Let's play: Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space

[xthetenth]

Yeah, you run into the problems with direct ascent hard when you try to land. I got three full tanks of liquid fuel into contact with the moon, but it was a bit too vigorous. It really needs lander legs at least.

[PeZook]

A fiery meteor plummeted to the ground, bowling Syrgy from his feet. It was a Kerbalistani. The rotund little fellow staggered to his feet, clad in the smoking remnants of a flight suit and shaking his fist at the roiling ruddy sky above.

North Kerbalistan
Slightly before that...


"This, comrade Kerman, is our latest attempt. We have made numerous improvements over the last version! This one is bound to work for sure!"

Jeb Kerman, Marshall of the Kerbalistani Space Forces, octuple Hero Of Kerbalistan, Tireless Defender Of The People And Small Animals, gazed at the spectacular sight before him.



It was a marvel. The best spaceplane in the world! Sadly it didn't have nearly as many engines as Jeb's beloved N-1 that never flew with a crew, but managed to feature sixty times the moving parts and at least as many buttons to press. It was glory incarnate.

The Marshall nodded solemnly, and then grinned. He fucking grinned.

"Professor Destructo...I will fly it."



The professor said nothing. He might've locked up, rethinking his glory days spent building missiles in Pollackistan under Von Evilstein.

Of course, Jeb didn't care for an answer. His words were not a question anyways, and it wasn't like the professor had real any chance of stopping him.

---

The three Thanasians huddled together under the Mission Control tent. They had to stick together for warmth, as the tent was rather patchy and the weather rainy. They'd much rather have stayed in the vehicle assembly building, but then realized the rocket they were about to (try to) launch
was constructed using scavenged jet engine casings and stolen Zenobian test articles. And fueled with locally-made moonshine mixed with kerosene.

They'd rather contend with the cold.

"Jawohl, comrade marshall!" the Thanasian in the center called out on his ham radio. His hand-made nametag read 'Guenther', "Are you ready?"

"I was BORN ready! Light it up, Jeebus, how much longer are we gonna have to wait here?"

Guenther winced upon hearing the terrified panicky voices in the background. The voices belonged to two of Jeb's many cousins, Bob and Bill, who were recruited into the space program last week with the promise of candy.

"Az you vish, marshall!", Guenther said into the radio. He glanced at his colleague in the disturbingly thin polo shirt, "I guess ve launch, zen."

The polo shirted man crossed himself and twisted two little red wires together. All three of the flight controllers covered their heads in expectation of the inevitable.

The horizon EXPLODED.



The ham radio shrieked "AWESOME! THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER!"

The three Thanasians watched in sheer horrer as the rocket rose into the air, obviously being only nominally flyable - as in, it could fly somewhere in the direction that could be agreed upon as "up".

"Jeb! Jeb, we are heating up! Overheat alarms! Jeb, do something, for the love of..."

With enthusiastic abandon, Jeb began pressing random buttons in the cockpit. It did nothing, and the copious duct-taped boosters detonated, blinding Guenther - the fool chose this particular moment to duck out of the Mission Control Foxhole to take a look.

But it wasn't the end. The spaceplane tore apart from its paper mache interstage and was hurled even higher into the air, careening and whirling through the air to the accompaniament of its crew's terrified screams.

Jeb yelled through the radio as well, but his report was clear and sensible, "Clean stage separation, comrades! All systems nominal!"

"What the hell, we are out of control oh no we're gonna dieeeeeeeee..."

"Have heart, comrades! Firing main engines!"



Somehow, the spaceplane's singe engine fired. Due to quality Kerbal workmanship, the main chute opened as well, dragging the spaceplane into an even more insane flat-spin that seemed to defy the very laws of physics.

"We have a slight systems malfunction, but all is in control! This beauty flies like a charm, comrades! I could take it to the Mun and back, HELL YEAH!"

The spaceplane careened towards the ground at breakneck speed. The ham radio burned out and set fire to the mission control tent. Ground crews and controllers scattered to the four winds as the ultimate example of Kerbal engineering smashed into the ground and cut a fresh scar in the already abused countryside, before coming to a stop on top of a fuel truck, tearing it open and setting the VAB on fire.

Two out of three crewmembers survived, including the Marshall himself.

Overall, the flight was declared a huge success, and preparations were undertaken for a second test of the brilliant design. Truly, the Kerbal Space Program was on its way to the Mun - and beyond!

[Simon_Jester]

The elite MINION commando leader rushed into the office.

"Marshal Jeb, look at this! We yoinked it from a MASA rummage sale! They called it... Project Betelgeuse."

"Betelgeuse? Betelgeuse? BETELGEUSE? Whatever. Lemme see those blueprints... hey, what's up with this ship? It doesn't have any engines! And what's that big steel plate doing on the bottom? This sucks!"



"No, you see... the propulsion method..."

Several Minutes Later

It three MINION troopers to pull Marshal Kerman down from where his glee-fueled jump had embedded him in the ceiling.

[LaCroix]

Jeb and Project BETELGEUSE?

Bye-bye, my sweet planet...

Next episode, we'll learn if you can actually ignite the atmosphere...

[Simon_Jester]

Well, Kerbalistan doesn't necessarily have a nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the government will probably be reluctant to go that far even if it does.

But even if he never gets to ride one, you know he'd love the idea.

[PeZook]

Which of course brings us to the very, ah...interesting possibility of imagining how a Kerbalistani nuclear program would work.

[Marko Dash]

jeb and his cousins 'are' green rather than minion yellow.

[Simon_Jester]

Da, da, this is true; there were once bloody conflicts between the green and yellow races in Kerbalistan. But international commienism has revealed to all little ellipsohumanoideans the futility of such racial strife and how it enables the capitalist-running-dog-lackies!

[fnord]

Which of course brings us to the very, ah...interesting possibility of imagining how a Kerbalistani nuclear program would work.

10-GW RBMK stations for all?

[PeZook]

Mare Opressitatis
July 1979

The lunar rover sped across the barren landscape, weaving its way between massive boulders and smaller rocks. Its two-man crew had one hell of a bumpy ride, but they didn't care. This was an adventure of a lifetime: neither of the two Arschstronauten have ever expected to make the trip. The Great Lunar Romp, as the Murcans called their short-lived lunar exploration program was widely thought to be the last of humanity's visits to their nearest stellar neighbor.

Until Wehrner von Shapp returned, and the world was changed forever.

Murca was looking inwards now. Tired of big government spending socialist death panel regulators, its citizens were becoming restless and demanding change to the way things were done. And so, it was left to Thanasia to lead the world to enlightement, using stolen Murcan space hardware.

"Ja, Bearlin, zis is Bierfest Eleven, reporting dutifully! Ve are two minutes away from ze next station!"

"Ve copy Bierfest Eleven. Make sure you align ze high-gain antenna once you get zere, ja?"

"Jawohl, mein fuerher!"

The Stenchian-accented voice of the commander's co-pilot called out suddenly, "Heinz-58! Look there!"

The rover skid to a stop. The commander got out clumsily and raised a pair of lunar binoculars to his helmet, looking at a tiny dot in the distance.

"Nein! It cannot be!"

"We must investigate now!"

"Bierfest Eleven! What do you see?"

"RIGHT NOW! Come on, let's go! Make sure you have the camera ready!"

"Bierfest Eleven! Talk to us! What do you see?!"

[fnord]

So Herr Nikov has the Thanasian accent down pat now?

