#Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Tour | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

im-just-trying-to-get-bi · 3 years ago

Note

(Black screen with text; The sound of buzzing bees can be heard) Narrator: According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible. (Barry is picking out a shirt) Barry: Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Yellow, black. Ooh, black and yellow! Let's shake it up a little. Janet: Barry! Breakfast is ready! Barry: Coming! Hang on a second. (Barry uses his antenna like a phone) Barry: Hello (Through phone) Adam: Barry? Barry: Adam? Adam: Can you believe this is happening? Barry: I can't. I'll pick you up. (Barry flies down the stairs) Martin: Looking sharp. Janet: Use the stairs. Your father paid good money for those. Barry: Sorry. I'm excited. Martin: Here's the graduate. We're very proud of you, son. A perfect report card, all B's. Janet: Very proud. (Rubs Barry's hair) Barry: Ma! I got a thing going here. Janet: You got lint on your fuzz. Barry: Ow! That's me! Janet: Wave to us! We'll be in row 118,000. Bye! (Barry flies out the door) Janet: Barry, I told you, stop flying in the house! (Barry drives through the hive,and is waved at by Adam who is reading a newspaper) Barry: Hey, Adam. Adam: Hey, Barry. (Adam gets in Barry's car) Adam: Is that fuzz gel? Barry: A little. Special day, graduation. Adam: Never thought I'd make it. (Barry pulls away from the house and continues driving) Barry: Three days grade school, three days high school... Adam: Those were awkward. Barry: Three days college. I'm glad I took a day and hitchhiked around the hive. Adam: You did come back different. (Barry and Adam pass by Artie, who is jogging) Artie: Hi, Barry! Barry: Artie, growing a mustache? Looks good. Adam: Hear about Frankie? Barry: Yeah. Adam: You going to the funeral? Barry: No, I'm not going to his funeral. Everybody knows, sting someone, you die. Don't waste it on a squirrel. Such a hothead. Adam: I guess he could have just gotten out of the way. (The car does a barrel roll on the loop-shaped bridge and lands on the highway) Adam: I love this incorporating an amusement park into our regular day. Barry: I guess that's why they say we don't need vacations. (Barry parallel parks the car and together they fly over the graduating students) {♬ Playing "Pomp and Circumstance" ♬} Barry: Boy, quite a bit of pomp...under the circumstances. (Barry and Adam sit down and put on their hats) Barry: Well, Adam, today we are men. Adam: We are! Barry: Bee-men. Adam: Amen! Barry and Adam: Hallelujah! (Barry and Adam both have a happy spasm) {♬ "Pomp and Circumstance" Ends ♬} Announcer: Students, faculty, distinguished bees, please welcome Dean Buzzwell. Dean: Welcome, New Hive Oity graduating class of......9:15. That concludes our ceremonies. And begins your career at Honex Industries! Adam: Will we pick our job today? (Adam and Barry get into a tour bus) Barry: I heard it's just orientation. (Tour buses rise out of the ground and the students are automatically loaded into the buses) Tour Guide: Heads up! Here we go. Announcer: Keep your hands and antennas inside the tram at all times. Barry: Wonder what it'll be like? Adam: A little scary. Tour Guide: Welcome to Honex, a division of Honesco and a part of the Hexagon Group. Barry: This is it! Barry and Adam: Wow. Barry: Wow. (The bus drives down a road an on either side are the Bee's massive complicated Honey-making machines) Tour Guide: We know that you, as a bee, have worked your whole life to get to the point where you can work for your whole life. Honey begins when our valiant Pollen Jocks bring the nectar to the hive. Our top-secret formula is automatically color-corrected, scent-adjusted and bubble-contoured into this soothing sweet syrup with its distinctive golden glow you know as... Everyone: Honey! (The guide has been collecting honey into a bottle and she throws it into the crowd on the bus and it is caught by a girl in the back) Adam: That girl was hot. Barry: She's my cousin! Adam: She is? Barry:

Yes, we're all cousins. Adam: Right. You're right. Tour Guide: At Honex, we constantly strive to improve every aspect of bee existence. These bees are stress-testing a new helmet technology. (The bus passes by a Bee wearing a helmet who is being smashed into the ground with fly-swatters, newspapers and boots. He lifts a thumbs up but you can hear him groan) Adam: What do you think he makes? Barry: Not enough. Tour Guide: Here we have our latest advancement, the Krelman. (They pass by a turning wheel with Bees standing on pegs, who are each wearing a finger-shaped hat) Barry: Wow, What does that do? Tour Guide: Catches that little strand of honey that hangs after you pour it. Saves us millions. Adam: (Intrigued) Can anyone work on the Krelman? Tour Guide: Of course. Most bee jobs are small ones. But bees know that every small job, if it's done well, means a lot. But choose carefully because you'll stay in the job you pick for the rest of your life. (Everyone claps except for Barry) Barry: The same job the rest of your life? I didn't know that. Adam: What's the difference? Tour Guide: You'll be happy to know that bees, as a species, haven't had one day off in 27 million years. Barry: (Upset) So you'll just work us to death? We'll sure try. (Everyone on the bus laughs except Barry. Barry and Adam are walking back home together) Adam: Wow! That blew my mind! Barry: "What's the difference?" How can you say that? One job forever? That's an insane choice to have to make. Adam: I'm relieved. Now we only have to make one decision in life. Barry: But, Adam, how could they never have told us that? Adam: Why would you question anything? We're bees. We're the most perfectly functioning society on Earth. Barry: You ever think maybe things work a little too well here? Adam: Like what? Give me one example. (Barry and Adam stop walking and it is revealed to the audience that hundreds of cars are speeding by and narrowly missing them in perfect unison) Barry: I don't know. But you know what I'm talking about. Announcer: Please clear the gate. Royal Nectar Force on approach. Barry: Wait a second. Check it out. (The Pollen jocks fly in, circle around and landing in line) Barry: Hey, those are Pollen Jocks! Adam: Wow. I've never seen them this close. Barry: They know what it's like outside the hive. Adam: Yeah, but some don't come back. Girl Bees: Hey, Jocks! Hi, Jocks! (The Pollen Jocks hook up their backpacks to machines that pump the nectar to trucks, which drive away) Lou Lo Duva: You guys did great! You're monsters! You're sky freaks! I love it! (Punching the Pollen Jocks in joy) Lou Lo Duva: I love it! Adam: I wonder where they were. Barry: I don't know. Their day's not planned. Outside the hive, flying who knows where, doing who knows what. You can't just decide to be a Pollen Jock. You have to be bred for that. Adam: Right. (Barry and Adam are covered in some pollen that floated off of the Pollen Jocks) Barry: Look at that. That's more pollen than you and I will see in a lifetime. Adam: It's just a status symbol. Bees make too much of it. Barry: Perhaps. Unless you're wearing it and the ladies see you wearing it. (Barry waves at 2 girls standing a little away from them) Adam: Those ladies? Aren't they our cousins too? Barry: Distant. Distant. Pollen Jock #1: Look at these two. Pollen Jock #2: Couple of Hive Harrys. Pollen Jock #1: Let's have fun with them. Girl Bee #1: It must be dangerous being a Pollen Jock. Barry: Yeah. Once a bear pinned me against a mushroom! He had a paw on my throat, and with the other, he was slapping me! (Slaps Adam with his hand to represent his scenario) Girl Bee #2: Oh, my! Barry: I never thought I'd knock him out. Girl Bee #1: (Looking at Adam) What were you doing during this? Adam: Obviously I was trying to alert the authorities. Barry: I can autograph that. (The pollen jocks walk up to Barry and Adam, they pretend that Barry and Adam really are pollen jocks.) Pollen Jock #1: A little gusty out there today, wasn't it, comrades? Barry: Yeah. Gusty. Pollen Jock #1: We're hitting a sunflower patch six

miles from here tomorrow. Barry: Six miles, huh? Adam: Barry! Pollen Jock #2: A puddle jump for us, but maybe you're not up for it. Barry: Maybe I am. Adam: You are not! Pollen Jock #1: We're going 0900 at J-Gate. What do you think, buzzy-boy? Are you bee enough? Barry: I might be. It all depends on what 0900 means. (The scene cuts to Barry looking out on the hive-city from his balcony at night) Martin: Hey, Honex! Barry: Dad, you surprised me. Martin: You decide what you're interested in? Barry: Well, there's a lot of choices. But you only get one. Do you ever get bored doing the same job every day? Martin: Son, let me tell you about stirring. You grab that stick, and you just move it around, and you stir it around. You get yourself into a rhythm. It's a beautiful thing. Barry: You know, Dad, the more I think about it, maybe the honey field just isn't right for me. Martin: You were thinking of what, making balloon animals? That's a bad job for a guy with a stinger. Janet, your son's not sure he wants to go into honey! Janet: Barry, you are so funny sometimes. Barry: I'm not trying to be funny. Martin: You're not funny! You're going into honey. Our son, the stirrer! Janet: You're gonna be a stirrer? Barry: No one's listening to me! Martin: Wait till you see the sticks I have. Barry: I could say anything right now. I'm gonna get an ant tattoo! (Barry's parents don't listen to him and continue to ramble on) Martin: Let's open some honey and celebrate! Barry: Maybe I'll pierce my thorax. Shave my antennae. Shack up with a grasshopper. Get a gold tooth and call everybody "dawg"! Janet: I'm so proud. (The scene cuts to Barry and Adam waiting in line to get a job) Adam: We're starting work today! Barry: Today's the day. Adam: Come on! All the good jobs will be gone. Barry: Yeah, right. Job Lister: Pollen counting, stunt bee, pouring, stirrer, front desk, hair removal... Bee in the front of the line: Is it still available? Job Lister: Hang on. Two left! One of them's yours! Congratulations! Step to the side. Adam: What'd you get? Bee in the front of the line: Picking crud out. Stellar! (He walks away) Adam: Wow! Job Lister: Couple of newbies? Adam: Yes, sir! Our first day! We are ready! Job Lister: Make your choice. (Adam and Barry look up at the job board. There are hundreds of constantly changing panels that contain available or unavailable jobs. It looks very confusing) Adam: You want to go first? Barry: No, you go. Adam: Oh, my. What's available? Job Lister: Restroom attendant's open, not for the reason you think. Adam: Any chance of getting the Krelman? Job Lister: Sure, you're on. (Puts the Krelman finger-hat on Adam's head) (Suddenly the sign for Krelman closes out) Job Lister: I'm sorry, the Krelman just closed out. (Takes Adam's hat off) Job Lister: Wax monkey's always open. Adam: The Krelman opened up again. What happened? Job Lister: A bee died. Makes an opening. See? He's dead. Another dead one. Deady. Deadified. Two more dead. Dead from the neck up. Dead from the neck down. That's life! Adam: Oh, this is so hard! (Barry remembers what the Pollen Jock offered him and he flies off) Adam: Heating, cooling, stunt bee, pourer, stirrer, humming, inspector number seven, lint coordinator, stripe supervisor, mite wrangler. Barry, what do you think I should... Barry? (Adam turns around and sees Barry flying away) Adam: Barry! Pollen Jock #1: All right, we've got the sunflower patch in quadrant nine... Adam: (Through phone) What happened to you? Where are you? Barry: I'm going out. Adam: Out? Out where? Barry: Out there. Adam: Oh, no! Barry: I have to, before I go to work for the rest of my life. Adam: You're gonna die! You're crazy! (Barry hangs up) Adam: Hello? Pollen Jock #2: Another call coming in. If anyone's feeling brave, there's a Korean deli on 83rd that gets their roses today. Barry: Hey, guys. Pollen Jock #1: Look at that. Pollen Jock #2: Isn't that the kid we saw yesterday? Lou Lo Duva: Hold it, son, flight deck's restricted. Pollen Jock #1: It's OK, Lou. We're gonna take him up. (Puts hand on Barry's shoulder)

Lou Lo Duva: (To Barry) Really? Feeling lucky, are you? Bee with Clipboard: (To Barry) Sign here, here. Just initial that. Thank you. Lou Lo Duva: OK. You got a rain advisory today, and as you all know, bees cannot fly in rain. So be careful. As always, watch your brooms, hockey sticks, dogs, birds, bears and bats. Also, I got a couple of reports of root beer being poured on us. Murphy's in a home because of it, babbling like a cicada! Barry: That's awful. Lou Lo Duva: (Still talking through megaphone) And a reminder for you rookies, bee law number one, absolutely no talking to humans! All right, launch positions! Pollen Jocks: (The Pollen Jocks run into formation) Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz! Lou Lo Duva: Black and yellow! Pollen Jocks: Hello! Pollen Jock #1: (To Barry)You ready for this, hot shot? Barry: Yeah. Yeah, bring it on. Pollen Jocks: Wind, check. Antennae, check. Nectar pack, check. Wings, check. Stinger, check. Barry: Scared out of my shorts, check. Lou Lo Duva: OK, ladies, let's move it out! Pound those petunias, you striped stem-suckers! All of you, drain those flowers! (The pollen jocks fly out of the hive) Barry: Wow! I'm out! I can't believe I'm out! So blue. I feel so fast and free! Box kite! (Barry flies through the kite) Barry: Wow! Flowers! (A pollen jock puts on some high tech goggles that shows flowers similar to heat sink goggles.) Pollen Jock: This is Blue Leader. We have roses visual. Bring it around 30 degrees and hold. Roses! Pollen Jock #1: 30 degrees, roger. Bringing it around. Stand to the side, kid. It's got a bit of a kick. (The pollen jock fires a high-tech gun at the flower, shooting tubes that suck up the nectar from the flower and collects it into a pouch on the gun) Barry: That is one nectar collector! Pollen Jock #1: Ever see pollination up close? Barry: No, sir. (Barry and the Pollen jock fly over the field, the pollen jock sprinkles pollen as he goes) Pollen Jock #1: I pick up some pollen here, sprinkle it over here. Maybe a dash over there, a pinch on that one. See that? It's a little bit of magic. Barry: That's amazing. Why do we do that? Pollen Jock #1: That's pollen power. More pollen, more flowers, more nectar, more honey for us. Barry: Cool. Pollen Jock #1: I'm picking up a lot of bright yellow. could be daisies. Don't we need those? Pollen Jock #2: Copy that visual. Wait. One of these flowers seems to be on the move. Pollen Jock #1: Say again? You're reporting a moving flower? Pollen Jock #2: Affirmative. (The Pollen jocks land near the "flowers" which, to the audience are obviously just tennis balls) Ken: (In the distance) That was on the line! Pollen Jock #1: This is the coolest. What is it? Pollen Jock #2: I don't know, but I'm loving this color. It smells good. Not like a flower, but I like it. Pollen Jock #1: Yeah, fuzzy. (Sticks his hand on the ball but it gets stuck) Pollen Jock #3: Chemical-y. (The pollen jock finally gets his hand free from the tennis ball) Pollen Jock #1: Careful, guys. It's a little grabby. (The pollen jocks turn around and see Barry lying his entire body on top of one of the tennis balls) Pollen Jock #2: My sweet lord of bees! Pollen Jock #3: Candy-brain, get off there! Pollen Jock #1: (Pointing upwards) Problem! (A human hand reaches down and grabs the tennis ball that Barry is stuck to) Barry: Guys! Pollen Jock #2: This could be bad. Pollen Jock #3: Affirmative. (Vanessa Bloome starts bouncing the tennis ball, not knowing Barry is stick to it) Barry: Very close. Gonna hurt. Mama's little boy. (Barry is being hit back and forth by two humans playing tennis. He is still stuck to the ball) Pollen Jock #1: You are way out of position, rookie! Ken: Coming in at you like a MISSILE! (Barry flies past the pollen jocks, still stuck to the ball) Barry: (In slow motion) Help me! Pollen Jock #2: I don't think these are flowers. Pollen Jock #3: Should we tell him? Pollen Jock #1: I think he knows. Barry: What is this?! Ken: Match point! You can start packing up, honey, because you're about to EAT IT! (A pollen

