening cinematic, and gameplay Laura, who viciously leaps from trees to stab Trinity troopers in the face. Gameplay Laura is John Rambo; she even has his bow, complete with explosive arrows. The new Tomb Raider games are much more action focused than the old ones; old triangle breasted Laura mostly blasted endangered animals and monsters rather than human beings. The combat is fairly interesting, though. Laura can improvise smoke grenades and molotov cocktails. She also has special takedowns that remind me of the Arkham batman games. Platforming is very enjoyable, and such an improvement over the original series, where Laura often felt like she was on roller stakes. You'll climb ice walls with ice picks, swing from ropes, leap from crevice to crevice, and it all looks and feels very tight. The puzzle solving aspect is improved on from 2013's reboot, with plenty of Challenge Tombs which feature a simple puzzle that earns some ability. The leveling system is okay. You can't build a unique Laura like a proper RPG, but all games have to have crafting and leveling up now, for some reason. The visuals, I think, are the main reason for playing this game. Even several years after its release, Rise of the Tomb Raider is a gorgeous game. I often paused to take screenshots, which I'll share below.

As a fifteen hour single player experience, I think Rise of the Tomb Raider is probably worth about twenty bucks. I'd actually compare it to Rise of Skywalker, which is a fairly enjoyable viewing experience for the casual viewer, while being a complete failure as an end to the Skywalker saga. Similarly, Rise of the Tomb Raider is a fun, if derivative game saddled with a cliche ridden story, although it doesn't fail its predecessors to the degree that J.J.'s movie did.

More of the Losers

Part One here.

  And so, having mostly buried Silica, he went back inside and put on his favorite movie, popped open another beer (Natty Light, nectar of the trash gods), and fell into his couch, which still reeked of dog, even though he hadn’t had a dog for a couple of years now. His date would be arriving in an hour or so (who knew, with kids these days; time was completely relative), and he soon fell into a deep, strange sleep.

   He dreamed he was standing in Know-it-all Nick’s organic farm, leaning against the barn, looking out across the rows of fruit trees in bloom, white flowers rustling in the cold wind. Something nudged against his leg. An old mangled German Shepard stared up at him with marble eyes, its gray muzzle toothless and dripping drool. Amadeus. The old warden of the barn, a stinking, ancient mutt who ruled his kingdom of filth upon a dilapidated recliner. What is it, boy? The dog turned its hoary head toward the fruit trees. There was a haze descending, a thick fog-like mist that seemed to settle even on his eyeballs. Something moved beyond the trees. The old dog whined and turned to go, its arthritic joints creaking. What was it out there, among the mist? A specter conjured from childhood terrors? He wanted to see what it was, but he was scared. It could be anything out there in the fog. Looking past the approaching shape, he realized that the haze resembled the cloudy interior of an enormous terrarium rather than a low cloud. There were more things behind the figure now, bipedal creatures with stunted tails and slavering jaws. He screamed and turned toward the barn, tripping over a root. The earth opened suddenly, and there was Silica, hand outstretched, welcoming him into a half-ass grave.

   The Cretin woke up sweating, covered in spilled beer. On the television, Rip Torn had just awoken to find his house in Pakistan. 

 

…

   “How much did she cost you?” asked mustache cop.

   “I… don’t want to talk about it,” the Cretin replied.

   “Good god, look at the knockers on her. Ever seen anything like that, Louise?”

   The woman cop gave mustache cop a look that clearly conveyed her disapproval of his comment.

   “So am I being charged with anything?” he said.

   “You want to get rid of this thing?” asked mustache cop. “I know a good place to put it.”

   “Hell no, Larry, you’re not pulling this again,” said Louise.

   “Come on, the guy dug a hole in the ground and buried it. He obviously doesn’t want it. Don’t act like there’s some quid pro quo going on.”

   “Is there some quid pro quo going on?” the Cretin asked.

   “Depends on how much you want for it,” said mustache cop/Larry.

   Louise had a notebook open, in which she was writing furiously.

   “What’s your name again?” she asked him.

   The Cretin told her his name. He hated the sound of it on his lips, puckering them like a sour beer.

   “Well I think I’m going to have to confiscate this, for evidence,” said Larry.

   “Don’t touch that thing, Larry, or I swear to god I’ll do everything in my power to see that you’re fired.”

   “It’s alright,” said the Cretin. “Take it. I willingly give it to you. It’s better this way. For everybody.”

   “Hey, thanks a lot!” said Larry.

   “You’re going to have to come back later to get that thing. I’m not letting you put that in the backseat of the cruiser,” said Louise.

   “The guys at the station would love to see it…”

   “What about the women at the station, Larry? What do you think they’ll think of it? Christ, what year do you think it is?”

   “We’ll get a naked man for the girls! That way, everything is even.”