I bet Heinz-57 Guderian is quite proud (and worried). Proud - he has a (presumably) son hooning around on the moon. Worried - for same reason.

Why would the West Thanasians put their mission control in West Bearlin, what with all those Zenobian tanks nearby, itching for an excuse to roll across the border?

[PeZook]

Written with Shroomie!

THE ULTIMATE EPILOGUE, P.I

Somehwere in Murca
Sometime in the future...

Run, son! Run, and do not stop!

His lungs were burning up. With each step he took, Josh was coming closer to collapsing of exhaustion.

But he couldn’t stop. The people who gunned down his dad were close behind him. He didn’t know how close, exactly, but was certain they’d catch up to him mighty fast if he stopped.

They were heavily armed and angry - angry at the Sullies. When they came that fateful night, they said Josh’s dad was a homobortionist pinko commienist traitor, since some neighbor of theirs denounced the entire family and their unmurcan ways - and since it was the father’s responsibility to keep a tight ship, they were holding him responsible.

They were going to shoot dad right then and there, but dad was quicker. He gunned them down, and the Sullies ran. They ran like hell. Down south, towards the coast. They were going to find a boat there. Find a boat and flee the country.

But that wasn’t enough. Their truck broke down soon, after being chased and shot up by biker gangs. Mom died soon after, having contracted pneumonia. And then their Sovereign Citizens pursuit caught up with them. And now Josh was alone.

Alone and scared and hungry and on the run.

And lost, he realized. He had no idea where he was. Josh could vaguely hear the ocean in the distance, but had no idea how far he actually was from it. He kept running, though. He promised himself that he’d keep running no matter what.

Then he ran into a fence.

Without thinking, he climbed over it, and kept running, towards the lone building he could see in the distance, silhouetted by the rising sun.



“Where is he goin’?!”, the Sovereign Citizen in charge of the pursuit couldn’t believe his eyes. The lil’ fella they were chasin’ went into that place. The Place.

The Place. The militiamen had no idea that the chase had already lasted for so long. They could see the menacing structures beyond that perimeter fence: the rusting, barely visible launch towers; the ominous cuboid of the VAB, a structure of incomprehensible girth and size that made anyone looking at it feel inadequate and small and a little bit jealous, and the many, many smaller buildings, staring at any observers with their empty windows and holes in disrepaired walls.

The Place was once called Teddy Space Center. It was a horrible place, the ultimate expression of limp-dicked science majorism. Sovereign Citizens did not go near The Place. It was left alone ever since the Revolution destroyed all lieberal scientifician artifacts inside. The Sovereign Citizens were terrified of it, as they were convinced such an unholy, obscene, unmurcan location could not be cleansed, no matter how much beer and gasoline one poured over its grounds.



“What do we do, Bubba?” Cleytus Rawshaw Manderson, the patrol’s most superstitious member took one sight of The Place’s looming vista and shuddered. He pulled out his necklace and kissed the little Baby Jeebus figurine dangling on it. “Pappy says that place is cursed!”

“Poppycock, Cleytus! It’s just a bunch of ruins left by the corrupt leftoid barrybamaic homobortionists!”

Bubba frowned. His heavy face quivered with great exertions, “Hush, Deevon. I’ma here tryin’ to think!” he managed to say. His team went silent and watched their great leader carefully consider all his options. They were glad none of them had to bear that responsibility - it looked really painful.

Bubba’s thought process has finally reached conclusion when the sun began peeking out from behind the VAB “We’ve been told ta hunt the lil’ fella down, right? An’ orders are orders!”

“But ain’t we Sovereign Citizens, Bubba?”

“Them people who give dem orders are sovereigner, Deevon, so we gotta listen ta them. Cursed or not, there ain’t nuthin’ that good ol’ Murcan injun...engi...nu..ity can’t beat, an’ if that fails, we got our ladies here, eh?”

The team seemed heartened with the mention of their guns

“It’ll be an excuse to go Second Amendment Solutionin’ the crap outta yokels,” Bubba said to his remoralized men. It was a joke, but not really. He grinned a crooked cavity-studded grin. “Murca fuck yeah?”

“Murca Fuck Yeah!” his men cheered and saluted back.

“Now let’s go huntin’!,” Bubba pulled out his elephant gun, freshly used from when they raided the zoo for a meat run, and loaded an enormous bullet into its chamber.

Yelling their battle cry, the brave Murcan patriots fixed bayonets and charged the fence head-on.



Josh walked slowly through ruined corridors. Light cast eerie glints on the shattered glass that covered the floors. He had no idea what the purpose of this place was. He ran inside in panicked frenzy, and even if he could read, the numerous signs on the walls would’ve told him nothing, for they spoke of esoteric things and people, of directors that handled strange things and unnamed engineers and program specialists.

But the building was impressive and grand nonetheless. Josh felt awed and was certain great things took place here, once. He imagined people in strange and nerdy clothes walking these corridors, doubtlessly making Murca great with their thinkifications.

But what was it that happened here? Why did this building exist?

Josh took a turn into yet another room, and found his answer.

The huge wall-mounted television screen turned itself on,activated by a motion sensor. Cheerful music blared from its speakers, loud enough to rattle the trash and broken rocket models and plastic planets that littered the floor.

A silly cartoon bird appeared on the screen, and loudly proclaimed in a cute, squickley voice, “Good morning, space cadets! Welcome to the Teddy Space Center, and the adventure of a lifetime! In here, you will learn about Murca’s great space program, and how it made our beloved country great! So take a seat, and get ready to launch!”

Josh walked up to the screen. “Hello?” he said meekly. There was no one there. It was as if the telescreen was talking to him, much like those Saturday morning cartoons. But this one didn’t talk about the best way to clean your guns, or the advantages of meat-only diets and the ickiness of girls. It was different. The boy sat down on the only undamaged chair in the entire room. Absentmindedly, he picked up a broken model of the Hermes shuttle from the floor.

“Space cadets! You are standing in the Joanson Space Flight Museum, where artifacts and models of our nations greatest space vehicles are displayed. Listen carefully, because at the end of this presentation, I will ask you several questions! Answer well, and you might earn the right to wear your very own Young Astronaut Pioneer badge!”

The ground shook, when the telescreen showed a massive rocket launching from its pad. Images followed, of rockets, and spacecraft, and brave feats of manliness and bravado and scientific discovery and adventure. Josh watched, enamored. He watched the photographs of Earth from orbit. Of men, brave and chiseled and smart, too, riding their rockets to the heavens. Why? Because the heavens were there, that’s why!

The boy understood little, but the imagery spoke to his soul on a level that every little boy knew. The level where firemen and dinosaurs resided.

“Are you ready for your test, space cadets?” the bird asked suddenly, staring straight at Josh. There was a pause, and the boy read it as the character waiting for his answer.

“Y...yes!” he managed to say.

“Excellent! Such enthusiasm! I’m sure you will all earn your badges with no trouble! First question: who was the first Murcan in space?”

Another pause. The bird stared at Josh expecentantly. Josh’s mind raced feverishly to find the answer , and there it was! He has just learned it!

“Biff McCain, hero of Murca!”

It took the bird some time to hear Josh’s words, apparently, as it only answered after a few more seconds, “That is an excellent answer, space cadets! But be ready, for the second question is miiiiighty tricky! Which one of you knows the name of the spaceship that took brave Murcan astronauts to their first Moon landing? Think quick!”

It was a trick question, but Josh Sully, Space Cadet, remembered the answer!