jock coughs which confused Ken and he hits the ball the wrong way with Barry stuck to it and it goes flying into the city) Barry: Yowser! (Barry bounces around town and gets stuck in the engine of a car. He flies into the air conditioner and sees a bug that was frozen in there) Barry: Ew, gross. (The man driving the car turns on the air conditioner which blows Barry into the car) Girl in the car: There's a bee in the car! Do something! Dad driving the car: I'm driving! Baby Girl: (Waving at Barry) Hi, bee. (Barry smiles and waves at the baby girl) Guy in the back of the car: He's back here! He's going to sting me! Girl in the car: Nobody move. If you don't move, he won't sting you. Freeze! (Barry freezes as well, hovering in the middle of the car) Grandma in the car: He blinked! (The grandma whips out some bee-spray and sprays everywhere in the car, climbing into the front seat, still trying to spray Barry) Girl in the car: Spray him, Granny! Dad driving the car: What are you doing?! (Barry escapes the car through the air conditioner and is flying high above the ground, safe.) Barry: Wow... the tension level out here is unbelievable. (Barry sees that storm clouds are gathering and he can see rain clouds moving into this direction) Barry: I gotta get home. Can't fly in rain. Can't fly in rain. Pollen Jock #1: You are way out of position, rookie! Ken: Coming in at you like a MISSILE! (Barry flies past the pollen jocks, still stuck to the ball) Barry: (In slow motion) Help me! Pollen Jock #2: I don't think these are flowers. Pollen Jock #3: Should we tell him? Pollen Jock #1: I think he knows. Barry: What is this?! Ken: Match point! You can start packing up, honey, because you're about to EAT IT! (A pollen jock coughs which confused Ken and he hits the ball the wrong way with Barry stuck to it and it goes flying into the city) Barry: Yowser! (Barry bounces around town and gets stuck in the engine of a car. He flies into the air conditioner and sees a bug that was frozen in there) Barry: Ew, gross. (The man driving the car turns on the air conditioner which blows Barry into the car) Girl in the car: There's a bee in the car! Do something! Dad driving the car: I'm driving! Baby Girl: (Waving at Barry) Hi, bee. (Barry smiles and waves at the baby girl) Guy in the back of the car: He's back here! He's going to sting me! Girl in the car: Nobody move. If you don't move, he won't sting you. Freeze! (Barry freezes as well, hovering in the middle of the car) Grandma in the car: He blinked! (The grandma whips out some bee-spray and sprays everywhere in the car, climbing into the front seat, still trying to spray Barry) Girl in the car: Spray him, Granny! Dad driving the car: What are you doing?! (Barry escapes the car through the air conditioner and is flying high above the ground, safe.) Barry: Wow... the tension level out here is unbelievable. (Barry sees that storm clouds are gathering and he can see rain clouds moving into this direction) Barry: I gotta get home. Can't fly in rain. Can't fly in rain.(a raindrop hits him, but before he can recover, another hits him) Mayday! Mayday! Bee going down! (Barry sees a window ledge and barely makes it there, then crawls through the open window.) Vanessa: Ken, could you close the window please? Ken: Huh? Oh.. Hey, Check out my new resume. I made it into a fold-out brochure. You see? Folds out. Barry: Oh, no. More humans. I don't need this. (tries to fly out the window but bounces off of it) Oof! Ow! What was that? (tries again) Maybe this time. This time. This time. This time! This time! This, this, this, this... Drapes. (taps the glass) That is diabolical. Ken: (showing off his resume:) It's fantastic. It's got all my special skills, even my top-ten favorite movies. Andy: What's your number one? Star Wars? Ken: Nah, I don't go for that... (mimics lasers firing) ...kind of stuff. Barry: No wonder we’re not supposed to talk to them. They're out of their minds. Ken: When I walk out of a job interview, they're flabbergasted. They can't believe the things I say. Barry: There's the sun. Maybe

that's a way out. (flies towards the light near the ceiling) I don't remember the sun having a big 75 on it. (bounces off it and starts falling, landing in a bowl of chip dip) Ken: I gotta tell ya, I predicted global warming. I could feel it getting hotter. At first I thought it was just me. (Andy scoops up some of the dip with a tortilla chip, including Barry, and brings it towards his mouth) Ken: Wait! Stop! Bee! Anna: Kill it! Kill it! Ken: (grabs something to kill it) Stand back. These are winter boots. Vanessa: Wait! Don't kill him! Ken: You know I'm allergic to them! This thing could kill me! Vanessa: Well, why does his life have any less value than yours? (Vanessa places a lass over Barry) Ken: Why does his life have any less value than mine? Is that your statement? Vanessa: I'm just saying all life has value. You don't know what he's capable of feeling. (Vanessa rips Ken's resume in half and slides it under the glass) Ken: My brochure. Vanessa: (carries the glass with Barry inside over to the window and release him) There you go, little guy. Ken: I'm not scared of him. But yeah, it's an allergic thing. Andy: Hey, why don't you put that on your resume-brochure? Ken: It's not funny. My whole face could puff up. Andy: Hmm, make it one of your "special skills". Ken: You know, knocking someone out is also a special skill. (later, as the rain stops and the sun comes back out) Anna: Right. Bye, Vanessa. Thanks. Ken: Vanessa, next week? Yogurt night? Vanessa: Ah, yeah, sure, Ken. You know, whatever. Ken: You could put carob chips on there. Vanessa: Bye. Ken: Supposed to be less calories or somethin'. Vanessa: Bye. (the last of her guests have left. She shuts the door and begins cleanup.) Barry: (sighs) I gotta say something. She saved my life. I've got to say something. All right, here it goes. (Barry flies back into her house through the almost-closed window and stops in front of a can of Bumble Bee Chunk Light Tuna as Vanessa walks by, stopping right in line with the mascot. He starts to walk away and looks back. Says, "Huh" and turns back around to look at the mascot, then says "Nah" as he dismisses the picture and continues walking.) (Barry resumes flying and lands on a postcard from Coney Island taped to the refrigerator, again in a position where Vanessa doesn't notice him.) Barry: What would I say? I could really get in trouble. It's a bee law. You're not supposed to talk to a human. I can't believe I'm doing this. (begins debating with himself) I've got to. Oh, I can't do it. Come on! No. Yes. No. Do it. I can't. How should I start it? "Ya like jazz?" No, that's no good. Here she comes! Speak, you fool! Barry: (to Vanessa:) Um, hi! (Vanessa gasps and drops the dishes) Barry: I'm sorry. Vanessa: Hah, you're talking. Barry: Yes, I know, I know. I'm so– Vanessa: You're talking. Barry: I know. I'm– I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Vanessa: No, it's okay. It's fine. It's just... I know I'm dreaming. But I don't recall going to bed. Barry: Well, you know, I'm sure this is very disconcerting.... Vanessa: Yeah! I mean, this is a bit of a surprise to me. I mean, you're a bee! Barry: Yeah. Vanessa: Yeah. Barry: Yeah, I am a bee. And, uh, you know I'm not supposed to be doing this, but... (Vanessa makes a small "Oh" and "uh-huh" noises while Barry's talking) Barry: ...they were all trying to kill me. And if it wasn't for you... I mean, I had to thank you. It's, it's just the way I was raised. (Vanessa grabs a fork and stabs herself in the hand, then cries out) Barry: Oh! That was a little weird. Vanessa: I'm talking to a bee. Barry: Yeah. Vanessa: I'm talking to a bee. Barry: Anyway... Vanessa: And the bee is talking to me! Barry: Um, I just want to say I'm grateful, and I'm going to leave now. Vanessa: Wait, wait, wait, wait! How did you learn to do that? Barry: What? Vanessa: That- that- that- that... The talking thing. Barry: Oh, same way you did, I guess. "Mama, Dada, honey." You pick it up. Vanessa: (laughs unconvincingly) That's very funny. Barry: Yeah. Bees are funny. If we didn't laugh, we'd cry with what we have to deal

with. Anyway... Vanessa: Can I uh... get you something? Barry: Like what? Vanessa: I don't know. I mean.. I don't know. Coffee? Barry: Well, uh, I don't want to put you out, unless you're making it anyway. Vanessa: Oh, it's no trouble. Oh, it takes two minutes. Barry: Really? Vanessa: It's just coffee. Barry: I hate to impose. Vanessa: Don't be ridiculous! Barry: Actually, I would love a cup. Vanessa: Hey, you want a little rum cake? Barry: I really shouldn't. Vanessa: Have a little rum cake. Barry: No, no, no, I can't. Vanessa: Oh, come on! Barry: You know, I'm trying to lose a couple micrograms here. Vanessa: Where? Barry: Well... these stripes don't help. Vanessa: You look great! Barry: I don't know if you know anything about fashion. (Vanessa walks away and begins pouring coffee onto the floor, a coffee cup in her other hand) Barry: Are you all right? Vanessa: No. (fade to Vanessa and Barry on her roof terrace, talking and having coffee) Barry: He's making the tie in the cab as they're flying up Madison. So he finally gets there. Vanessa: Uh huh. Barry: He runs up the steps into the church. The wedding is on... Vanessa: Yeah? Barry: ...and he says, "Watermelon? I thought you said Guatemalan." Vanessa: Uh huh? Barry: Why would I marry a watermelon? (Barry laughs) (Vanessa's more confused than amused. Barry gestures, indicating his joke is done.) Vanessa: Oh, Is that a... a bee joke? Barry: Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that we do. Vanessa: Yeah, different. So, anyway, what are you gonna do, Barry? Barry: About work? I don't know. I want to do my part for the hive, but I, I can't do it the way they want. Vanessa: I know how you feel. Barry: You do? Vanessa: Sure. My parents wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor, but I wanted to be a florist. Barry: Really? Vanessa: My only interest is flowers. Barry: Our new queen was just elected with that same campaign slogan. Vanessa: Oh, huh. Barry: Anyway, you see if you look... There. There's my hive right there. You can see it. Vanessa: Oh, you're in Sheep Meadow! Barry: Yes! You know the turtle pond? Vanessa: Yes? Barry: I'm right off of that. Vanessa: Oh, no way! I know that area. Do you know I lost a toe ring there once. (behind them, a janitor comes onto the roof and begins working on replacing a light bulb) Barry: Really? Vanessa: Yes. Barry: Why do girls put rings on their toes? Vanessa: Well, why not? Barry: I don't know. It's like putting a hat on your knee. Vanessa: Maybe I'll try that. Janitor: You all right, ma'am? Vanessa: (realizing how it must look, talking to herself:) Oh, yeah, fine. Just having two cups of coffee. (she laughs) (Vanessa and Barry share a little quiet time) Barry: Anyway, this has been great. Thanks for the coffee. Vanessa: Oh, yeah, it's no trouble. Barry: Sorry I couldn't finis it. If I did, I'd be up for the rest of my life. Are you... Umm. Can I take a piece of this with me? Vanessa: Sure! Here, have a crumb. (She passes one to Barry on her fingertip) Barry: Oh, thanks. Vanessa: Yeah. Barry: All right, well, then... I guess I'll see you around, or not, or... Vanessa: Okay, Barry. Barry: And thank you so much again... for before. Vanessa: Oh, that? That was nothing. Barry: Well, not nothing, but... anyway... (Barry extends his hand. Vanessa touches it with her finger and they gingerly shake. The janitor looks over and continues tightening the bulb in the socket. It shorts, causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards.) (The next day at the Honex building, hurricane survival testing is in progress. A bee wearing a parachute is in a wind tunnel.) Testing bee 1: This can't possibly work. Testing bee 2: Well, he's all set to go. We may as well try it. (via intercom:) Okay, Dave. pull the chute. (Dave pulls the cord and is immediately blown backwards. He slides down the wall and shakily gives a thumbs up signal. Barry and Adam walk by the outside of the testing chamber.) Adam: Sounds amazing. Barry: Oh, it was amazing. It- it was the scariest, happiest moment of my life. Adam: Humans! Humans! I can't believe you were with humans! Giant scary