   The Cretin stood next to the hole, looking down into its black depths. Five feet transformed into an abyss, and he was seized by the urge to leap into it, to wave goodbye to the ridiculous circumstances of his life. Instead, he looked up into the sky and saw an enormous circle descending from the moon like the marble eye of a fallen god. It was growing larger and larger, and he realized with horror that it was the terrarium from his dream. There was a slight tremor in the earth, and his knees buckled, while the sky took on a cloudy, fogged appearance. Am I slipping? Is this what it feels like to lose your marbles?

   “Woah, what was that?” said Larry. “Felt like the ground shook.”

   “I didn’t feel anything. You’re not drinking again?” asked Louise.

   “Man are you on my case tonight. What’s the harm in a little drink every now and then?”

   “On the job? As an officer of the law?” said Louise, incredulous.

   “Yeah, it’s stressful! This is a hard job. We should get certain liberties.”

   “Does the sky look like it’s covered by a giant fish bowl?” interrupted the Cretin. They both turned to look at him but followed his finger upward.

   “Looks like darkness to me,” said Larry.

   “I do see something. Maybe an atmospheric effect. Swamp gas, who knows?” said Louise.

   “Swamp gas? Where is there a swamp around here?” asked Larry.

   “I’m trying to give a rational explanation. Do you think that it is rational to assume that we’re covered by a giant fish bowl?”

   “I don’t know, I’m not the one who sees any… well, hell, there is something up there. Looks like the clouds are on the other side, don’t it? Maybe that was the noise we heard.”

   “The fall of something immensely heavy. Something improbable. Unimaginable,” said the Cretin.

   “Well you imagined it,” said Larry.

   “I think we’re done here,” said Louise.

   “Are you going to investigate that?” asked the Cretin, again pointing upward. He knew it was a stupid question, but that had never stopped him before.

   “Yeah, I’ll hop in my rocket ship and check it out,” said Larry. “Say, could you put that doll by the door? I’ll swing by after work and pick it up.”

   “Do you know who we could call about the fish bowl?” pressed the Cretin. He had an overwhelming intuition that he should not let the appearance of the terrarium go, that if he did so, something terrible would occur, an event apocalyptic in scope. Of course, he’d had hunches before, but they’d never amounted to much. Still, you couldn’t ignore your senses, right? Improbable didn’t mean impossible? Was there truly anything that was impossible?

   “I really wouldn’t worry about it,” said Officer Louise. “Check the news. Probably won’t even notice it tomorrow.”

   Somehow, the Cretin knew she would be wrong.

…

   An hour later, he couldn’t sleep. The moonlight pouring through his window was altered; it appeared creamier, as though someone had spilled milk into a clear glass of water. He had to get up, get dressed, grab another beer. Outside, the air was also different. Thicker. Stale. Perhaps heavy with carbon dioxide. The Cretin opened the door of his Mustang, a canary yellow beater from the early aughts, and hopped inside. The engine didn’t exactly roar to life, but it made him feel slightly better to hear that his car sounded normal, at least. He pulled out of the driveway and steered through town, heading out to State Road 56 where he could build some speed. I’m just delirious. Tired. Sapped from dealing with the aftermath of another aborted attempt at sex. He told himself a lot of lies on a daily basis as a coping mechanism, a method of survival. Something buzzed in his ear, and he swatted at it reflexively. A mosquito. Parasite. Bloodsucker.

   The moon shone down ahead of him like a spotlight anticipating his movements. He turned up Millerbrick road and climbed its steep hill. A beater truck pulled ahead of him, seemingly spawned out of nowhere, its driver a young degenerate in a trucker hat, and the Cretin almost gunned it, but the faint surge of testosterone petered out before his foot could hit the pedal. Fuck off he yelled into the wind as dirty diesel choked his lungs, and the truck rocketed into his moonlight. He had a homicidal urge to open his glove compartment and take out his handgun and empty the clip at the hillbilly, yet the feeling subsided as he noticed something glimmering at the top of the hill, a shimmering distortion of darkness. The truck driver, however, did not slow down, either oblivious to the anomaly or confident in his ability to barrel through any obstacle. An instinct told the Cretin to slam on his brakes, and he did so just as the redneck’s pickup reached the summit of Millerbrick. The darkness lit up like a torch; bright red fire erupted across in spiraling waves, the truck caught, sinking slowly into a maw of magma. The Cretin opened the Mustang’s door and stood halfway atop the hill and watched. Tendrils of light moved upward, curving into the sky, illuminating the enormous dome that extend over the town and the surrounding countryside. Jesus he whispered.

   “Jesus,” said someone. He turned toward the side of the road and saw a woman standing there. There was dirt on her hands, chipped red paint on her fingernails. Her figure was the same improbable combination of impossibly large breasts and petite features. The eyes even had the same dull glow.

   “Silica,” he said, his voice faltering.

   “Silica,” replied the woman.