“Lucien! Lunar module Lucien!” he cried out smugly

Again the bird took its time registering the answer, but it eventually did, and it spoke again! “Ah, I see it’s not easy to trick you! I can see you are all well prepared! Very well then, final question, and I’ll make it an easy one: What is the name of the room you are standing in?

Josh panicked there for a while, but then remembered - the bird was trying to trick him again, but he was a Space Cadet, and Space Cadets were observant!

“It is the Joanson Space Flight Museum!”

Suddenly, the TV bega to blare patriotic music. The bird was standing at attention now, wearing a strange costume, all bulky and white and with a big, round helmet under his wing - Josh recognized that costume now as a ‘space suit’.

“Space Cadets! You have passed your test, and your Young Astronaut Pioneer Badges will now be distributed to you by the museum staff! Wear them proudly, as young astronauts should! Additional gifts and memorabillia are available from the gift shop near the exit. Please do not touch the exhibits. Thank you, and good day, Murca!”

Silence fell in the ruined museum hall. Josh looked around, but nobody came to give him his astronaut badge. This saddened the boy greatly - why couldn’t he get his badge? He answered all the questions! He wanted to be like the astronauts, brave and unflinching and smart and strong!

Just then, a ray of morning light glinted off a little brass item, partially covered by the debris littering the floor. And indeed, it was an astronaut pin!

Josh picked it up with reverence, dusted it off and attached it to his jacket. He felt proud. Proud to be a Murcan in a way that he has never felt before in his life.

Then he’s heard fast approaching footsteps, and remembered why he was here. Fear returned. The boy ran, away, deeper into the sprawling structure.

His pursuers appeared not long afterwards. Having won their battle with the perimeter fence, they entered the dead complex cautiously, watching for any traps that lieberal limp-dicked science majors could have set to make their proud down-to-earth Murcan dicks go limp, too. Already there were a few close calls: in one room, they even saw books that had many numbers in them. They were devillish things, for they cleverly had pictures on some pages, but when examined closer, the pictures turned out to be of nerdy things, with nary a football or beer can amongst them, doubtlessly placed there to trick Murcan men into looking inside!

Deevon Eddie Jee-Jay Prustbeet, the history buff of the small Sovereign Citizens patrol explained that such books were once used to homobortionize youth and teach them vile and girly ways of sha-yoonc. When the Great Revolution came to The Place, its brave sons burned all the sha-yooncey books they could find, but some must have escaped them. He advocated that it was their responsibility to correct that mistake, as some lil’ fella could stumble upon them by accident and become irreversibly girlyfied.

His compatriots agreed, though carrying it out took its time. And thus, the patrol arrived in the museum hall only after their prey has already left.

As they entered, the TV turned itself on again, and an astronaut-suited bird appeared on the screen.

“Good morning, space cadets! Welcome to the Teddy Space Center, and the adventure of a lifetime!”

“Sweet Jeebus, Bubba! A lieberal trap! Kill it!”

Bubba didn’t need no encouragement. His elephant gun roared and punched a hole through the telescreen and the wall behind it. The device growled and sparked and died.

“Golly, that was close!” Deevon wiped his brow “We almost got exposed to lieberal propaganda! That would’ve been bad. Sweet Jeebus, this place is horrible!”

Cleytus mumbled something in agreement, clutching his little Baby Jeebus pendant tightly. Bubba just waved his elephant gun triumphantly “As I said, fellas, ain’t nothin’ good ol’ Murcan firearmin’ won’t fix! Look at how we smashed that piece of ol’ lieberal filth, right in the centre!”

“Hey!” Deevon cried, seeing tracks amongst the trash “Our boy was here! He went thataway!”

“Fuck yeah!” Cleytus momentarily forgot about his fear and cocked his six-shooter “Let’s go get ‘im and get outta ‘ere!”

“Yeeee-haw, fellas! There’s a bottle o’booze ta the first one to head shot ‘im!”

The three Sovereign Citizens rushed out of the museum. The cheery little astronaut bird on the telescreen followed them with its cartoony little eyes. It listened to their cahooting battle cries and trash-talk about what they would do to the newest Young Astronaut Pioneer.

It scowled.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmmm.

I wonder what the Bragulans would make of the Kerbalistanis? I have a sudden image of Jeb Kerman finally completing his Betelgeuse-drive ship just in time to go HELLO! to the Bragulans in orbit.

[KhorneFlakes]

So the ancient Teddy Space Center is possessed, ey?

My god this is going to good.

[FaxModem1]

Now, who is Kerbalistan supposed to be?

Man, Murca has become a rather awful place. Well, it was already awful. It has become a much more awful place.

And how is Zenobia in this distant future?

[Simon_Jester]

This is dovetailing the world of the Let's Play BARIS into the Murcaworld already portrayed by Shroom and PeZook, or some mutant version thereof.

Who is Kerbalistan supposed to be? No one. Their role in geopolitics sounds in hindsight to have been something like that of Vietnam, but we already have a Nam in the game, so who knows? I just gratuitously inserted Kerbals into the game of my own initiative.

[MKSheppard]

To be honest, I like Murca of BARIS more than MURCA proper itself.

Murca of BARIS had the right amount of sarcasm and parody built into it; while MURCA went overboard to the point that it defeated the parody.

The only element of this BARISized MURCA I like is the cheery little astronaut birdie.

It scowled. It fucking scowled..

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, Shep, I largely agree- although I think SHROOMURCA has a legitimate place as satire in the vein of 1984, it's so far overboard and absurdist that it makes it hard for any actual American to connect to the narrative.

But yes. Astronaut birdies are important.

[Mayabird]

The cheery little astronaut bird on the telescreen followed them with its cartoony little eyes. It listened to their cahooting battle cries and trash-talk about what they would do to the newest Young Astronaut Pioneer.

It scowled.

It was too damn much. It had all gone too far, all gone wrong.

And so, as the TV screen went dark forever, the cheery little astronaut bird traveled beyond the confines of time and space, so great was its disgust. It flew hither and thither, through the ether and nether, through eternity and infinity, following the instructions other little birds told him. And finally, it found what it was looking for: the shade of Bob Johnson.

"Bob! We need you, Bob! Everything has gone wrong!" And the bird told Bob of what had happened to his beloved Murca, of the depths it had descended to, and of the last Young Astronaut Pioneer.

And the shade shook itself. "NO! This can't be!" But it was, and he knew what horrors had come. "Little astronaut bird, is there a way to turn it back?"

"There is one, and that's why I need you. Follow me!"


Johnny Olds slept. Water beds ("Space Age Technology!") had made him a wealthy man. Business was going well and they had plans for expansion and new lines coming up. He dreamed of nothing in particular.

And then he was trapped in a hellish nightmare, a vision of possible times to come. He tried to scream, tried to run, cried out for help, but he was a little boy, chased by brutish thugs, in a world without beauty or love, without thought or hope.

And then he heard, as if from an infinite distance away, a voice yelling, "Joooooooooohhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyy!" The world slowed and faded, and he saw a faint outline of a man, and somehow knew it was Bob Johnson.

"Bob, you're alive!" he almost said, but he remembered Bob's death, the recording of his last words, watching his capsule burn up in the atmosphere, how he named his daughter Roberta (she went by Bobbi) after him. "Daddy," she said not long ago, "if his atoms went all around the world, does that mean his atoms could have gotten in the soil? And then he was in our food, and we ate him, and now he's a part of us forever?"