humans! What were they like? Barry: Huge and crazy. They talk crazy, they eat crazy giant things. They drive around real crazy. Adam: And do they try and kill you like on TV? Barry: Some of them. But some of them don't. Adam: How'd you get back? Barry: Poodle. Adam: Look, you did it. And I'm glad. You saw whatever you wanted to see out there, You had your "experience", and now you're back, you can pick out your job and everything can be normal. Barry: Well... Adam: Well? Well? Barry: Well, I met someone. Adam: You met someone? Was she Bee-ish? Barry: Mmm. Adam: Not a wasp? Your parents will kill you. Barry: No, no, no, not a wasp. Adam: Spider? Barry: You know, I'm not attracted to the spiders. I know to everyone else it's like the hottest thing with the eight legs and all. I can't get by that face. (Barry grimaces and makes a noise.) Adam: So, uh, who is she? Barry: She's... uh... a human. Adam: Oh no, no, no, no. That didn't happen. You didn't do that. That is a bee law. You wouldn't break a bee law. Barry: Her name's Vanessa. Adam: Oh, oh boy! Barry: She's so-o nice. And she's a florist! Adam: Oh, no. No, no, no! You're dating a human florist? Barry: W-w-well, we're not dating. Adam: You're flying outside the hive. You're talking to human beings that attack our homes with power washers and M-80s. That's one-eighth of a stick of dynamite. Barry: She saved my life. And she understands me. Adam: This is over. Barry: (pulls out the rum cake crumb) Eat this. (pushes it into Adam's face.) Adam: This is not over. What was that? Barry: They call it a crumb. Adam: That was so stingin' stripey! Barry: And that's not even what they eat. That just falls off what they eat. Do you know what a Cinnabon is? Adam: No. Barry: It's bread... Adam: Come in here! (opens the door to the office where he works and guides Barry inside) Barry: ...and cinnamon, Adam: Be quiet! Barry: ...and frosting. They heat it up– Adam: Sit down! Barry: Really hot! Adam: Listen to me! We are not them. We're us. There's us and there's them. Barry: Yes, but who can deny the heart that is yearning... Adam: There's no yearning. Stop yearning. Listen to me. You have got to start thinking bee, my friend. (another bee joins in:) Thinking bee. (and another joins in:) Thinking bee. (all bees in the office begin chanting:) Thinking bee. Thinking bee. Thinking bee. (Outside his house, Barry sits on a raft in his family's hexagon-shaped honey pool, legs dangling into the honey. Mom and dad approach, wearing cabana-type outfits, sun shining behind them.) Mom: There he is. He's in the pool. Dad: You know what your problem is, Barry? Barry: I've got to start thinking bee? Dad: Barry, how much longer is this going to go on? It's been three days. I don't understand why you're not working. Barry: Well, I've got a lot of big life decisions I'm thinking about Dad: What life? You have no life! You have no job! You're barly a bee! Barry: Augh. Mom: Would it kill you to just make a little honey? (Barry rolls off the raft and sinks into the pool.) Mom: Barry, come out from under there. Your rather's talking to you. Martin, would you talk to him? Dad: Barry, I'm talking to you. (Barry keeps swimming downward through the honey, which clears and leads him to a park where Vanessa is waiting for him, reclining on a picnic blanket. "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies is playing in the background. She swats a mosquito that lands on her leg, then looks at Barry for his reaction. Both are surprised, but then laugh about it.) Vanessa: You coming? (said in a sultry way) Barry: Got everything? Vanessa: All set. (She gets into a one-man ultralight plane with a black-and-yellow paint job and puts on her helmet. She and the plane are now Barry's size.) Barry: You go ahead. I'll catch up. Vanessa: Don't be too long. (The plane takes off. Barry soon catches up and they fly together.) Vanessa: Watch this! (The plane does a loop, trailing red smoke that forms a heart, then crashes into the side of a rock pile, bursting into flames.) Barry: (yelling in anguish:) Vanessa! (his cry changes to bubbles escaping

his mouth) (Barry breaks the surface of the pool, gasping for air.) Dad: We're still here, Barry. Mom: I told you not to yell at him. He doesn't respond when you yell at him. Dad: Then why are you yelling at me? Mom: Because you don't listen. Dad: Ah, I'm not listing to this. Barry: (dries himself and puts on his sweater) Sorry Mom, I've got to go. Mom: Where are you going? Barry: Nowhere. I'm meeting a friend. Mom: (calling after him:) A girl? Is this why you can't decide? Barry: Bye! Mom: I just hope she's Bee-ish. (Vanessa exits her florist shop, flipping the sign over and locking the door.) Barry: (he see the Tournament of Roses Parade poster) So they have a huge parade of just flowers every year in Pasadena? Vanessa: Oh, to be in the Tournament of Roses, that's every florist's dream. Up on a float, surrounded by flowers, crowds cheering. Barry: Wow, a tournament. Do the roses actually complete in athletic events? Vanessa: No. All right, I've got one. How come you don't fly everywhere? Barry: It's exhausting. Vanessa: Hmmm. Barry: Why don't you run everywhere? Isn't that faster? Vanessa: Yeah, okay. I see, I see. All right, your turn. Barry: Ah! Tivo. You can just freeze live TV? That's insane. Vanessa: What, you don't have anything like that? Barry: We have Hivo, but it's a disease. It's a horrible, horrible disease. Vanessa: Oh my. (They turn a corner onto a busier street. People start swatting at Barry.) Man: Dumb bees! Vanessa: You must just want to sting all those jerks. Barry: We really try not to sting. It's usually fatal for us. Vanessa: So you really have to watch your temper? (they enter a supermarket) Barry: Oh yeah, very carefully. You kick a wall, take a walk, write an angry letter and throw it out. You work though it like any emotion– anger, jealousy, (under his breath) lust. (Barry lands on cardboard boxes in the aisle. A stock boy hits him with a rolled-up advertisement.) Vanessa: (to Barry:) Oh my goodness. Are you okay? Barry: Yeah. Whew! Vanessa: (to Hector, the stockboy:) What is wrong with you?! Hector: It's a bug. Vanessa: Well, he's not bothering anybody. Get out of here, you creep. (She slaps him with the advertisement and he leaves, muttering.) Barry: (shakes off the hit) What was that, a Pick and Save circular? Vanessa: Yeah, it was. How did you know? Barry: It felt like about ten pages. Seventy-five's pretty much our limit. Vanessa: Boy, you've really got that down to a science. Barry: Oh, we have to. I lost a cousin to Italian Vogue. Vanessa: I'll bet. Barry: (he stops when he sees the rows of honey jars) What in the name of Mighty Hercules is this? How did this get here? Cute Bee? Golden Blossom? Ray Liotta Private Select. Vanessa: Is he that actor? Barry: I never heard of him. Why is this here? Vanessa: For people. We eat it. Barry: Why? (he gestures around the market) You don't have enough food of your own? Vanessa: Well yes, we– Barry: How do you even get it? Vanessa: Well, bees make it... Barry: I know who makes it! And it's hard to make it! There's heating and cooling, and stirring... you need a whole Krelman thing. Vanessa: It's organic. Barry: It's our-ganic! Vanessa: It's just honey, Barry. Barry: Just... what?! Bees don't know about this. This is stealing. A lot of stealing! You've taken our homes, our schools, our hospitals. This is all we have. And it's on sale? I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I'm going to get to the bottom of all of this! (Barry rips off the label from a jar of Ray Liotta Private Select Honey) (Later, Barry's infiltrating the supermarket loading dock by covering up his yellow stripes with a Magic Marker and putting on war paint. Hector's opening more boxes of honey jars.) Man: Hey, Hector. You almost done? Hector: Almost. (Barry steps in some honey. Hector stops and turns.) Hector: He is here. I sense it. (he grabs his box cutter as Barry hides) (Barry hides behind a box again) Hector: (talking loud to the open room as he opens a jar of honey from a box:) Well, I guess I'll go home now, and just leave this nice honey out, with no one around.

(pretends to walk away) Barry: (he steps out into the light) You're busted, box boy! Hector: Ah ha! I knew I heard something. So, you can talk. (Barry flies at him, stinger first, backing him against the wall. Hector drops the knife.) Barry: Oh, I can talk. And now you're going to start talking. Where are you getting all the sweet stuff? Who's your supplier?! Hector: I don't know what you're talking about. I though we were all friends. The last thing we want to do is upset any of you... bees! (Hector grabs a push pin. Barry begins fencing with his stinger..) Hector: Ha! You're too late. It's ours now! Barry: You, sir, have crossed the wrong sword. Hector: You, sir, are about to be lunch for my iguana, Ignacio! (The fight continues. They cross swords and get nose-to-nose.) Barry: Where is the honey coming from? (Barry knocks the push pin away and put his stinger up to Hector's nose.) Tell me where! Hector: (points to a truck) Honey Farms. It comes from Honey Farms. (Barry flies after the departing truck, dodging a bus, taxis and a messenger on a bicycle. One driver yells at messenger, "Crazy person!") (Barry continues his pursuit, using the elastic strap on a bicycle messenger's helmet to launch himself towards the truck. He lands on the windshield, pressed against it by the wind. He sees himself surrounded by dead bugs, then works his way around them.) Barry: Oh my. What horrible thing has happened here? Look at these faces. They never knew what hit them. And now they're on the road to nowhere. (a mosquito opens his eyes) Pssst! Just keep still. Barry: What? You're not dead? Mooseblood: Do I look dead? Hey man, they will wipe anything that moves. Now, where you headed? Barry: To Honey Farms. I am onto something huge here. Mooseblood: I'm going to Alaska. Moose blood. Crazy stuff. Blows your head off. Ladybug: I'm going to Tacoma. Barry: (to a fly:) What about you? Mooseblood: He really is dead. Barry: All right. (the driver's hand moves to the windshield wiper lever) Mooseblood: Uh oh. Barry: What is that? Mooseblood: Oh no! It's a wiper, triple blade! Barry: Triple blade? Mooseblood: Jump on. It's your only chance, bee. (They hang onto the wiper as it moves back and forth. Mooseblood yells at the driver through the glass) Mooseblood: Why does everything have to be so dog-gone clean?! How much do you people need to see? Open your eyes! Stick your head out the window! (inside the cab, the radio's playing) Announcer: For NPR News in Washington, I'm Carl Kasell. Mooseblood: But don't kill no more bugs! (he is flung off the wiper as the washer fluid sprays onto the windshield) Beeeeeeeee! Barry: Moose blood guy! (Barry gets flung off, grabs ahold of the radio antenna. A cricket flying by grabs ahold of the antenna. Both scream are screaming.) Driver: You hear something? Passenger: Like what? Driver: Like tiny screaming. Passenger: Turn off the radio. (The driver turns off the radio and the antenna retracts. As it lowers, the cricket and Barry work their way to its top. Barry wins and the cricket has to let go, but then so does Barry, and he's sucked into the air horn on the top of the truck.) Mooseblood: Hey, what's up, bee boy? Barry: Hey, Blood! (inside the truck horn, later during the drive) Barry: ...and it was just an endless row of honey jars as far as the eye could see. Mooseblood: Wow. Barry: So I'm just assuming wherever this honey truck goes, that's where they're getting it. I mean, that honey's ours! Mooseblood: Bees hang tight. Barry: Well, we're all jammed in there. It's a close community. Mooseblood: Not us, man. We're on our own. Every- every mosquito is on his own. Barry: But what if you get in trouble? Mooseblood: Trouble? You're a mosquito. You're in trouble! Nobody likes us. They're just all smackin'. People see a mosquito, smack, smack! Barry: At least you're out in the world. You must meet a lot of girls. Mooseblood: Mosquito girls try to trade up, get with a moth, dragonfly.... Mosquito girl don't want no mosquito. (A bloodmobile passes them.) Mooseblood: Whoa, you have got to be kidding me.

Mooseblood's about to leave the building. So long bee. (he leaves and jumps onto the other vehicle, saying to the bugs on its windshield:) Hey guys. I knew I'd catch you all down here. Did you bring your crazy straws? (At Honey Farms, the truck stops. Barry flies out of the horn and lands on the nose of the truck. Two beekeepers walk around the back side of the gift shop. Barry follows, landing in a tree.) Freddy: ...then we throw it in some jars, slap a label on it. It's pretty much pure profit. Barry: What is this place? Elmo: A bee's got a brain the size of a pinhead. Freddy: They are pinheads. (both laugh and Elmo says, "Pinhead". Freddy opens a smoker box after they arrive) Freddy: Hey, check out the new smoker. Elmo: Oh, sweet. That's the one you want. Freddy: The Thomas 3000. Barry: Smoker? Freddy: Ninety puffs a minute, semi-automatic. Twice the nicotine, all the tar. (both laugh again) Freddy: Couple of breaths of this, knocks them right out. They make the honey, and we make the money. (Barry flies onto Freddy's hat and onto the brim.) Elmo: "They make the honey, and we make the money." (Freddy and Elmo walk onward. Freddy opens an apiary box and sprays it with smoke. Inside, the bees start moaning and gasping.) Barry: Oh my. (Barry flies into the open box as Freddy leaves and makes his way into an apartment. Two bees are just waking up.) Barry: What's going on? Are you okay? Howard: Yeah, it doesn't last too long. Barry: How did you two get here? Do you know you're in a fake hive with fake walls? Howard: (points to a picture) Our queen was moved here. We had no choice. Barry: (looks at the picture) This is your queen? That's a man in women's clothes. That's a drag-queen! (The walls separating the apartments are removed, revealing hundreds of them.) Barry: What is this? (Flies through the apartments and out into the open air. He hovers high above a tree, where he sees even more apiary boxes on the farm. He begins taking pictures) Oh no. There's hundreds of them. Bee honey, our honey, is being brazenly stolen on a massive scale. (Back at home, Barry's talking with his parents, Adam and Uncle Carl.) Barry: This is worse than anything the bears have done to us. And I intend to do something about it. Mom: Oh Barry, stop. Dad: Who told you that humans are taking our honey? That's just a rumor. Barry: Do these look like rumors? (Barry throws his pictures on the table) Uncle Carl: That's a conspiracy theory. These are obviously doctored photos. Barry: Ugh. Mom: Barry, how did you get mixed up in all this? Adam: 'Cause he's been talking to humans! Mom: Whaaat? Dad: Talking to humans?! Adam: He has a human girlfriend... Dad: Oh Barry. Adam: ...and they make out! Mom: Make out? Barry? Barry: We do not. Adam: You wish you could. Barry: Who's side are you on? Adam: The bees! Uncle Carl: I dated a cricket once in San Antonio. Man, those crazy legs kept me up all night. Hotcheewah! Mom: Barry, this is what you want to do with your life?: Barry: This is what I want to do for all our lives. Nobody works harder than bees. Dad, I remember you coming home some nights so overworked, you- your hands were still stirring. You couldn't stop them. Dad: Ehhh... Mom: (to her husband:) I remember that. Barry: What right do they have to our hard-earned honey? We're living on two cups a year. They're puttin' it in lip balm for no reason whatsoever. Dad: Even if it's true, Barry, what could one bee do? Barry: I'm going to sting them where it really hurts. Dad: In the face! Barry: No. Dad: In the eye! That would really hurt. Barry: No. Dad: Up the nose. That's a killer, heh heh. Barry: No. There's only one place you can sting the humans. One place where it really matters. (The scene cuts to the title sequence of the "Hive at Five" program. The title sequence shows news events covered in the past: a Pollen Jock coming in for a crash landing with a stinger that's on fire, a protest about bee beards, and a bear destroying a hive. Next are the newscasters.) voice over: Hive at Five, the hive's only full hour action news source. With Bob Bumble