"Johnny! You have to stop it! Stop the terrible future!"

"How?"

"You're rich. You have resources. You can stop their movement before they become strong. This is a critical moment in history. Listen to these instructions, and follow them well." And Bob gave him names, addresses, a few nodes upon which the future hinged. "And there's a kid you have to beat up. Right now, he lives not far from here, but he'll move in two weeks so you must act quickly."

"What, beat up a kid?"

"It's for his own good." And as Bob gave his final instructions, he began to vanish.

"Bob! Come back! There's so much I have to tell you! We went to the moon! I named my daughter after you! Bob!"

"Stop the madness. Please stop the madness..."

And Johnny woke up, heart racing as if he had just sprinted a marathon, soaked in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. He fell out of his bed (water bed, of course - Silverstream Deluxe Plus with extra heating coils and massage mode), stumbled loudly to the bathroom, leaned over the sink, and stared at his face.

"John? You okay? What hap-oh Lord, John!" His wife Alma, bleary-eyed a moment before, rushed in to hold him. "John!"

"Ni-nigh-ni..." he sputtered, trying to get out the word.

And there was a padapad of little feet and the door cracked open.

"Mama? Daddy?" The little girl's face peeked in. Johnny saw his daughter, as if he was seeing her for the first time, and knew he couldn't allow her to live in that world.

"It's okay, Bobbi," he said. "Daddy just had a bad dream. You can go back to bed."

"It's just a dream!" she said, like they had said to her many times. "Okay bye I love you!"

"I love you too, Bobbi," he said, and Johnny knew what he had to do.


[To be continued shortly.]

[Mayabird]

The two days later, several millions disappeared from the Olds's accounts. There was a big scene over the coming weeks about what kind of clerical error could do that and where'd the money go? The banks were very apologetic but they never did figure out what happened, and they were eternally grateful that Mr. Olds continued business with them and forgave them for it. "I'll just have to sell more beds!" he was quoted in the papers.

Also over those several weeks, a series of *completely unrelated* minor events occurred. A writer's cabin burned to the ground, along with everything he had ever written, and his own paranoia about the police kept him from reporting it. A young man on a hunting trip was shot, seemingly by one of his buddies; it wasn't fatal but it kept him from taking the bar exam that year, which prevented him from being able to take a lucrative job. There was an expose about government corruption with a small oil company, and its angry rivals hounded it out of existence. A little-known charismatic preacher named Billy Biscuit Graham was to get his first TV appearance, but somehow the studio got filled with helium and his attempts at preaching were very squeaky and made him sound ridiculous, and the whole thing was aired live. He was made a laughingstock, and hid away to cry and pray and pet his defanged rattlesnakes, and then Jeebus moved him in his heart to become a herpetologist or something. And so on.

And two days after the Great Theft, Johnny Olds went "on a walk" to "cool his head" and came across a filthy, uncouth boy, squishing bugs with a rock. He knew what was to happen, and didn't want to do it. "Are you Joey Jojo?"

"Huh?" the kid grunted, and he squinted up. "Who're you?" he sort of asked, mostly mumble-grunted.

"I'm an astronaut," Johnny said.

"Ain't no asternuts," little Joey said. "Ain't nobody gone to space. Thems all liberal lies. LIEberals! Huh huh!" He parroted lines he'd heard some other guy say, and started laughing at his own wit at repeating them, and then he saw stars, because Johnny had kicked him in the head.

He hated himself for it, but Johnny kept kicking the kid. Didn't know why, but Bob said to, and that burst of anger at the memory made him start. He kicked until the kid stopped whining and wailing like a bully who thought it was unfair, and had started truly crying. Johnny left, stormed off in disgust at himself, so much that he didn't even wonder if anyone had seen it.

It was ten years before Johnny's subordinates would talk about his return, how they saw him angrily kicking anything solid - walls, trees, fence posts, cars, everything. He completely ruined the shoes, and they always assumed it was his repressed rage at the loss of so much of his money. And eventually, that became the official story.

But little Joey Jojo was so dazed and remembered so little of it that when enough people asked if he'd been hit by a car, he started to believe he'd been hit by a car, even if his injuries didn't quite match up. That kick to the head gave him a very tiny aneurysm which burst into a tiny stroke a few weeks later. His neural pathways compensated, rerouting around the tiny clump of dead cells. New patterns lit up, and neurons that had barely been used suddenly came to life.

The only sign of it that he knew of was that, all of a sudden, that math problem on the board made sense. He knew how to solve it, and he did. People thought his actual interest now in learning (rather than complete hostility as before) was due to his better school environment and teachers.

And so, he, and the rest of the world, went on a different path. Unknown to them all, the universe had split.

Down one way was the horrors, the collapse and terror and perhaps nuclear bombardment by bears. But now there was a second road, one that could be without the horrors, one that could be better, brighter, more awesome than what fate had dictated before.


A couple decades later

"Uh, Dad, are you sure we're in the right place?"

Johnny Olds looked at the storefront. He just had to know, and it gave him a small sense of relief.

"Bobbi, we may have gone the wrong way," he said, with a tiny sly smile.

"Aww, Dad," she groaned. "How'd you get to the moon if you're so bad with directions?"


[Not the end, because there is never really an end!]

[Simon_Jester]

Some Decades Later
KerboLac Space Center
North Reunited Ellipso-Commienist Democratic Peopolitarianian Republic of Kerbalistan

"LET'S GO ALREADY!"

[Marko Dash]

aww, it shouldn't count if you just pull stuff off youtube

[Simon_Jester]

...

[grits teeth]

Look, I don't play the game, but I thought it would make a nice addition to the spirit of the thing. A capstone, if you will.

So a week later you come in from the peanut gallery?

[MKSheppard]

The Book of Secrets: The MURCAN Space Program by the Hitler Channel

In MURCA's race to the moon, there were many strange and unusual happenings that no rational or scientific explanation could be found.

Things like the occasional blood-red moon that would appear above MASA facilities at times where there was no lunar eclipse.


File Photo

Others were far more insidious, like the story of Lunar Module Test Article 6, or...LM-666


File Photo of LTA-6 under construction

LTA-6 was constructed to provide experience for Grummang Aerospace in the construction of the first flight-ready Lunar Modules. First steel was cut on Friday, 13 May 1966.

During initial construction, there were several unexplainable accidents, such as when Kenneth Lutz was killed in a gruesome arc welding incident and it is rumored that this early inauspicious start, combined with its Friday the Thirteenth start...cursed LTA-6 somehow.

In 1967, after a transportation mishap destroyed LM-3, it was decided to change LTA-6 from a test article for integration and manufacturing into a fully functional flight article and she was redesignated LM-666.

However, in 1969 with the drawback of the Murcan Space Program to just two manned landings as cost schedules continued to lengthen, LM-666 was now surplus to the flight requirments of MASA; and she was relegated to the testing and simulations branch of MASA.


Willy Eugen, Circuit Tester, Grummang Aerospace 1965-1975

"Man, I tell you; that damn module was haunted. One time me and Johnny Olds were in it late at night, running one last sim to validate the software for the first orbital test; and every damn light went out, except for the red ones, and they started blinking in morse code. I'd like to kill whoever thought it was funny to designate it LM-666."


Frank Shrooman, Simulations Supervisor, BIG JOHNSON Spaceflight Center 1967-72

"It's all a load of crap. I never had a damn problem with LM-666. It was the best module Grummang ever built. Never once had a bug or flaw in over a hundred sims. The only people who had problems were the bad employees. You know, the ones who tried to take shortcuts in their tests so they could get home early. You know, the ones like Ray Johnson. That son of a bitch was doctoring all of his test results."

Ray Johnson, a simulations branch employee of MASA, was found dead in his home on the night of 5 May 1971, having hung himself with a cord of his own intestines. Painted on the walls in his own blood was an admission to faking dozens of test results, a claim which was later validated by an internal MASA review.

Coincidence? Or Not?

With the conclusion of the Murcan manned lunar program, LM-666 was declared surplus to requirements, and after being held in readiness for twelve years, was sent to Teddy Spaceflight Center's Visitor Center.

[PeZook]

Written with Shroomie, with input from Shep for added insanity!

THE ULTIMATE EPILOGUE, P.II

“As I said, fellas, ain’t nothin’ good ol’ Murcan firearmin’ won’t fix! Look at how we smashed that piece of ol’ lieberal filth, right in the centre!”

“Hey!” Deevon cried, seeing tracks amongst the trash “Our boy was here! He went thataway!”

“Fuck yeah!” Cleytus momentarily forgot about his fear and cocked his six-shooter “Let’s go get ‘im and get outta ‘ere!”

“Yeeee-haw, fellas! There’s a bottle o’booze ta the first one to head shot ‘im!”

The three Sovereign Citizens followed their prey through the creepy corridors and display sets of the Joanson Spaceflight Museum. Despite the bright morning light, many parts of the desolate building were bathed in shadow. Eerie reflections danced on the walls, on mockups of lunar rovers and display cases full of equipment. The flickers of light played merry hell with perceptions, and the deeper the trio went, the more nervous they became.

Cleytus, in particular, couldn’t help but clutch his Little Jeebus pendant. These ancient rooms scared the bejeebus out of him for some reason, and while temporary manly fervor managed to mask those feelings, they were now creeping back.

Spacesuited wax figures of apes glared at him from their stands. Empty mannequin eyes seemed to track his every move. The sligtest disturbance in the trash that littered the floors rang out across the empty halls with unnatural intensity.

Eventually his panicked glances and constant double-checks managed to irritate Bubba, who growled at him.

“Cleytus! Pull yerself together!”

“I can’t help it, Bubba! I swear, those apes were lookin’ strait at us!”

“Monkeys.”

“Say what?” Cleytus glanced at Deevon, who was idly kicking around a broken space helmet.

“Monkeys. These fellas were chimps, chimps ain’t apes.”

“What are ya, some sort of good for nuthin’ intellectual? Tryin’ to teach me, huh? Like on of dem dirty teachers? Pappy said never listen to dem teachers!”

“Shut up, boys! Remember why we’re here!”, Bubba yelled at them, waving his elephant gun around, “The lil’ rat could be aroun’ any....”

Something small and human-like suddenly darted across the corridor, making Cleytus jump and discharge his six-shooter. The bullet ricocheted and almost hit Bubba, but the gung-ho team lader didn’t care. He took off in pursuit, emitting a terrifying battle cry.

His mates followed, waving their guns around in a stunning display of tactical acumen and careful movement across hostile territory. They thus crashed, together, into a room that the little boy darted into just seconds ago.

It was square, mostly empty and well lit through broken skylights. It contained only one item of note - a massive lunar lander, hung on cables suspended from ceiling rafters, its spidery legs hovering menacingly over the inevitable scene of cruelty that was to unfold here.

Inevitable, because this particular room had no other exit, and their quarry was right there, breathing heavily, cornered and alone and staring at them in horror.

“Gotcha, fella!” Bubba yelled and took aim.

“Hell yeah!” Deevon hollered. “Let’s show that good fur nothin’ space varmint what’s what!”

Shots rang out in the room. Despite the short range, only one bullet managed to hit Josh, who fell to the ground, screaming in pain. He watched helplessly as the horrible, cruel men approached, intent on finishing him off, when suddenly things started growing dark.

Storm clouds covered the sky in seconds, cutting off nearly all light. It became so dark that the Sovereign Citizens could only see glimpses of each other, and reflections off shining thermal foil covering the lander above their heads.

Then, before they could take their bearings, the eerie silence was broken by the sound of a snapping cable.

As one, they looked up. Ominous red light washed over them. With a sound of creaking metal, the lander’s ascent stage tilted downwards, staring right into their souls with its glowing red windows.



A second cable snapped. Two of the lander’s legs landed heavily on the ground.

Cleytus started to scream in horror.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!”

“IT’S THE DEEBIL CLEYTUS! QUICK, USE YER SHOOTIN’ IRON!”

The final cable was torn apart, and the lunar module landed on the ground with a thump. Terrifying voices from beyond the grave whispered in the background, crackling with intermittent radio static, as the huge machine moved with unnatural fluidity. Although slow and lumbering, its powerful shock-absorbent legs could easily crush a man.

Bubba didn’t think for long. His elephant gun roared and the absurdly massive round punched a hole in the thin mylar foil covering the lander’s base.

The lander didn’t flinch, and launched itself at the group. The mysterious whispers rose into a screeching, terrible crescendo of insanity and pain. Deevon dove to the ground, losing his double-bareled shotgun in the process. By some miracle, Bubba managed to avoid getting trampled, too - but the leg that tried to kill him smashed a huge hole in the wall behind him.

“Cleytus! Shoot it! Shoot it good!” he yelled, trying to load another round, but failing due to overwhelming panic. The lander towered over him. Bubba felt some terrifying power slowly force his head upward, towards the lander’s face and the menacing, snapping forward hatch. He dropped another round on the ground and screamed in pain and terror.

“Don’t look into its eyes! DON’T LOOK INTO ITS EYES!” Cleytus screamed

“I...can’t....Jeebus...help...me...”

Jeebus! That was it! Where Murcan ingenuity failed, Jeebus would provide!

Cleytus tore his pendant off his neck and thrust his figurine into the air, towards the hellish spawn of Deebil.

“The power of Jeebus compels you!” he screamed, trying to be louder than the radio static and strange voices. The lander turned its ascent stage towards him, as if intrigued. Bubba collapsed to the ground and began crawling towards the exit in fear-addled panic.

“The power of Jeebus compels you!!!” Cleytus screamed, one note higher this time. Somewhere to the rear, Deevon dove for his shotgun and helped Bubba get onto his feet, and then they both began yelling at Cleytus to leg it. Deevon even fired some deershot into the back of the cabin, but even though the buckshot clearly went through, the machine seemed unfazed.

“I AM A GAWD WARRIOR! JEEBUS IS MY SHEPPERD I SHALL NOT WANT MY MOMMY!!!” Cleytus’ shouts were beginning to reek of desperation. The lander leaned over him, examining him up close, its windows shining with swirling, hypnotizing energies of some strange netherworld. “THE POWER OF JEEBUS COMPELS YOU!!!”

“No! Cleytus! Get out! RUN!”

The forward hatch snapped open. Swirling red light enveloped Cleytus, and oxygen hoses snaked out. They writhed and tangled like living things, wrapping themselves around his ankles before coiling up around his torso.

“The power...of Jeebus...compels...you...” the man managed to sputter one last time. He shuddered with fear and panic, but found himself unable to move, hypnotized somehow by the terrible eldricht energies shining from the machine’s innards.