at the anchor desk, weather with Storm Stinger, sports with Buzz Larvi, and Jeanette Chung. Bob: Good evening, I'm Bob Bumble. Jeanette: And I'm Jeanette Chung. Bob: Our top story, a tri-county bee, Barry Benson is saying he intends to sue the human race for stealing our honey, packaging it, and profiting from it illegally. (Broadcast shifts again to another studio in the building for "Bee Larry King Live".) Bee Larry King: Don't forget, tomorrow night on Bee Larry King, we're gonna have three former Queens, all right here in our studio, discussing their new book, Classy Ladies, out this week on Hexagon. (to Barry:) Tonight, we're talking with Barry Benson. Did ya ever think, I'm just a kid from the hive. I can't do this? Barry: Larry, bees have never been afraid to change the world. I mean, what about Bee-Columbus? Bee-Ghandi? Be-geesus? Bee Larry King: Well, where I'm from, you wouldn't think of suing humans. We were thinking more like stick ball, uh, candy stores. Barry: How old are you? Bee Larry King: Well, I want you to know that they entire bee community is supporting you in this case, which is certain to be the trial of the bee century. Barry: Thank you, Larry. You know, they have a Larry King in the human world, too. Bee Larry King: It's a common name. Next week on Bee Larry King... Barry: No, I mean he looks like you. And he has a show with suspenders and different colored dots behind him. Bee Larry King: Next week on Bee Larry King... Barry: Old guy glasses, and there's quotes along the bottom from the guest you're watching even though you just heard them... Bee Larry King: Bear next week! They're scary, they're hairy, and they're here live. (he exits) Barry: Always leans forward, pointy shoulders, squinty eyes.... Very Jewish. (Nighttime at Vanessa's Flower Shop. Law books and legal forms are piled up.) Ken: Look, in- in tennis, you attack at the point of weakness. Vanessa: But it was my grandmother, Ken. She's 81. Ken: Huh, honey, her backhand's a joke. I'm not going to take advantage of that? Barry: Quiet, please. Actual work going on here. Ken: Is that that same bee? Barry: Yes it is. Vanessa: I'm helping him sue the human race. Ken: Wha? Barry: (enters room, sees Ken) Oh, hello. Ken: Hello, bee. Vanessa: This is Ken. Barry: Yeah, I remember you. Timberland, size ten and a half. Vibram sole, I believe. Ken: Why does he talk again, hun? Vanessa: Listen, you better go because we're really busy working. Ken: But it's our yogurt night. Vanessa: (she pushes him out the door) Oh... bye bye. Ken: (from outside the now-closed door) Why is yogurt night so difficult? Vanessa: Oh you poor thing, you two have been at this for hours. Barry: Yes, and Adam here has been a huge help. (Adam is asleep inside an empty Cinnabon box, covered in frosting and muttering in his sleep about it.) Vanessa: (referring to the coffee:) How many sugars? Barry: Just one. I try not to use the competition. Ooh! So, why are you helping me, anyway? Vanessa: Bees have good qualities. Barry: Si, Certo. Vanessa: And it feels good to take my mind off the shop. I don't know why, instead of flowers, people are giving balloon bouquets now. Barry: Yeah, those are great... if you're three. Vanessa: And artificial flowers. Barry: Oh, those just get my psychotic! Vanessa: Yeah, me too. Barry: The bent stingers, the pointless pollination. Vanessa: Bees must hate those fake plastic things. Barry: There's nothing worse than a daffodil that's had work done. Vanessa: Well, maybe this could make up for it a little bit. (they exit the flower shop and go to the mailbox) Vanessa: You know, Barry, this lawsuit is a pretty big deal. Barry: I guess. Vanessa: Are you sure that you want to go through with it? Barry: Am I sure? When I'm done with the humans, they won't be able to say, "Honey, I'm home," without paying a royalty. (Outside the courthouse, a reporter begins her segment, talking to the camera.) Reporter: Sarah, it's an incredible scene here in downtown Manhattan where all eyes and ears of the world are anxiously waiting, because for the first time in

history, we're going to hear for ourselves if a honey bee can actually speak. (Inside, Barry, Vanessa and Adam sit at a table.) Vanessa: What have we gotten into here, Barry? Barry: I don't know, but it's pretty big, isn't it? Adam: I can't believe how many humans don't have to be at work during the day. Barry: Hey, you think these billion dollar multinational food companies have good lawyers? (Back outside the courthouse, a policeman announces though a megaphone, "Folks, everybody needs to stay behind the barricade." A very expensive car drives up with a license plate saying "ALIBUY" and the initials LTM on the hood ornament. The lawyer gets out, sees a bug and steps on it. Inside, Barry shudders.) Vanessa: What's the matter? Barry: I don't know. I just got a chill. Layton T. Montgomery: Well, if it isn't the B-Team.. (waves a honey packet he picked up from the saucer holding his drink) Any of you boys work on this? (he chuckles) Bailiff: All rise! The Honorable Judge Bumbleton presiding. Judge Bumbleton: All right... Case number 4475, Superior Court of New York. Barry Bee Benson vs. the honey industry, is now in session. Mr. Montgomery, you're representing the five major food companies, collectively. Layton: A privilege. Judge: Ah, Mr. Benson. You are representing all bees of the world? (Inside and outside the courtroom, everyone is waiting to hear what he will say.) Barry: Bzzz bzzz bzzz...Ahh, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Yes, your honor. We are ready to proceed. Judge: And Mr. Montgomery, your opening statement, please. Layton: (clears throat and speaks in a very heavy and exaggerated Southern drawl) Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. My grandmother was a simple woman. Born on a farm, she believed it was man's divine right to benefit from the bounty of nature God put before us. If we were to live in the topsy-turvy world Mr. Benson imagines, j-j-just think of what it would mean. Maybe I would have to negotiate with the silk worm for the elastic in my britches. Talking bee. How do we know this isn't some sort of holographic motion picture capture Hollywood wizardry? They could be using laser beams, robotics, ventriloquism, cloning...for all we know, he could be on steroids! Judge: Mr. Benson? Barry: Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, there's no trickery here. I'm just an ordinary bee. And as a bee, honey's pretty important to me. It's important to all bees. We invented it, we make it, and we protect it with our lives. Unfortunately, there are some people in this room who think they can take whatever they want from us 'cause we're the little guys. And what I'm hoping is that after this is all over, you'll see how by taking our honey, you're not only taking away everything we have, but everything we are. (Vanessa smiles and silently claps and the bees in the courtroom are moved by his words. Back at their house, Barry's parents are watching on TV.) Mom: Oh, I wish he would dress like that all the time. So nice... Judge: Call your first witness. Barry: So, Mr. Klauss Vanderhayden of Honey Farms. Pretty big company you have there? Vanderhayden: I suppose so. Barry: And I see you also own Honey-Burton, and Honron! Vanderhayden: Yes. They provide beekeepers for our farms. Barry: Beekeeper. I find that to be a very disturbing term, I have to say. I don't imagine you employ any bee free-ers, do you? Vanderhayden: Uh, n-no. Barry: I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. Vanderhayden: (louder) No. Barry: No. Because you don't free bees. You keep bees. And not only that, it seems you thought a bear would be an appropriate image for a jar of honey? Vanderhayden: W-well, they're very lovable creatures. Uh, Yogi Bear, Fozzy Bear. Oh! Build-a-Bear? Barry: Yeah, you mean like this?! (Vanessa and a man enter, guiding a giant grizzly bear restrained by a collar with chains atttached to both sides. They bring him in front of Vanderhayden. The bear lunges at him and roars.) Barry: Bears kill bees! How would you like his big hairy head crashing through your living room? Biting into your couch, spitting out your throw-pillows...rowr, rowr! Bear:

Rowr!! Barry: Okay, that's enough. Take him away. (Vincent stops roaring. He and the man depart without incident, leaving Vanderhayden trembling with the Judge glaring at him and Layton angrily growling himself.) (Later, Barry questions another witness.) Barry: So, Mr. Sting. Thank you for being here. Your name intrigues me, I have to say. Where have I heard it before? Sting: I was with a band called "The Police". Barry: But you've never been a police officer of any kind, have you? Sting: Uh, no, I haven't. Barry: No, you haven't. And so, here we have yet another example of bee culture being casually stolen by a human for nothing more than a prance-about stage name. Sting: Oh, please. Barry: Have you ever been stung, Mr. Sting? Because I'm feeling a little stung, Sting. Or should I say, Mr. Gordon M. Sumner? The jury gasps Layton: (to his assistants:) That's not his real name? You idiots! (later on, Barry's questioning another witness) Barry: (reading from the base of the statue the witness is holding) Mr. Liotta, first may I offer my belated congratulations on your Emmy win for a guest spot on E.R. in 2005. Ray Liotta: Thank you. Thank you. (he laughs maniacally) Barry: I also see from your resume that you're devilishly handsome, but with a churning inner turmoil that's always ready to blow. Ray: I enjoy what I do. Is that a crime? Barry: Not yet it isn't. But is this what it's come to for you, Mr. Liotta? Exploiting tiny helpless bees so you don't have to rehearse your part, and learn your lines, sir? Ray: Watch it, Benson, I could blow right now! Barry: This isn't a goodfella. This is a badfella! Ray: (suddenly upset, he tries to smash Barry with his Emmy statue) Why doesn't someone just step on this little creep and we can all go home? You're all thinking it. Say it! Judge: Order! Order in this courtroom! Order, I say! Mr. Liotta, please sit down! (The reaction from the press is harsh. The headline of the New York Telegram has "Sue Bee", the New York Post reads "Bees to Humans: Buzz Off", and the Daily Variety reports "Studio Dumps Liotta Project. Slams Door on Unlawful Entry 2.") (That evening, in Vanessa's apartment.) Barry: Well, I just think that was awfully nice of that bear to pitch in like that. Vanessa: I'm telling you, I think the jury's on our side. Barry: Are we doing everything right, you know, legally? Vanessa: I'm a florist. Barry: Right, right. (he raises his glass) Well, here's to a great team. Vanessa: To a great team. (both toast and Ken enters the apartment) Ken: Well, hello. Vanessa: Oh... Ken. Barry: Hello. Vanessa: Ah, I didn't think you were coming. Ken: No, I was just late. I tried to call. But, the battery... Vanessa: I didn't want all this to go to waste, so I called Barry. Luckily he was free. Barry: Yeah. Ken: Oh, that was lucky. Vanessa: Well, there's still a little left. I could heat it up. Ken: Yeah, heat it up. Sure, whatever. Barry: So, I hear you're quite a tennis player. I'm not much for the game myself. I find the ball a little grabby. Ken: That's where I usually sit. Right there. Vanessa: (from kitchen) Ken, Barry was looking at your resume, and he agreed with me that "eating with chopsticks" isn't really a special skill. Ken: (to Barry:) You think I don’t see what you’re doin'? Barry: Hey look, I know how hard it is trying to find the right job. We certainly have that in common. Ken: Do we? Barry: Well, bees have 100% employment, of course. But we do jobs like taking the crud out. Ken: That’s just what I was thinking about doing. (Ken reaches for a knife but pushes it off the table. He bends down to pick it up.) Vanessa: (from kitchen) Ken, I let Barry borrow your razor for his fuzz. I hope that was all right. (Ken hits his head on the table as he straightens back up, then presses the apple cider bottle against his temple to soothe it) Barry: I’m going to go drain the ol' stinger. Ken: Yeah, you do that. (Barry flies a couple of loops in front of Ken as he heads to the bathroom, causing Ken to shake the bottle and get cider in his eyes. Barry grabs a small section of Variety

Magazine as he goes.) Barry: Huh, look at that. (tears off a small corner off Variety Magazine as he goes in.) (as Barry finishes up and washes his hands, Ken enters carrying a large magazine) Ken: Y-yo, you known, I've just about had it with your little mind games. Barry: What's that? Ken: Italian Vogue. (he curls the magazine tight) Barry: Mamma Mia, that's a lot of pages. Ken: It's a lot of ads. Barry: Remember what Van said. Why is your life any more valuable than mine? Ken: That's funny, I just can't seem to recall that! (He whacks Barry with the magazine. He misses and knocks everything off the vanity. He grabs a can of air freshener.) Ken: I think something stinks in here! (He sprays at Barry) Barry: I love the smell of flowers. Ken: Yeah, How do you like the smell of flames?! (He lights the stream) Barry: Not as much. (Barry screams) Barry flies in a circle. Ken, trying to stay with him, spins in place. There are flames outside the bathroom door. Ken slips on the Italian Vogue, falls backward into the shower, pulling down the shower curtain. The can hits him in the head, followed by the shower curtain rod, and the rubber duck. Ken reaches back, grabs the handheld shower head. He whips around, looking for Barry. There's a water bug near the drain. Water bug: Water bug! Not taking sides! Barry is on the toilet tank. He comes out from behind a shampoo bottle, wearing a chapstick cap as a helmet. Barry: Ken, look at me! I'm wearing a chapstick hat! This is pathetic! (Ken is turning the hand shower nozzle from "GENTLE", to "TURBO", to "LETHAL".) Ken: I've got issues! (Ken fires the water at Barry, knocking him into the toilet. The items from the vanity (emory board, lipstick, eye curler, etc.) are on the toilet seat. Ken looks down at Barry.) Ken: Well, well, well, a royal flush! Barry: You're bluffing. Ken: Am I? Barry: Surf's up, dude! Ken: Poo water! Barry: That bowl is gnarly. Ken: Except for those dirty yellow rings! Vanessa: Kenneth! What are you doing?! Ken: You know what, I don't even like honey! I don't eat it! Vanessa: We need to talk! He's just a little bee! And he happens to be the nicest bee I've met in a long time! Ken: Long time? What are you talking about?! Are there other bugs in your life? Vanessa: No, but there are other things bugging me in life. And you're one of them! Ken: Fine! Talking bees, no yogurt night... My nerves are fried from riding on this emotional roller coaster! Vanessa: Goodbye, Ken. Ken: Augh! Vanessa: Whew. (Ken exits, then re-enters frame) Ken: And for your information, I prefer sugar-free, artificial sweeteners made by man! Vanessa: I'm sorry about all that. Ken: (re-enters again) Ken: I know it's got an aftertaste! I like it! Barry: I always felt there was some kind of barrier between Ken and me. I couldn't overcome it. Oh, well. Vanessa: Are you going to be okay for the trial tomorrow? Barry: Oh, I believe Mr. Montgomery is about out of ideas. Layton: We would like to call Mr. Barry Benson Bee to the stand. Adam: Now that's a good idea. You can really see why he's considered one of the very best lawyers... Barry: Yeah. Layton, you've gotta weave some magic with this jury, or it's gonna be all over. Layton: Oh don't worry Mr. Gammil. The only thing I have to do to turn this jury around is to remind them of what they don't like about bees. - You got the tweezers? - Are you allergic? Only to losing, son. Only to losing. Layton: Mr. Benson Bee, I'll ask you what I think we'd all like to know. What exactly is your relationship to that woman? Barry: We're friends. Layton: Good friends? Barry: Yes. Layton: How good? Barry: What. Layton: Do you live together? Barry: Wait a minute this isn’t about... Layton: Are you her little...bedbug? Barry: Hey, that’s not the kind of? I've seen a bee documentary or two. Now from what I understand, doesn't your queen give birth to all the bee children in the hive? Barry: Yeah, but... Layton: So those aren't even your real parents! Dad: Oh, Barry... Barry: Yes, they are! Adam: Hold me back! Layton: You're an illegitimate bee, aren't you, Benson?