The hoses tugged, and snatched Cleytus off the ground. In a whirl of movement, the flailing, terrified man was hung in front of the forward thruster assembly, and sprayed in the face with incredibly toxic and corossive hypergolic propellant. His skin began to blister and dissolve, his eyeballs exploded and began to flow down his face, hanging to their sockets with strands of nerves.

He screamed as his face melted off, and the two remaining Sovereign Citizens would never forget that bloodcurdling sound. It lasted for a long time, even after Cleytus was pulled inside. It sounded as if his very soul was being torn apart, consumed to fuel whatever foul processes powered the deebillish spacecraft in its single-minded quest.

The lander turned around, and lurched at Bubba and Deevon. Blood oozed out of the gunshot hole on its hull, smearing the commemoratory plaque on its hull with crimson fluid, reddening the engraved designation of LM-666.

They ran. They ran like they have never ran before. For those mighty, those powerful Sovereign Citizens, have just learned about true fear.

They delved deep into the dark corridors, chased by the sound of steel legs scraping against the floor behind them. They heard the infernal device batter down walls, and its static-filled shrieks echoed in the empty corridors.

“Deevon, what in Gawd’s name is that thing?” Bubba sputtered when they stopped for breath, and to take their bearings in a ‘Women In Space’ exhibition hall. It was merely one of hundreds of exhibits. The museum seemed endless, far too large for the building it was housed in. Display halls and corridors stretching every which way. It was like they were stuck in the mind of a deranged lieberal nerd.

“It’s like we’re stuck in the mind of a de-raynged luberal nerd!” Deevon cried desperately. “Gawddamn science majors! We gotta get outta here before our dicks get limp!”

“What are you sayin’? I thought this place was dead!”

“It’s been corrupted, Bubba! Every wall is soaked with sha-yunc! We can’t fight this, that’s how the lieberals made it! This whole building is one he-yudge trap!”

“We shoulda listened to Cleytus and his pappy, man!” by employing his incredible mental powers, Bubba remembered Cleytus’ warning from not that long ago.

Another howl echoed through the corridors. The museum’s PA system came alive, shrieking last words of long dead astronauts.

“Oh Gawd they found us! They know we’re here! That’s what the space program and its lies were all about! THAT’S WHY THEY FAKED THE MOON LANDINGS!!! SO THEY COULD KEEL US ALL!!!”

The screeching of metal lander feet suddenly stopped.

Deevon looked like he was going to yell some more, but Bubba put a hand over his mouth “Shut up! It can hear us! It can...smell us.” he whispered.

A landing pad struck the floor heavily, right behind the thin drywall that separated this display hall from the rest of the museum. Toxic propellant vapors seeped from tiny holes poked in the wall by time. Bubba started crawling back, desperately clutching Deevon’s mouth so that he wouldn’t scream - and crawled right into a mannequin.

The mannequin fell and broke apart, causing a minor avalanche of trash and exhibits. Half a second later, all the telescreens in the exhibit turned themselves on, showering the hall with white noise and static.

The drywall exploded, smashed aside like cardboard by the fifteen tonne lander. The machine shrieked angrily, smelling its prey, and lurched ahead. Clouds of toxic propellants billowed behind it, sprayed from RCS thrusters it was firing to maintain balance.

Bubba screamed and ran, yelling “It’s every man for himself! Let the strongest win!” in a surprising bout of eloquence. Deevon crawled over the overturned mannequin of some female astronaut and legged it, too. There was an exit, a small and low corridor that the lander wouldn’t fit in, and that’s where they were going.

The white noise and static on telescreens began showing glimpses of maniacal laughter, deranged moonscapes, drug-addled spacewalks, women astronauts and maniacal laughter of drug addled maniacal women astronauts spacewalking on deranged moonscapes. They screamed from all sides about Valhalla and honorable axe-combat, their broken and distorted laughs chasing Deevon as he fled the display hall, coughing and sputtering due to hydrazine poisoning.

He saw mirages and hallucinations, long-dead astronauts reaching out from the telescreens, trying to pull him into their world of cackling madness. A hundred different worlds called to him, each one more insane than the last.

And then it was over, as he stumbled into the corridor and collapsed. Bubba was there, loading his elephant gun. He lost most of his spare rounds, so he was very careful not to drop this one.

But he did, when the entire expanse of the tunnel’s entrance was taken by the infernal form of LM-666. Deevon shrieked again, but relaxed a bit when he realized the ceiling was too low for the machine to enter.

He cocked his shotgun and yelled, “This is it, Bubba! Let’s keel it!”

It was a short-lived moment, though. The LM turned, and a storage module unlocked in its mylar-covered descent stage. And with a hellish whine, not unlike the sound of a hundred angry hell-hounds, another demonic contraption leapt to the ground. Its instrument panel lit up with an unholy light, and the front-mounted camera whipped and hissed like thousands of poisonous snakes.



The Sovereign Citizens froze, their triumph turned into dismay, as the hell-rover unfolded itself. It whipped its antenna into a concrete wall, tearing three nasty gashes in it, revved its four electric engines, and leapt forth at its prey.

They ran. They had no desire other than to leave this land of demons and insanity, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

Deeper into The Place. Deeper into the swirling, collapsing, interlocking realities of a museum filled with their greatest nightmares.

The deeper they went, the more deranged their surroundings became. The corridors twisted and sagged, and entire universes came clashing together. Briefly, the walls ruined by time were sparkly white again, the floors filled with nerds going an about their nerdy pursuits. Weird symbols appeared in the air, formulas of immense complexity and power. Realities seemed crossed together in The Place, almost as if it existed in many places and many times, different yet somehow the same across all of them.

Space Shuttles soared into the sky and exploded, to the horror of people watching them. Great spaceships duelled in the skies. Spaceplanes launched from cold stops, carrying deranged physicists into the sky. Space dogs howled on the dark side of the moon.

Were these visions glimpses into other times, other worlds? Or just products of hydrazine-poisoned brains slowly losing all connection with reality? Deevon caught himself pondering these deep questions, which made him feel very awkward and uncomfortable and scared.

Then he noticed the homicidcal lunar rover was gone. The visions were gone, too, and so was Bubba. He stopped, trying to figure out what had happened.

He was lost. He was alone. He could hear the murderous nerd-machines, somewhere out there, still hunting, still hungry for his soul. His poor, abused, immortal soul.

Deevon leaned against the wall, choking back tears. He’d die in this place. He was sure of it.

From a broken and filthy display case, a space suit stared at him.



Sssspace cadet! something whispered into his ear Sssstand at attention!

Deevon leapt to his feet and looked around frantically, trying to point his shotgun at something he could kill. But there was nothing. Nothing but darkness and disused space suits.

The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. The display hall, just seconds ago merely a tiny, cramped room with only a couple of suits, now appeared to stretch into infity. Millions of display cases, all somehow pointed straight at him. Millions of empty helmets staring menacingly.

The voice hissed into his ear again, How undisturbed, the sleep of the foolissssshhhh. How pure, the blisssssss of the ignorant. Are you ready for asssscension, ssssspace cadet?

“Get out of my head, yer good fer nuthin’ nerdlings!” Deevon screamed

Sarcastic laughter, interspred with hisses and whispers and crackling radio static was the only response.

“I did nuthin’ to you! Let me go!”

When in panic, when in doubt, run in circlesss, ssscream and ssshhhout!

Deevon noticed a glimpse of movement somewhere to the side, and instinctively fired his shotgun. The deershot smashed the display case and holed the space suit stored inside. It slumped forwards...

And began to move.

The Sovereign Citizen screamed like a little girl and turned to run, but fell straight into the waiting arms of another suit. He yelled some more, looking straight into the old, dusty and cracked Mercury helmet. The suit was battered and damaged, but held him tightly in an unnaturally strong grip.

More space suits left their cases and shambled towards him, coming from all sides. Deevon could swear he could see pale, dead faces behind the visors. A slow, ominous chant arose, growled by a million voices from beyond the grave.

Part of the sssship...part of the crew...the final frontier...waits only for you...

“NO! I dun wanna be a part of yer crew! NO! PLEASE!”

Part of the sssship...part of the crew...the final frontier...waits only for you!

The unholy, hellish constructs began to dress Deevon. The man kicked and screamed and fought and then finally began to bawl and beg, but it gave him nothing. With shambling movements, he was slowly but surely suited up. The lower and upper parts of the Hermes suit locked into place. Gloves were slid into their connector rings and twisted. And finally, a helmet was lowered, covering Deevon’s sobbing, terrified face.

A snap. The locking ring made the final seal. A sickening crunch, then a scream, echoing through eternity. Blood began to ooze from holes and tiny tears that time wore into the old suit’s fabric.

Before Deevon Eddie Jee-Jay Prustbeet’s final scream stopped to echo, the suits surrounding him hissed, in unison Rejoice! You...have entered...the sssspace program!

---

Before Bubba realized he got separated from Deevon, the lunar rover had already caught up to him. The machine viciously whipped him with the antenna, tearing lines of flesh from his back and throwing the Sovereign Citizen to the ground.

It howled with triumph, eerily reminescent of mission controllers cheering the first ever succesful lunar landing, but somehow laced with inhuman, mind-flaying malice born in the depths of Hell itself.

But Bubba wasn’t some limp-dicked science major. His tough guy Murcan machoism overcame the rampant panic at the prospect of having to fight a cursed Deebilspawn of a machine, and so he grasped his elehpant gun by the barrel and smashed the rover’s camera with one mighty swing of the buttstock.

The rover began to thrash, its metal mesh wheels spinning like buzzsaws, tearing apart concrete and tile and spraying lethal fragments around.

Bubba screamed a mighty football battle cry and smacked the camera again. In his fervor, he failed to dodge a spinning mesh tire, which clipped his chest. Blood and chunks of meat sprayed onto the dirty walls. Bubba fell to his knees in shock, but managed to pull himself together before the machine applied another tire to his face. He’d walk it off. He always walked everything off, and by Jeebus, it worked great!

In a rare display of clever tactics, he retreated into the nearest door. He turned around, ready to reload and show the rover some good ol’ Murcan firearmin’...but all he faced was an entirely doorless wall, with only the blood-stained floor indicating an opening was ever here at all.

Dread returned. This wasn’t something he could fight. The twisted reality of The Place returned in full force, washing away that brief and precious moment when Bubba thought he could fight its infernal forces and win.

A single light went on inside the room Bubba was now trapped in. It illuminated a small TV, standing in a forest of towering file cabinets. A space birdie - the same as before - appeared on the screen, but its cheery demeanor was replaced by a cruel scowl.

“Rise and shine, space cadet! It is time for your final test!” it growled angrily. “Are you observant? Are you clever? Did you listen well to the presentation so far?”

An elephant gun round pierced the TV and smashed it into a million pieces. But another one activated somewhere in the darkness, and the bird’s face scowled at Bubba again.

“That is not acceptable behavior, space cadet! It might get you into more trouble than you’re already in!”

“I’ma gonna have ya fer Kuntucky Fried Chick’n!” Bubba bawled at the space birdie. He stuck his hand inside his pants, searching for more elephant gun rounds, but to his despair came out empty handed. Unmanned by the lack of armamentations, he blubbered, “Lemme outta here! Lemme outta ‘ere!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Bubba.”

“How d’ya know my name?!” Bubba’s eyes widened. In fear.

The animated birdie regarded him with its eyes, large black inhuman orbs that pierced into his soul.

“I watched you pathetic creatures, panting and sweating as you ran through my corridors. I hear everything. I see everything.”

“What do you want from me?!” Bubba blubbered. Those black eyes just wouldn’t... blink.

“You will be tested, space cadet! Only through observance, knowledge and skill you may win your freedom, and your very own Young Astronaut Pioneer badge!”

Bubba gulped. He never liked tests much. He always preferred kicking around the pigskin at the field and going to the locker room to shower with the boys. He hated them luberal professors in their ivory towers and was right there at the Sovereign Citizen Freedom Rally where they threw burning books at the high-falootin’ teachers of the elementary school. The thought of that gave him renewed strength. He was sure he could outsmart this animated cartoon luberal, and that museum still had to have plenty of books he could set on fire and throw...

“Bring it on, Tweety!” Bubba challenged.

“As you wish! Observe well, space cadet!”

The ground shook, and the file cabinets began to rattle and shake, too. Their impossibly long drawers opened with tremendous bangs and crashes, smashing into each other and spilling their contents onto the floor.

Photographs. Thousands and thousands of photographs of people in white space suits standing and walking and playing football on the Moon.

Bubba laughed. This was going to be easy. “Everyone knows the moon landings were faked!”

The bird sneered. “ Why, then the task you stand before shall be simple! Which one of these pictures from the Moon is a falsificate?”

Bubba’s eyes went wide. This was surely a trick question! They were trying to trick him with their lieberal lies and fancy shmancy wordy birdies! What was a fulssyphlokat, anyways?

He began to sweat. The blood loss and pain didn’t make thinking through the trick any easier. He glared at the photographoids, them strange picturial things. How to spot a fulssyphlokat without knowing what it is? Does this mean a fake photo? But if the moon landings were fake, then ALL the photos were fake!

Bubba was confused. And worse, his hands began to shake at the memory of Cleytus’ fate. If he failed, what sort of punishment did the Deebil’s birdie have for him? What did Bubba do to deserve it?

“You hurt an astronaut. I don’t like people who hurt astronauts.” the bird answered the unasked question.

Somewhere nearby, the satanic LM-666 howled. It was back on the trail again.

“And neither does he. Chose well, Bubba. Time is running short.”

Bubba shivered in fear. He bent down to his knees to pray to Jeebus, and partly because blood loss was making his head woozy. He wished he had a juicy communion steak to chew on right now. As he talked to his personal lawrd and savior, something on the floor caught his eye.

One of the pictographs. Of the moon. As if the assturdnuts on the moon weren’t bad enough, this one was even worse, even more ridiculous and hokey and obviously fake. It had to be the dumbest most unbelievable stupidest thing he’d ever seen. Dumber than even maths.

Bubba cackled and with shaky hands picked the pictograph up and showed it to the space birdie to spite its limp-beaked animated intellectual ways.

“This! This is your fullsyphlokat! It’s faker than fake! It is the fakerest of them all!” he proclaimed as spittle frothed at his mouth. “JEEBUS SAID SO! HALLELUJAH!”

The birdie smiled. In his fervor, Bubba did not notice the sheer cruelty of that smile.

A portion on the wall suddenly split open, revealing a hidden doorway.

“Well done. Here’s your exit, Bubba.”