Adam: He's denouncing bees! Layton: And don't y'all date your cousins? Vanessa: Objection! Adam: I'm going to pincushion this guy! Barry: Adam, don't! It's what he wants! Layton: Oh, I'm hit!! Oh, lordy, I am hit! Judge: Order! Order! Please! Layton: The venom! The venom is coursing through my veins! Judge: Mr. Montgomery! Layton: I have been felled by a winged beast of destruction! You see? You can't treat them like equals! They're striped savages! Stinging's the only thing they know! It's their way! Barry: Adam, stay with me. Adam: I can't feel my legs. Bailiff Take it easy. Layton: Oh! What angel of mercy will come forward to suck the poison from my heaving buttocks? Judge: Please I will have order in this court. Order! Order, please! The case of the honeybees versus the human race took a pointed turn - against the bees yesterday when one of their - Thank you! legal team stung Layton T. Montgomery. Now here’s Don with the 5-day. - Hey, buddy. - Hey. - Is there much pain? - Yeah. I... I blew the whole case, didn't I? It doesn't matter. The important thing is you're alive. You could have died. I'd be better off dead. Look at me. They got it from the cafeteria they got it from downstairs, in a tuna sandwich. Look, there's a little celery still on it. What was that like to sting someone? I can't explain it. It was all... All adrenaline and then... and then ecstasy! All right. You think that was all a trap? Of course. I'm sorry. I flew us right into this. What were we thinking? Look at us. We're just a couple of bugs in this world. What do you think the humans will do to us if they win? I don't know. I hear they put the roaches in motels. That doesn't sound so bad. Adam, they check in, but they don't check out! Oh, my. Say, could you get a nurse to close that window? - Why? - The smoke. Bees don't smoke. Right. Bees don't smoke. Bees don't smoke! But some bees are smoking. Adam that's it! That's our case! It is? It's not over? Barry: No, Get up, Get dressed. I've gotta go somewhere. You get back to the court and stall. Stall any way you can. And assuming you've done step 29 correctly, you're ready for the tub. Mr. Flayman. Yes? Yes, Your Honor! Where is the rest of your team? Well, Your Honor, it's interesting. You know Bees are trained to fly kind of haphazardly, and as a result, quite often we don't make very good time. I actually once heard a pretty funny story about a bee... Your Honor, haven't these ridiculous bugs taken up enough of this court's valuable time? How much longer are we going allow these absurd shenanigans to go on? They have presented no compelling evidence to support their charges against my clients, who have all run perfectly legitimate businesses. I move for a complete dismissal of this entire case! Mr. Flayman, I'm afraid I'm going to have to consider Mr. Montgomery's motion. But you can't! We have a terrific case. Where is your proof? Where is the evidence? Show me the smoking gun! Hold it, Your Honor! You want a smoking gun? Here is your smoking gun. What is that? It's a bee smoker! What, this? This harmless little contraption? This couldn't hurt a fly, let alone a bee. Barry: Members of the jury, look at what has happened to bees who have never been asked, "Smoking or non?" Is this what nature intended for us? To be forcibly addicted to these smoke machines in man-made wooden slat work camps? Living out our lives as honey slaves to the white man? - What are we going to do? - He's playing the species card. Barry: Ladies and gentlemen, please, free these bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! Free the bees! The court finds in favor of the bees! Barry: Vanessa, we won! Vanessa: Yay! I knew you could do it! High-five! Sorry. Barry: I'm OK! Vanessa, do you know what this means? All the honey is finally going to belong to the bees. Now we won't have to work so hard all the time. This is an unholy perversion of the balance of nature, Benson. You'll regret this. Barry, how much honey do you think is out there? All right. All right. One at a time. Barry, who are you wearing?

My sweater is Ralph Lauren, and I have no pants. - What if Montgomery's right? - What do you mean? We've been living the bee way a long time, 27 million years. Oongratulations on your victory. What are you demand as a settlement? First, we're going to demand a complete shutdown of all bee work camps. Then we want back the honey that was ours to begin with, every last drop.We demand an end to the glorification of the bear as anything more than a filthy, smelly, big-headed bad-breath stink machine. I believe We're all aware of what they do in the woods. Wait for my signal. Take him out. He'll have nausea for a few hours, then he'll be fine. And we will no longer tolerate bee-negative nicknames... But it's just a prance-about stage name! ...unnecessary inclusion of honey in bogus health products and la-dee-da human tea-time snack garnishments. Can't breathe. Bring it in, boys! Hold it right there! Good. Tap it. Mr. Buzzwell, we just passed three cups, and there's gallons more coming! - I think we need to shut down! - Shut down? We've never shut down. Shut down honey production! Stop making honey! Turn your key, sir! What do we do now? Oannonball! We're shutting down honey production! Mission abort. Aborting pollination and nectar detail. Returning to base. Adam, you wouldn't believe how much honey was out there. Oh, yeah? What's going on around here? Where is everybody? - Are they out celebrating? - No, they’re just home. They don't know what to do. They're laying out, they're sleeping in. I heard your Uncle Oarl was on his way to San Antonio with a cricket. At least we got our honey back. Yeah, but sometimes I think, so what if humans liked our honey? Who wouldn't? It's the greatest thing in the world! I was excited to be part of making it. This was my new desk. This was my new job. I wanted to do it really well. And now... And now I can't. I don't understand why they're not happy. We have so much now. I thought their lives would be better! They're doing nothing. It's amazing. Honey really changes people. You don't have any idea what's going on, do you? - What did you want to show me? - This. Barry:What happened here? Vanessa:That is not the half of it. Barry:Oh, no. Oh, my. They're all wilting. Doesn't look very good, does it? No. And who's fault do you think that is? You know, I'm going to guess bees. Bees? Specifically, me. I guess I didn't think that bees not needing to make honey would affect all these others things. And it's notjust flowers. Fruits, vegetables, they all need bees. Well, that's our whole SAT test right there. So you take away the produce, that affects the entire animal kingdom. And then, of course... The human species? So if there's no more pollination, it could all just go south here, couldn't it? And I know this is also partly my fault. Barry: How about a suicide pact? Vanessa: How would we do it? Barry: I'll sting you, you step on me. Vanessa: That just kills you twice. Barry: Right, right. Listen, Barry... sorry, but I got to get going. I had to open my mouth and talk. Vanessa? Vanessa? Why are you leaving? Where are you going? To the final Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena. They've moved it up to this weekend because all the flowers are dying. It's the last chance I'll ever have to see it. Vanessa, I just want to say I'm sorry. I never meant it to turn out like this. I know. Me neither. Tournament of Roses. Roses can't do sports. Wait a minute. Roses. Roses? Roses! Vanessa! Roses?! Barry? - Roses are flowers! - Yes, they are. Flowers, bees, pollen! I know. That's why this is the last parade. Maybe not. Oould you ask him to slow down? Oould you slow down? Barry! OK, I made a huge mistake. This is a total disaster, and it's all my fault. Yes, it kind of is. I've ruined the planet. and I wanted to help you with your flower shop. Intead, I've made it worse. Actually, it's completely closed down. I thought maybe you were remodeling. Nonetheless I have another idea, and it's greater than all my previous great ideas combined. I don't want to hear it! All right, here’s what I’m thinking they have

the roses, the roses have the pollen. I know every bee, plant and flower bud in this park. All we got do is get what they've got back here with what we've got. Vanessa: Bees. Barry: Park. Vanessa: Pollen! Barry: Flowers. Vanessa: Repollination! Barry: Across the nation! Barry: Alright Tournament of Roses, Pasadena, California. They've got nothing but flowers, floats and cotton candy. Security will be tight. I have an idea. Vanessa Bloome, FTD. Official floral business. It's real. Sorry, ma'am. That a's nice brooch by the way. Thank you. It was a gift. Then once we're inside, we just pick the right float. How about The Princess and the Pea? Yeah! I could be the princess, and ...yes, I think You could be I’ve- The pea! Yes, I got it. - Sorry I'm late Where should I sit? - What are you? - I believe I'm the pea. - The pea? It’s supposed to be under the mattresses. - Not in this fairy tale, sweetheart. - I’m going to go talk to the marshall. You do that! This whole parade is a fiasco! Let's see what this baby will do. Hey, what are you doing?! Then all we do is blend in with traffic... ...without arousing suspicion. And once we’re at the airport there's no stopping us. Stop! Security. - Did you and your insect pack your own float? - Yes. Has this float been in your possession the entire time? Would you remove your shoes and everything in your pockets?? - Can you remove your stinger. Sir? - That's part of me. I know. Just having some fun. Enjoy your flight. Then if we're lucky, we'll have just enough pollen to do the job. Oan you believe how lucky we are? We have just enough pollen to do the job! I think this is going to work Vanessa. It's got to work. Attention, passengers, this is Oaptain Scott. I'm afraid we have a bit of bad weather in the New York area. And looks like we're going to be experience a couple of hours delay. Barry, these are cut flowers with no water. They'll never make it. I've got to get up there and talk to these guys. Be careful. Hey, can I get some help with this Sky Mall magazine? I'd like to order the talking inflatable nose and ear hair trimmer. Excuse me, Captain, I'm in a real situation here. - What did you say, Hal? - I didn’t say anything Bee! No, no! Don't freak out! There's a chance my entire species... What are you doing? Stop! - Wait a minute! I'm an attorney! - Who's an attorney? Don't move. Oh, Barry. Good afternoon, passengers. This is your captain speaking. Would a Miss Vanessa Bloome in 24B please report to the cockpit? And please hurry! What happened here? I tried to talk to them, but then there was a Dustbuster, a toupee, a life raft exploded Now one's bald, one's in a boat, and they're both unconscious! - Is that another bee joke? - No! No one's flying the plane! This is JFK control tower, Flight 356. What's your status? This is Vanessa Bloome. I'm a florist from New York. Where's the pilot? He's unconscious, and so is the copilot. Not good. Is there anyone onboard who has flight experience? As a matter of fact, there is. - Who's that? - Barry Benson. From the honey trial?! Oh, great. Vanessa, this is nothing more than a big metal bee. It's got giant wings, huge engines. I can't fly a plane. - Why not? Isn't John Travolta a pilot? - Yes. How hard could it be? Wait a minute, Barry! We're headed into some lightning. This is Bob Bumble. We have some late-breaking news from JFK Airport, where a very suspenseful scene is developing. Barry Benson, fresh off his stunning legal victory... That's Barry! ...is now attempting to land a plane, loaded with people, flowers and an incapacitated flight crew. Flowers?! Well, we have an electrical storm in the area, and two individuals at the controls of a jumbo jet with absolutely no flight experience. Just a minute Mr Ditchwater. There's a honey bee on that plane. I'm quite familiar with Mr. Benson's work and his no-account compadres. Haven't they done enough damage already. But isn't he your only hope right now? Come on, technically, a bee shouldn't be able to fly at all. The wings are too small their bodies are too big... Hey, hold on a second.