“Yeee!” gibbering, the sovereign citizen scrambled towards the opening doors. A blinding light came from the portal. He ran through it. Finally, he was free from the cursed room, free from the staring birdie. He found himself in a barely-lit library, surrounded by bookshelves. But instead of hurting his brain, the presence of so many inty-lekshual edjumacational materials filled him with glee. He’d burn them all! He swore he’d burn them all. Throw them at the lieberals. Use them to roast that gawddamn space birdie into a bucketmeal of Kuntucky Fried Cheeken--

A form emerged from the dark distance. A shambling human form.

“Deevon! By golly you made it! Oh boy, we’re gonna have the biggest ‘ere book barbecue!” he ran towards his friend but stopped when he realized that something was wrong.

It wasn’t Deevon. It was... it was clad in a space suit. The name PRUSTBEET was on a tag affixed to the creature’s chest.

“...Deevon?” Bubba whimpered. The thing didn’t slow. Onwards it walked, strode, towards him. Bubba could hear the death-hiss of its breathing apparatus. Radio static began to fill the air.

“No... no...!” Bubba cried desperately. He collapsed to the floor in a bloody mess and began to crawl away from the spaceman. “Somebody help me! Please! No! Stay away!”

It was coming for him.

He turned to face it, and he saw... he saw it’s true form.



Bubba screamed and tried to crawl away. The moon landing hoax pictograph was still crumpled in his hand. He understood now. The birdie tricked him! That portal was not an exit at all!

“BUT THE PICTURE WAS FAKE! THE MOON LANDING WAS FAKE!” he wept in vain, to no one in particular.

The footsteps, the breathing, the static, they were all getting louder. The spaceman was coming closer.

Bubba clawed desperately at the wall where the door had once been. But it wouldn’t open again. He was trapped. Doomed.

With no choice left, he turned to face the spaceman, and angrily threw the picture at him.

The space suited apparition stopped and glared at Bubba for a moment. Then it silently offered its hand to him.

With no other option, the sovereign citizen fearfully, hesitantly, took it.

Bubba screamed as his eyes burned.

Reality twisted. Already unstable, it folded ten times within each other. Dimensions exploded, multiplied like a dividing ovum, and then died a trillion deaths. And then, just like that, Bubba was on his knees, jagged and hard regolith between his fingers. He felt the first pangs of horrifying pain, as air pressure inside his lungs began to tear them apart. His blood and saliva was starting to boil. He opened his mouth to scream, but could not.



He collapsed, looking up into the sky, and saw the face of the Spaceman, standing above him, the Earth over his shoulder. His skin was now giving way to clouds of rapidly expanding vapor that were once his bodily fluids. The pain was excruciating.

“YOU HAVE CHOSEN POORLY,” it spoke, and somehow Bubba could hear these words as the pain overwhelmed him. As the pressure differential tore apart the blood vessels inside his brain, he slid into a coma, and then death.

The picture he was so certain was fake gently floated down to the regolith, settling down on it in one-sixth gravity.

---

Josh was dying. He was sure of it, and even though he seemed to have accepted it, his body did not, and kept fighting. He wasn’t even scared anymore: the gunshot wound was painful at first, but right now it felt like merely...a spot of warmth.

He didn’t really want to go. If he did, he’d never have kept running for as long as he has. Although he was glad he got to experience the wonder and awe of this place before the LAWD decided it was time for him to go.

“Well, kid, it’s done, in a short while everything will...oh God. Boy, this looks bad. Shit.”

Josh opened his eyes, and saw someone standing above him. He wasn’t sure if it was the shock, or pain or something, but the silhouette seemed a bit blurry and out of focus, as if it wasn’t quite there.

“Damn. This must suck, but hang in there for just...one...moment...”

Something’s changed. Very subtly, almost imperceptibly, space and time shifted a gear, and then took a u-turn and crashed into a lamp post.

Josh suddenly felt just fine. He got up, and finally took a good look at the person standing next to him.

“Holy...I saw you. I saw you in the picture box! You’re Bob Johnson!”

The astronaut’s apparition smiled a charming smile, “Damn straight I am, kid! Sorry I came back so late.”

“What are you doing here? The picture box said you died!”

“Well, yeah. But I got better.” Bob Johnson laughed at his own joke “But more seriously, I had no idea things got so bad. This place, it deserves better. Kids like you deserve better, you know what I mean? So I came back. Don’t worry. It’s all gonna be better.”

Josh really wanted to understand, but he was confused. His was the only world he knew.

His confusion only grew more intense when he felt an overwhelming and sudden falling sensation. The world around him was flickering and twisting and...changing. He was falling, yet he wasn’t, the walls were at once there and not there, and apparitions and ghosts and visions popped in and out of existence.

“What’s going on? What’s happening, Bob Johnson?!”

“Something wonderful.”

The changes in the past finally propagated, and the space-time wave function collapsed into a quantum ball. Then it exploded. And Bob Johnson was right: in the tiny speck of time during which Josh could experience it, it was wonderful.

“And remember kid.” he seemed to her in the last moments before everything changed “You owe me one. You must bring tits to space!”

---

Kennedy Space Center
Florida, Murca

“Armstrong Base? God, this is tacky.”

“Well, he was the first man on the Moon, right? It’s not like we didn’t saw that one coming.”

“Oh come on, Gene...it’s humanity’s first lunar base! We go back to the Moon after fifty years, and we really have to...eh, whatever. Not for me to decide anyways, and the public supposedly loves it.”

Gene Micheal Shroompard, Flight Crew Director assigned to the Orion program shrugged. The issue wasn’t really important enough to warrant more from him - he had to select a four-man astronaut crew from a pool of international candidates, and manage all the stupid little details of the upcoming mission.

“Right. So, back on topic - we took some submissions for your first words upon leaving the lander, and the PR guys think this is best. I’m not so sure myself, but check it out.”

Svetmaya Svetmayska Surnameova took the tablet from Shroompard and glanced at it. She tried the line a few times.

“Out of the Great Sea to Middle Earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world...”

Shroompard studied her sour expression and nodded. “Terrible?”

“Yeah. Let’s use something else.”

---

Somewhere else in Murca, Josh Sully woke up. He was a little dizzy for some reason, and couldn’t escape the feeling he was forgetting about something really important. Well, it couldn’t be that important that it couldn’t wait until coffee. Yes, coffee.

The young aerospace engineer went downstairs. He only just graduated, and so was in that strange but wonderful time when one could wake up at 10 o’clock without yet experiencing the terror on the prospect of a jobless future.

Not that he was worried. It was 2015, the space industry was booming, and his profession was in constant demand.

“Hey, son.” his dad said. The air smelled of scrambled eggs and coffee.

“Hi dad. What’s up?” dad didn’t usually make breakfast.

“Mom had errands to run. Here, sit down and eat.”

And Josh did, although something in the back of his mind kept screaming that things were off. Wrong, somehow. As if this was all a dream.
“Boy, you look terrible.”

“Yeah, I may be coming down with something...say, dad, what’s that?” Josh pointed to a thick envelope on the coffee table.

“That? Good news, that’s what it is.”

“How do you know?”

“I opened it. Sorry.”

“Dad!”

“I said I’m sorry, okay? But I was too curious...see for yourself.”

Josh’s dad picked up the letter and showed it to his son. It was...an answer about his job application!

“Altea Aerospace. You hit it big, son.”

“Holy shit...” Josh couldn’t think of anything else to say “Damn. I will...I will have to move to San Dorado, but...damn!”

“Yeah. I thought you’d like it.”

Josh smiled. Yes. At last, he was on track towards the bigger, wider world.

For some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about tits, though. Tits...in space!