Haven't we heard this a million times? "The surface area of the wings and body mass doesn't make sense." - Get this on the air! - You got it. - Stand by. - We're going live. Mr Ditchwater, the way we work may be a mystery to you. Because making honey takes a lot of bees doing a lot of small jobs. But let me tell you something about a small job. If you do it really well, it makes a big difference. More than we realized. To us, to everyone. That's why I want to get bees back to doing what we do best working together. That's the bee way! We're not made of Jell-O. We get behind a fellow.Black and yellow! - All:Hello! Left, right, down, hover. - Hover? - Forget hover. You know what, This isn't so hard. Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Barry, what happened?! Wait a minute, I think we were on autopilot that whole time. - That may have been helping me. - And now we're not! Well, then it turns out I cannot fly a plane. All of you, let's get behind this fellow! Move it out! Move out! Our only chance is if I do what I would do, and you copy me with the wings of the plane! You don't have to yell. I'm not yelling! We happen to be in a lot of trouble here. It's very hard to concentrate with that panicky tone in your voice! It's not a tone. I'm panicking! I don’t think I can do this! Vanessa, pull yourself together. Listen to me You have got to snap out of it! You snap out of it. You snap out of it. - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! - You snap out of it! You snap - Hold it! - Why? Come on, it's my turn. How is the plane flying? I don't know. Hello? Hey Benson, have you got any flowers for a happy occasion in there? The Pollen Jocks! They do get behind a fellow. - Black and yellow. - Hello. Alright you two, what do you say we drop this tin can on the blacktop? What blacktop? Where? I can't see anything. Oan you? No, nothing. It's all cloudy. Adam: Come on. You got to think bee, Barry. - Thinking bee. - Thinking bee. Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Wait a minute. I think I'm feeling something. - What? - I don't know. But it's strong, and it's pulling me. Like a 27-million-year-old instinct. Bring the nose of the plane down. Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! - What in the world is on the tarmac? - Get some lights on that! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! Thinking bee! - Vanessa, aim for the flower. - OK. Out the engines. Out the engines. We're going in on bee power. Ready, boys? Affirmative! Good. Good. Easy, now. That's it. Land on that flower! Ready boys? Give me full reverse! Spin it around! - Not that flower! The other flower! - Which flower? - That flower. - I'm aiming at the flower! That's a fat guy in a flowered shirt. I mean the giant black and yellow flower pulsating made of millions of bees! Pull forward. Nose down. Bring your tail up. Rotate around it. - This is insane, Barry! - This is the only way I know how to fly. Am I koo-koo-kachoo, or is this plane flying in an insect-like pattern? Get your nose in there. Don't be afraid of it. Smell it. Full reverse! Easy just drop it. Be a part of it. Aim for the center! Now drop it in! Drop it in, woman! Come on, already. Barry, we did it! You taught me how to fly! - Yes. No high-five! - Right. Barry, it worked! Did you see the giant flower? What giant flower? Where? Of course I saw the flower! That was genius man! Genius! - Thank you. - But we're not done yet. Barry: Listen, everyone! This runway is covered with the last pollen from the last flowers available anywhere on Earth. That means this is our last chance. We're the only ones who make honey, pollinate flowers and dress like this. If we're going to survive as a species, this is our moment! So, what do you say? Are we going to be bees, or just Museum of Natural History keychains? Bees: We're bees! Male bee: Keychain! Barry: Then everyone, follow me! Except Keychain. Pollen Jock: Hold on, Barry. Here. You've earned this. (places a pollen jock jacket on Barry and the 3 pollen jocks cheer while Vanessa gives him a thumbs up) Vanessa: Yay! Barry: I'm a

Pollen Jock! And it's a perfect fit. All I got to do are the sleeves. (The pollen jocks toss Barry a nectar pack) Barry: Oh, yeah. Mom: (proudly) That's our Barry! (Martin nods proudly in agreement) Mom! The bees are back! If anybody needs to make a call, now's the time. I got a feeling we'll be working late tonight! Here's your change. Have a great afternoon! Yes, can I help who's next? Would you like some honey with that? It is bee-approved. Don't forget these. Milk, cream, cheese, it's all me. And I don't see a nickel! Sometimes I just feel like a piece of meat! I had no idea. Barry, I'm sorry. Have you got a moment? Would you excuse me? My mosquito associate here will be able to help you. Sorry I'm late. He's a lawyer too? I was already a blood-sucking parasite. All I needed was a briefcase. Have a great afternoon! Barry, I just got this huge tulip order for a wedding, and I can't get them anywhere. No problem, Vannie. Just leave it to me. Vanessa:You're a lifesaver, Barry. Oan I help who's next? Who's next? Barry: All right, scramble, jocks! It's time to fly. Vanessa: Thank you, Barry! Ken: (Sees a sign that says "Vanessa and Barry: Flowers, Honey, Legal Advice" and becomes disgusted) Ken: Ugh! That bee is living my life! Andy: (guiding Ken protectively) Let it go, Kenny. Ken: When will this nightmare end?! Andy: Let it all go. Barry: Beautiful day to fly. Pollen Jock: Sure is. Barry: Between you and me, I was dying to get out of that office. Adam: You have got to start thinking bee, my friend. Thinking bee! Barry: Me? Adam: Thinking bee, thinking bee! Get smart and start thinking bee! Barry: Gee! Adam: Flying here and buzzin' there. Barry: I'm lovin' the views. Adam: Listen to me cousin, every buzzer must use to be a bee! Barry: Or not to be. Adam: Start thinking bee! Adam: Barry, you got no occupation. Barry: What, you mean like pollination? Adam: Hey now! That's thinking bee! Barry: Start thinking bee! Adam: Listen to me fella, ain't you been on a tour? Can't cha' stripes of Black and yella. Barry: I just want to be sure! Adam: To be a bee! Barry: Start thinking bee! Can't I wait and see? Adam: No, Barry that's not to be! Be a busy little bee not a tizzy little bee! Barry: Alright, hold it, hold it, hold it. Let's just stop for a second. Hold it. (Adam: What it's like to be a thinking!) Barry: I'm sorry. Adam: What? Barry: I'm sorry, everyone. Can we stop here? Adam: Oh, Barry. Barry: I'm not making a major life decision in the middle of a huge musical production number! Adam: Alright, alright. Barry: Take ten, everybody. Wrap it up, guys. I had virtually no rehearsal for that.

Omg

3 notes · View notes

actionfigureinsider · 3 years ago

Text

Hot Wheels™ Monster Trucks Live Returns with All-New Trucks and Drivers for 2021 Events

Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Kicks off its 10-city Tour on September 18 with a Thrilling Hot Wheels® Monster Trucks Experience for the Whole Family! EL SEGUNDO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 17, 2021-– Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live is kicking off its return to live events with new trucks and drivers in an upcoming 10-stop tour across the US. Starting September 18 at the Toyota Center in Ontario,…

View On WordPress

1 note · View note

sadoeuphemist · 5 years ago

Text

This one is dedicated to all the Brits out there.

So, there’s a man crawling through the arctic.

He was on a trip around the world, had been, for years. In his jacket, coiled up next to his breast, was a rattlesnake named Sammy, and as one last favour to a friend he was showing Sammy all there was to see in the big wide world. They’d been to every country. Dived beneath the sea, spelunked deep beneath the earth. And now, they were touring through the arctic. They’d witnessed dazzling white glaciers against a sea that shone a sapphire blue, they’d stood beneath the dancing of the Northern Lights, they’d trekked across the endless plains of snow in what seemed an eternal sunset, the world frozen in all the facets of its beauty.

And now they were alone, and stranded, and it was very cold, and it seemed like they were both going to die.

They’d gone off the beaten path, rented a specialized 4x4 and stocked up on supplies and driven off into the tundra on their own. They’d been going fine. The man, Jack, was real careful at the wheel, having learned from hard experience. Then, clean out of nowhere, a storm had kicked up, howling and sleeting snow across the windshield. Jack had slowed to a near-crawl, squinting to try and see anything through that wall of white, and then something massive had ploughed into the side of the truck.

The 4x4 had been flung end over end, Jack and Sammy and all their supplies rattling around inside, and the thing outside was shrieking malevolently, its howls mixing with the wind, something rending at the metal. Jack had clutched Sammy to his chest, from his cramped position managed to kick open the door, and clambered out into the raging snow. He’d crawled, on hands and knees, stumbled, looked behind him, scooted backwards on his butt, almost frozen in horror.

The thing that had attacked them hadn’t come out of the storm. It was the storm. They could barely make out the outline of the thing, all ice and shards and howls and loathing, a miserable grey creature maybe eight feet tall and pummelling at the overturned truck with two massive lumpy arms. Clouds of smoke or steam were billowing from the truck’s hood, and Jack could see flickers of flame rising from the metal - the gas tank, or maybe the portable stove they had been carrying. The creature seemed to love the flame, curling itself around it possessively, and through the smoke and snow Jack could see that flickering orange glow that sent an odd surge of pity through him, that tiny spot of warmth and light gasping and dying out and struggling futilely to survive.

Sammy spoke up, shivering from inside the parka so that his rattles sounded. “I - I think we should get going while it’s distracted.”

“R-right,” mumbled Jack, and stumbled to his feet and ran.

He ran like mad, feet flying over the permafrost, watching his breath fog up in front of his face in great clouds. When he finally stumbled, he looked behind him and the truck and the monster were nowhere to be seen. All around them stretched an undifferentiated expanse of white.

Jack felt his parka pockets. “Fuck. All the equipment - it’s back at the truck.” He looked up into the melancholy twilight and felt helpless laughter overtake him. It was all so familiar, this situation, except now he was even less equipped than before. “Shoulda seen it coming. Hahaha! Figures, right?”

“It’s not so bad,” Sammy said. “You still know the direction the truck’s in, right? All we need to do is -” Sammy shuddered in what seemed like a yawn. “Sorry. It’s just so cold out here. Hard to - hard to think ... “

“That’s right, you’re cold-blooded, aren’t you?” Jack tightened his arms over his parka, pressing Sammy closer to him. “It’ll be all right.” He took a breath, letting the hysteria ebb away. All they needed to do was circle back around, make sure that the whatever it was had left. They had a radio back at the truck, they could call for help, and...

He felt his blood run cold. There, on the horizon, he could see the first few flurries of snow drifting across an otherwise calm plain. In the perpetual dim twilight of the Arctic Circle he felt he could see it almost perfectly. It wasn’t a thing, so much as a silhouette, the shadow where a thing should have been. Eight feet of greyness, of misery, of numbing empty hopelessness that ate all warmth, all light. It shambled. It shrieked. And it was moving inerrantly towards them.

“Jack?” Sammy mumbled sleepily.

“We have to keep moving,” Jack said.

The thing hounded them, harried them across the snowy tundra. It was not fast, but it was implacable. Every time Jack tried to stop a moment to catch his breath, he would feel the tendrils of it nipping at the exposed flesh of his nose, trying to freeze the fluid in his eyes. And God, it was cold. He could feel the great clouds of his breath crystallizing on his eyelashes. His face was numb. His fingers. His toes. He felt like he was stumbling along on wooden feet. Inside his parka he was sweating, he felt like the inside of his coat was a sauna from his exertions, and then the sweat touched the cold air and froze, biting into him, until he might as well have been in an ice bath. With each step he watched, as if in slow motion, the fall of countless glittering shards of ice.

“I’m suh-s-s-sorry,” he gasped out, on his hands and knees now, all too aware of the coiled body next to his heart. His body had been altered, long ago, to be in perpetual perfect health, but even the perfect human form could not withstand the brutality of the elements, woefully underprepared, in a desperate chase for his life. He thought of the desert, of the old rattler who would never see their return, of the promise he had not been able to keep, of all the obligations and responsibilities and burdens tying people to one another, to their lives, of the endless chain of promises that would die here with them, remain forever unfulfilled. “I - I f-f-f-failed,” he said. “So s-s-sorry.” He could feel the tears freezing on his cheeks. “I j-just wish I - I c-c-could have - k-kept you suh-s-safe ...”

And then there were two pinpricks next to his heart, and Jack felt a sudden warmth flow through him, and he was on his feet again, the sensation returning in a rush to his numbed fingers and toes. “Sammy?” he said.

“I - A little natural antifreeze for your blood,” Sammy said weakly. Jack could feel him withdrawing his fangs, the miraculous venom administered. “Little - little trick dad taught me.”

“Oh, my God,” Jack gasped, cupping his arm around his chest. “Sammy, you - How did you - I didn’t know you could -”

“F-first one’s free, remember?” Sammy said.

Jack burst out into laughter. He felt warm now, a delicious warmth radiating out of him, the bite marks on his chest burning like hot coals. He brushed the ice crystals off his face, watched them melt on him like dew. “You clever little bastard! I had no idea! All this time you could -”

“Don’t - don’t get used to it,” Sammy cut in. “Not sure how long that’s going to last. Just enough to keep us going. A little while longer. It’s all I could - I could manage ...”

“Oh.” Jack surveyed their surroundings. The creature was nowhere to be seen. They had lost it, perhaps, or it had given up the chase as his body heat had been leached away by the cold. His newfound warmth suddenly felt reckless on him, like a delicious bit of prey wafting off its scent. Who knew what would come hunting. He had completely lost track of the location of their truck by now, and all the snowy landscape was unfamiliar. “So. We’re utterly lost, stranded out in the arctic, no supplies other than what I had in my pockets, and there’s this crazy snowbeast out there hunting for us. What now?”

He felt something smooth wriggle up against him, and then Sammy’s small scaly head peek out from his parka, eyes turned upward to the perpetual twilight of the sky. “We keep going where we were headed before, I guess,” he said in his small voice.

“We follow the stars.”

They trudged along, the supernatural heat of the venom still coursing through Jack’s veins. The magic seemed to have taken a lot out of Sammy, and despite Jack’s warmth he was still sluggish, and had little to offer. Jack navigated for the both of them. Already he could feel the numbness creeping back into his extremities, prodding into him, looking for the path of least resistance, and he furiously clenched his fingers into fists to try and keep the sensation in them. He tried to remember the desert, all those years ago, the wandering path he had taken, and looking up at the sky he felt that old hallucinatory atmosphere descend on him, walking the thin line between life and death, between abandonment and survival. He imagined a dark plinth, and in his mind imbued it with a spiritual magnetism. Compass north, leading him blindly through the dark.

“God loves children and drunkards and fools,” he said to himself, and in his mouth it came out as prayer.

He walked, the cold creeping in, his feet growing numb again. He had to beat the sensation back into his cheeks, slap his gloved fingers against his thigh just to feel a jolt of sensation. Up he hiked a snow bank to get a better view, and in the distance the sky seemed to be reflected in the ground. Jack squinted, trying to get a better view, and ahead he seemed to see ice, or not ice but crystal, jutting out blackly from the snow. He started running, half-running, stumbling. “Sammy!” he whispered, patting himself in the chest. “Sammy! Look! Do you see it?”

Sammy only gave a low moan and shifted weakly, and did not respond.

Jack kept running, almost tilting unbalanced through the snow, and the snow gave out from under him and he fell, rolling down the hill, the sky and the snow and the sky and the snow again, black - white - black - white, until the two seemed to meld together indistinguishably. He rolled to a stop and tried to get up, and could not tell up from down. He was so terribly cold again, or perhaps warm, and after a while he stopped trying to get up and just flopped down where the snow took him. It did not matter, he thought dreamily. The black caverns of ice were a hallucination. Or, if they were not, perhaps the snow and the cold were the hallucination. Perhaps he was still in that desert. Perhaps he had never left. Perhaps the last few years had been nothing but the hallucination of a man baking to death under the desert sun. He smiled at that with cracked lips. At least then he would be warm, so terribly, wonderfully warm....

And then the sky above him blazed, and even against his breast Sammy writhed to life, and Jack found himself staring into the burning eye of God.

He screamed, tried futilely to shield himself from the light. No, it was burning, burning! All around him the snow sizzled and melted away. And this was real heat as opposed to the warmth of Sammy’s venom, an awful flame that sparked the nerves in his fingers and toes to life and made them cry out in agony. It was the sun, forged like a blade, a burning sword, the edge of a wheel that rolled through the sky and cut through the day, and Jack found himself hauled to his feet.

“As always,” came a resounding voice. “God has provided.” And then, as if speaking straight to him, in a lower register, burnished with a false compassion: “You are fortunate in this. Your death shall serve a higher duty.”

The awful flame was lowered and quenched, and Jack blinked back the whiteness. No, the flame was gone, the licking tongues of heat were gone, and yet the radiance remained. He was staring at a winged thing, at eyes that stared back, at a face that was many faces, at wheels within wheels.

He was looking at an angel.

The angel ducked underneath, carried him under one arm (wing?) into the icy caverns, great black walls that watched him in reflection. “H - hey!” Jack gasped out, trying to regain his senses. The sudden burst of flame had seared but hardly thawed him, and all his nerves sang in the agony between extremes. “You - you’re an angel! And we - we came here because -” Because what? Because what?! He forced himself to think, brought the thought up from the bottom of a deep dark chasm. “The lever! We know about the lever!”

The angel barely responded, shifted in a small movement that might have been irritation. “You are not the first to know,” it said at last, eyes glancing down. “And if you came here knowingly, then God has provided. And you are a willing sacrifice in this.”

“S-sacrifice?” Jack made a spasmodic attempt at freedom in the angel’s grip. His limbs were all clumsy, puppeted wooden limbs, if wood could somehow feel agony. “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about! We - we came here to see! To see if there was anyone else!” A great rush of emotion overtook him. “You’re not alone! You don’t have to be alone!”

He felt the weight of the angel’s scorn. “You are delusional,” it said. “Your journey here has left you bereft of your senses.”

“No! No, I know about everything! We can help you! We can help!”

The black walls gleamed ichor-slick, hungry. The passages down the cavern seemed narrower and narrower, and an awful energy pulsed through them, as if they were descending into the bowels of some dark rapacious thing. “You know nothing,” the angel intoned. “You speak of ‘we’, and yet you have come alone.” It regarded him coldly with dozens of pairs of eyes. “Who is this ‘we’, hmm? Who is this companion you imagine with you? Do you imagine yourself wiser than me?” It laughed cruelly. “Do you imagine yourself spoken to by God?”

Jack tried to speak, and felt something near his heart uncoil, ease past the lump in his throat, and then Sammy’s head slithered out of his parka, tongue flickering to taste the air. “Oh, hey,” Sammy said, looking up at the angel.

The angel blinked with dozens of eyes. “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” it said. “Nate had a kid?”

The angel - whose name was Uriel - took them to a little cavern off the side of one of the passages, where Jack told the whole story. About how he had met Nate the Snake and become bound to him, about how Nate had grown old and finally wanted to die, about how Sammy was to serve as his replacement, and how he was taking the kid on a tour of the world before Sammy would be bound to his duty forever. “So, Nate’s finally found a way out,” muttered Uriel, glancing over at the young snake. “He’d been so long at it, I wouldn’t have thought such a thing was possible.”

“So ... how did you know my father?” Sammy asked meekly. “He - he never mentioned you.”

“He didn’t, did he?” Uriel mused. “Of course not. How long’s it been? In the end, he’s only a snake, after all, crawling on his belly through the dust. It wears away at a soul, that sort of mortal existence, while I remain divine. No surprise he’s gone senile, barely able to remember a thing.”

Sammy hesitated, a dozen questions flickering on the tip of his tongue, and then he shrank back into his coils again, cowed by Uriel’s easy dismissiveness.

Jack looked over at him, concerned. Sammy had chimed in now and again in the telling of the story, but had otherwise stayed quiet. Jack clenched his fingers again. The sensation had gradually returned with a prickling discomfort - he was sure he could feel ice crystals slowly dissolving in his flesh - but his fingers showed no signs of frostbite, perhaps thanks to the power of Sammy’s venom. The cavern was much warmer than the outside, but it wasn’t quite warm - there was an uneasy chill set through it, just like the light. There was no visible source of light that he could see, but the ice walls themselves seemed to be painted with a grudging, just-barely adequate illumination.

“Hey!” Jack cut in. “You think you could -” He glanced down at the scabbard by the angel’s side. “That was a flaming sword you were waving around out there, right?” Uriel gave a curt nod. “Yeah, I get the reference. My little buddy here’s cold-blooded, so not exactly an inviting atmosphere in here. You think you could take that sword of yours out, maybe warm us up a bit?” And get a fire roaring, he thought to himself, anything to drive away the gloom.

Uriel shook his heads, a silent chorus of disapproval. “I’d rather not. The heat of the flame, if left exposed for too long - well, it tends to attract things in here. And I doubt you’d like what it calls down.”

“The - the whatever it was that attacked us,” Sammy said, nudging Jack in the side. “It was eating the fire!”

“Yeah! Big guy, eight feet tall, the feeling of that awful sapping deathly cold like you’re never going to be warm again?” Uriel nodded. Jack clutched his arms around himself instinctively and shivered. “What was that thing, anyway?”

Uriel shrugged, which with all those heads was a small upheaval. “It is The Cold. I know no other name for it.”

“But what is it?” Jack insisted. “Where’d it come from?”

“It is one of God’s creations, like all things,” Uriel replied. “Where does anything come from? It roams in these icy wastes, comes in drifts and drafts inside these caverns...” He waved a hand. “It doesn’t bother me. I don’t have the sort of animal heat it’s after. But taking out this flame for anything more than a few seconds, it’ll come loping along hungry and - trust me, it’s not worth it.”

“So what, that’s your answer?” Jack said. He wasn’t even that cold anymore, but Uriel’s nonchalance irritated him nonetheless. “God? God wills it? Why would God ever create something as horrible as that?”

“It may not have been horrible at the moment of its creation,” said Uriel. Distantly, his eyes rose up to gaze at the black ice. Or, not black itself, Jack realized, staring upwards, but reflecting something black in its core. “But sometimes things grow bitter in their abandonment. It is no danger to me. Nothing in the world can harm me. I vanquish it, drive it off. But it reforms itself, returns, lies in wait. Why take the trouble?” He snapped back to attention, eyes focusing like sunlight through a lens. “But back to your story. You said you had come to see me, that you knew about the lever.”

“Oh yeah, right,” mumbled Jack, fumbling in one of his pockets for the pictures he had taken. “We were traveling the world, right? And then in Greenland we came across this account by this woman, Elizabeth Hortense Bittle. An American explorer and theosophist.” He held his phone out to Uriel. Of course, it was useless for communication way up here, but he’d kept his phone with him as a recording of everything they’d experienced on their travels.

An old picture of Elizabeth Bittle looked out of the phone, a woman with quaint little gold-rimmed glasses and her hair pulled pack into a bun. Uriel regarded the glowing screen without curiosity. Jack swiped to the next picture, pictures they’d taken of the little leather-bound notebook in the museum, in her neat little script. “She’d collected a bunch of stories about a mystical lever that lay somewhere in the Arctic Circle.” He exchanged glances with Sammy. “A lever that could destroy the world.”

“I wasn’t sure about it,” Sammy said quietly. “Like, maybe she was just confused? I mean, I’d seen the world, I wanted to go back home and take up my duty already - “

“A worthy cause,” Uriel interjected quietly.

“- but Jack convinced me that if it did exist, if there was a second lever, then maybe we could - we could learn something, maybe there was another way, so that no one would have to be bound ...”

“It had to be a second lever,” Jack cut in, “because Elizabeth Bittle also wrote about ours!” He swiped to a different page of the notebook. “See? ‘... I have heard tell of a second lever, somewhere in the desert’! So she’d heard of ours, but unlike this one, she never got a clear idea of where it was supposed to be located. Rumours passed around by an esoteric Kabbalist sect.” He flicked through the various pages for a minute. “I’m not sure how she heard about ours to begin with, Nate made me swear that whole secrecy oath ... Although maybe the reason it was so comprehensive was that someone, years and years before, had let something slip ...?

“Anyway.” He shook his head. “Bittle gets really into the idea of these magical levers all across the world, right? She - You know the saying, Give me a lever and somewhere to stand, and I will move the world? She thought, why stop at one? In her notebooks she develops this whole mystical system where the world is moved by a series of levers - one for Good, one for Evil, one for Peace, one for War ... the whole world, balanced around a system of leverages. And if you could just pull the right lever, suddenly, the world makes sense! Everything’s perfected, just shifted ever so slightly in one direction! Everything falls right into place!”

He paused, looking up for a reaction, and was met only with the wall of Uriel’s impassive gaze. “And, uh, that’s all we know about it,” he finished lamely. “Bittle set out on an expedition, searching for this lever at the North Pole, but the expedition never returned. She was presumed dead ...” He petered off. “I, uh, I don’t suppose you ever met her?”

“Oh,” said Uriel. “I have.”

“Oh!” said Jack.

“But she was quite wrong,” Uriel said softly, and this time his voice seemed to reverberate around the cavern walls. Jack and Sammy glanced around. The blackness seemed to be trembling, keening. “There is no great system of levers scattered around the world. Only ours two. Only ever two.”

“Two?” said Jack. He blinked hard. The eerie atmosphere of the cave system was getting to him. He could look down at his fingers in front of him and then they would blur around the edges and then he wasn’t sure how well he had seen them at all. He had the sudden irrational sensation that there was not actually warmth in the cave, or light - it had just shaped itself to pacify him, lure him into a false sense of safety as he wandered deeper into the cold and into the dark.

“Wait a minute,” he said, trying to think. “We came from Eden. And if you’re the -” He nodded at the scabbard by Uriel’s side. “The angel guarding the entrance, Mister flaming sword. So how are there two of them.” He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing all the way up here?”

“Ah, the garden,” Uriel sighed. “What a short-sighted, mortal way of imagining it, that old, dead Eden must be bound to a single spot on the surface of the world.” The eyes glinted with amusement. “What did you do, to find old Nate, crawling out in that desert? What did you do, to get here?”

“I ...” Jack looked down at hands that should’ve been blackened and rotting, lying dark in the grave. “I ...”

“Let paradise wither and die,” said Uriel. “The husk of the birthplace that you came from. Your heritage, denied. What’s left?”

“I … I died,” Jack said softly.

Uriel made a velvet sound in his many throats, like a purr.

“What’s going on?” Jack said. He felt unsteady. The ground seemed to be swaying under him, liquid, and the ice seemed to be calling out, vibrating at a frequency to raise gooseflesh on skin. He looked up at Uriel. “What’s going on here?”

“What happened to Miss Bittle?” Sammy said softly. “What did you do to her?”

“Two levers,” Uriel said, ignoring them both. “One at the beginning of Creation. And one at its End.”

He rose, wings spreading, countless countless eyes staring, shifting, tremoring like the ice, almost imperceptible vibrations shifting through the angel’s body like foreshocks, portending a great upheaval. His voice dropped to match the hum of the ice, the hungry keening call of it, and both Jack and Sammy shrank away. “You’ve told me all about your lever. Now, would you like to see mine?”

The path down to the lever was precarious, an ice-slick descent that Jack had to navigate inch by inch, his boots slanted sideways to better grip the ice, Sammy coiled around his neck. He kept glancing up at Uriel, who floated just ahead of them on his many wings, heedless of them. They inched down, down, lower down, into a pit that seemed to recede into the depths of the earth. High above, stalactites glinted like the knifepoints of stars. And at the bottom of the pit a long thin rod jutted out of the ground.

It was a gleaming black in contrast to Nate’s plain white, a slick jet black that seemed hungry, greedy, soaking in the light. On the plinth, instead of a tree there was carved a rune that neither Jack nor Sammy recognized, sloping, curving gutters cut into the stone that seemed to all flow to its centre, to the base of the lever itself.

“It’s like a labyrinth,” Sammy whispered. Jack slid down the last few feet, caught himself, finally stood again on level ground.

“The End of the World,” Uriel said, floating to move behind the angle of his lever. In the dim light it seemed to dance and twitch, seeming to lunge forward of its own account half an inch, and Jack started as if to grab it. “Oh, it does that,” Uriel said, smiling. “Nasty little thing. Almost has a mind of its own.”

“No ...” Jack muttered. The pit walls towered up above them. “No, this isn’t right ...”

“Why not?” said Uriel pleasantly. “Are you privy to the mind of God? Did you set the stars in their places in the heavens? Have you tamed Behemoth, put a hook through Leviathan’s lip? Hm? Hmmm? You think you know what it’s like, guarding your precious little lever! Oh boo-hoo, poor you, you’ve been so isolated and alone!” His mocking voice echoed. “No one but an endless stream of co-guardians to keep Old Nate company!” His voice sharpened into a scream. “You know what I’ve had to do?! Do you know what MY duty is?!”

The black lever gave a growl, its gears interlocking beneath the surface. It was the jutting angle of the hand of a clock.

“It’s moving on its own,” Jack said.

“Oh, yes,” Uriel said. “It wants to be pulled. Of course it does. End of the world, generations and generations overdue. Inches forward, ticking down inevitably towards the end of everything! Oh, I’ve tried! I’ve tried to hold it back! I’ve piled rocks, tried to bury it, tried to chain it back -”

“And by the next day, all of that would disappear,” Jack said.

“But of course, there’s only ever one thing that works,” said Uriel, his voice suddenly a deadly calm. “Only one thing that can convince God to stave off the end of the world just for a little while longer.”

“Sacrifice,” whispered Sammy. His eyes darted down to the runes, to the gutters etched into the stone. “Blood.”

Uriel moved aside, and in a corner of the chamber they saw bones, clothes, scraps of fur preserved by the cold, and atop the pile the glint of a pair of quaint little gold-rimmed glasses.

“Blood,” Uriel said.

“No, no, no -” Jack stammered, backing away. “This is crazy! You didn’t need to kill her! You could’ve - She could have helped you! Got you more animals! Fresh meat!”

“Oh, but you haven’t been listening,” Uriel said silkily. His hand came out to stroke the black sheen of the lever and it responded to his touch, like a slavering beast anticipating a meal. Its invisible gears whined. “We don’t work by the same rules! I’m not permitted confidants! You understand, don’t you? Don’t you!” His eyes honed in on Sammy, and then flickered briefly back to Jack. “Humans can’t save the world! They can only help destroy it!”

“I - I - My dad said something about this, maybe,” Sammy whimpered, anxiety growing in his lidless eyes. “About levers. I - I don’t know! I was just a little kid! He never expected me to be here!”

“And they are destroying it,” Uriel went on. “For centuries, for millennia, my duty was easy. Oh, yes, for millennia the lever called to me and cursed at me and whispered to me in the dark, oh yeessss, it told me it was the fulfilment of all things! But the game was plentiful, and the hunting was easy, and even in my small sphere of influence I could bring back plenty of sacrifices to sate its endless thirst for blood! But it has grown warmer! And the game has grown scarce! And in the bits and whispers I can scrounge up at this forsaken corner of the world I know the truth!”

The wings all fanned out, an inverted panopticon of eyes. His voice dropped to a hiss. “Humans have failed their role as stewards. For all the blood I have shed here, for all the countless, countless deaths. And yet they bring it on. And yet they are hastening it to an end.”

Jack took another step back, glancing back up the perilous slope, and beyond that the maze of twisting turning passages Uriel had led them down, jagged and black and hungry like knives.

“Oh, don’t try to run,” Uriel said calmly. “I’m an angel! I can fly! And whatever Nate might have done to you, you’re still only human. Human, at best.”

“Okay,” Jack said evenly, holding up his hands. He couldn’t take his eyes off the surface of the plinth, the black floor of an abattoir. “But it wasn’t Miss Bittle that did that. People that come all the way up to the North Pole, they’re the people that actually appreciate it, you know that! She just wanted to make the world a better place, in her own fantastical way! She didn’t deserve to die!”

“It’s not about deserves!” Uriel shrieked, and this time the cavern shrieked with him, the blackness of the lever reflected endlessly through it. “Haven’t I told you that?! It’s about the lever! It’s about holding back the end of an unworthy world for just one day longer!” All of a sudden the eyes were brimming with tears, like stars poised above the Earth. “What would you have me do? Let the lever be pulled? Let all of Creation die?”

The echoes of his outburst sank into the room and quietly died. In the awful ensuing silence, Sammy spoke.

“But we’re here now,” he offered, his voice trembling first and then growing more urgent as he talked. “That’s why we came! Because - because it doesn’t matter what rules you have, or who you’re allowed to trust! Because me and my dad and Jack here were a thousand miles away, just as alone, not being able to trust anyone else! And guess what? We found each other!”

“We can help you,” Jack said. “We can. Look, you don’t know what I’ve done for Nate. There’s the internet, there’s a whole world I can help you communicate with! And I can arrange for more animals, more sacrifices, anything. Whatever you want -”

“No,” said Uriel in a trembling voice. “No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I -“

“Not anymore!” Uriel screamed, and the black lever growled out its chorus. “I told you. It’s too late! The animals have all run off and died. The hunting’s been scarce for decades. The lever hasn’t been fed in months! Time’s up! Time’s up, and you were sent here by God. As providence. Because we’re here on the brink of the end of the world and I can’t wait for you to go out and stumblingly hunt, can’t wait for your arrangements, can’t wait for you to get everything in order! I can’t let you leave and wait until your return, can’t wait for another day to pass!”

The multiple eyes blinked like suns going out. “There must be a sacrifice, now, to keep the world going. It’s been too long. It’s much too late. If you want to save the world, one of you has to die.”

Jack felt a lump rise in his throat. He’d been counting on compassion, on breaking through Uriel’s isolation with the offer of their help, and now he felt themselves faced instead with a cold equation, as unfeeling as stone. “You can’t kill either of us,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice even. “Sammy needs to take his father’s place. If you kill him here - all you’ll be doing is trading one lever for another, leaving the white one without its guardian. And if you kill me, then it adds up to the same thing! Sammy will be stranded here! He can’t get back without me! The cold will get him!”

Uriel hesitated for a second, barely a movement of feathers, and then shook off Jack’s argument. “Then Nate will simply have to live a little longer. Sad for him, perhaps, but he understands the necessities of our work.”

“No!” Jack could hear the blood rushing in his ears, felt himself rushing on in a suicidal attempt. “I’m the Judge, you hear me? I’m the judge of humanity!” In the back of his mind he was aware of what a pitiful, futile threat this was – of course, Uriel could just kill him here, feed his blood to the black lever - but the adrenaline surging through his body would not let him back down. “You kill him here, and I swear to God I’ll go back to Eden and pull my lever! I’ll undo everything you’ve ever done! All your centuries of duty! I’ll kill us all, I swear it! You piece of shit!”

“Jack,” Sammy said gently, and that single word cut through his rage. Sammy was still draped around his neck, nosing next to his ear. “It’s okay. Let him take me. It amounts to the same thing.”

Jack looked at him in shock. “Sammy -!”

“You heard him,” said Sammy, his thin reedy voice gathering up inevitability as he talked, like a pebble starting an avalanche down a hill. “Someone needs to die. And it can’t be you, because someone - someone warm-blooded - needs to make their way back and tell my dad what happened.”

“No.” Jack shook his head. “No, no, there’s got to be a way –“

“And -” Sammy swallowed. “Listen to me, Jack. What do I have to live for, anyway? What’s waiting for me when I go back? An eternity of guarding a lever? To end up like my dad, waiting for you to come back with a sword so you can finally end his life?” Sammy’s eyes flicked up to Uriel. “To end up like him?”

“Sammy, no,” Jack insisted. “You’re young! You have … Look, your dad couldn’t even have imagined the internet, that laptop I built for him, and who knows what else the future has for you? That isn’t - it isn’t a life sentence! Or even if it is, at least you’ll be alive! To see what happens next!”

“Hollow words,” said Uriel, who had been watching in a sepulchral satisfaction. “The young one knows. He knows what fate awaits him.”

“You shut up!” Jack screamed, whirling around on Uriel. There were tears streaming from his eyes. “He’s a kid! He doesn’t know any better! He hasn’t - he hasn’t even seen the world yet! He doesn’t know anything!”

“Jack!” Sammy pleaded. “I have. You know I have. You’ve done everything for me. You’ve shown me the world, more of it than I could have ever imagined. And -”

“No. No no no no no no -”

“And you’ve known,” Sammy insisted. “All this while you’ve known. What would happen at the end of the trip.” He looked up at Jack with a childlike calm. “That you wouldn’t just be ending one life, but both of them.”

“No!” Jack said. “You -” He could feel the blood rushing through his brain, and in one last desperate gambit he turned to appeal to Uriel. “Listen, okay, the kid didn’t want to do this, I didn’t want to drag anyone else into this, but you want a sacrifice?” He bared his teeth. “I’ll get you a sacrifice. Get me up to the surface. We had a convoy traveling with us. They escorted us out here and we did the last leg on our own, to keep this place a secret. They’ll be searching for us. It’s been too long since last contact. You get us back up there, I’ll lure one of them in.”

“J-Jack?” Sammy said, looking over at him confused. “What ...?”

“I know!” Jack said, speaking over him quickly. “You’re scared of what comes next. You think you have to do this all on your own. You think this is the easy way out.” He looked back up to Uriel. “But you know it’s not that easy. We all have our duty to do. So c’mon!” His voice rose into a challenging crescendo. “Let’s do it!”

Uriel regarded him dubiously. “And why should I believe you? You never mentioned any companions before.” He gestured towards the hungry black surface of the lever. “Why should I not fulfil my duty, right here, right now?”

“Because,” Jack said. “Because we’re all already connected. Because Nate’s back in Eden, and he’s dying. Whether you believe it or not, he’s dying. He’s lived too long, and if neither of us go back to him then who knows what he’ll do, and what good’s killing a fucking kid to keep the world going if everything’s just going to go to hell a few weeks later?” He jutted his jaw out at Uriel, and saw the angel yield, by just an inch. “And if you kill me too then Nate’s all alone and lapses into despair and – and I don’t like to think what happens next! And if you leave me alive, I swear I’m going back, and I’m pulling that damn lever myself!”

He took a step forward, bringing both hands loudly down on his thighs. “We got our duty to do! We’re keeping the world from dying! And there’s a bunch of fresh meat up there ready for sacrifice, so let’s get up there and fucking do it!”

Sammy had shrank back, cowed into silence. Uriel was staring at him stunned. “But we -” Uriel started. All the eyes shifted in different directions. “No, no, you are delaying for time -”

“And you got time!” Jack shot back. “You listened to me tell that whole damn story! You’ve got - the end of the day, right? Till the end of the day, right? So let’s go up there, and give it a shot, and if no one comes you’ve still got us, right?” He prodded Uriel in the chest with a finger. “So let’s get up there, and you do your fucking job!”

Their march back through the maze of passageways was silent. Sammy hung limply on Jack’s shoulders, all the fight gone out of him. I didn’t mean it, Jack wanted to tell him, you don’t have your dad’s whole life resting on you, but Uriel floated behind them grimly, and the words didn’t seem to come. It was a relief to emerge into the open air again, to behold the dark of twilight instead of an unnatural ever-present light, to feel the gust of cold air on his cheeks instead of that warmthless warmth. They stood outside the entrance to the cavern, looking out at an unbroken landscape of snow. “I see nothing,” Uriel said.

“Yeah, well.” His breath came out in puffs. “You got to signal them. We left the flares back in the truck, I told you that.” He gave a nod to Uriel’s waist. “Use that goddamn sword of yours. Wave it around. They’ve gotta be searching for us by now. Get some attention.”

Uriel narrowed his eyes at him.

“What?” said Jack. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? You attract the - the whaddyacallit, The Cold? You said you could fight it off, if it came to that. Big deal! Let’s get some light and heat up here! It’s kind of what attracts living creatures, you know!”

Uriel let out a long sigh. “I don’t know how Nate put up with you,” he said, and unsheathed the sun.

Even through his bravado, Jack cringed away at the arc of the flame cutting through the cold and dark. The snow around Uriel hissed into steam. Jack felt the hairs on his skin singe. “Oh huuuumans,” Uriel crooned out, waving his sword through the air. “Humans that are no doubt out there. Come, come and save your friends!”

Jack found himself staring out into the dark, half expecting in the delirious heat of Uriel’s flame for a rescue party to materialize, walking towards them with open arms. Perhaps a minute passed, and then another, Uriel’s motions becoming more theatrical, more flamboyant, almost mocking their last vestige of hope.

And then, from the gathering flurries of snow, came was the ravenous starving howl.

“Well, who could have foreseen this would happen,” Uriel muttered grimly, turning to face the beast materializing out of the darkness. It did not have the slow implacable pace as before, but was almost bounding towards them now in its whirling eddies, like a wolf scenting a steak, maddened by the heat of the open flame. “I do hope you’re happy,” he started to say, “one of you really is going to have to be the sacrifice now -”

He looked back to see Jack already running away from the cavern at full speed.

“You little fool!” Uriel snarled, and swung his sword in a great circle over his head, and all at once a ring of flame sprouted out from the snow, the sudden rush of heat knocking Jack back on his bum. “You think you could escape me? ME? An angel of God?” Uriel screamed, and then cried out in a grunt of pain as with a lunge The Cold buried its icy talons into his side. “Ungrateful little shits!” He plunged the flaming sword down and The Cold opened up its gullet to devour it, and there was a great rush of steam, the sound of the ground shattering apart.

“B-back into the caves!” Sammy gasped.

“What?!” Jack roared, still shielding his eyes from the wall of flame.

“We’re surrounded by fire! There’s nowhere else! Maybe we can lose him in the caverns!”

Jack gave a quick nod and veered around back into the caverns. From behind them were the sounds of glaciers cleaving apart, the sizzling of the sun, hot and cold locked together in a deathless match. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I can’t believe you did that,” Sammy moaned. “We can’t - He knows these caves better than we do! What was I thinking?”

“It’s fine,” Jack said, with a confidence he didn’t feel. “He - Look, he needs to come in here after us, right? He needs to make the sacrifice in time. And we can - All we need to do is avoid him, lose him in the passages, stay out of his way -”

“Until what, Jack?” Sammy demanded. “Until it’s too late? Until it’s the end of the world?”

The black ice watched them hungrily as they descended deeper into the caves, pulsing against its confines, countless open black mouths trying to draw them in. “We -” Jack wiped sweat from his brow. “Look, we’ll think of something.”

“The lever,” Sammy said, and swallowed. “We have to go back to the lever. It always comes back to that.” He shook his head, contorting as if to twist himself into knots. “I don’t know what to do, Jack! I thought I was doing the right thing, offering myself up to Uriel to sacrifice. But - but this isn’t right! I feel like my dad told me something about, like he knew! If only he was here! But he’s not! I don’t know –” He burst out into a wail. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him!”

“Sammy.” Jack paused for a moment to catch his breath, still flushed from the heat and the exertion. “Listen, I know it’s scary, and I know it’s not fair, everything that’s expected of you, but -”

A sluice of cold air cut him off, a bladed tongue flickering across his cheek, and Jack looked up to see, walking as if hunched in the low passageways, a great grey ugly thing that was the absence of all light, the absence of all warmth, advancing upon them.

“What,” he breathed, and looked back the way they had come. Even from the entrance way, they could still hear echoing the sounds of battle, Uriel’s grunts, and flame hissing against ice.

“Oh my God,” said Jack. “There’s more than one of them.”

They were running again, The Cold behind them, the slanted passageways of the caverns narrowing in on them, herding them, black and glistening like a long dark throat. In the depths of the earth they felt a shift, the ticking of a great clock. Doom, it said. Doom, doom, doom.

“Jack. We have to,” Sammy moaned. “It’s the end of the world otherwise. The end of the world!”

Jack ran, his feet pounding against the ground. He could almost see the black lever, visible through the false light, calling to him, pulling at him. Magnetic north. And then another sudden draft of cold air, and there was the Cold seeping through the invisible crevasses in the ice, the one chasing him, or maybe yet another, re-forming in front of them as a great grey swirling cloud, raising its massive fists.

“Oh God,” muttered Jack, skidding to a halt. He could feel the lever pulling magnetic at his blood, yanking him closer in great cravings and throes. He wanted to laugh. They were trapped in a no-win situation, only trying to die, and now even that was impossible. “We can -” He looked helplessly behind him. “There’s got to be another way around -”

Sammy uncoiled from his neck and slithered down onto the ground, away from him. “Jack,” he said. “Lead it away.”

Jack gaped. “What?”

“Lead it away! It’ll go after you! You’re warm-blooded, and then I can get past!” Sammy was already wriggling himself into a small crack in the wall. “Jack! It’s the only way! Please!”

“No. No, no, no.” Already he was coming back to his senses, the awful Cold advancing on him. “What are you going to do? You can’t sacrifice yourself!”

“I’ll throw myself down. It’s high enough.” Jack stood frozen in shock, the Cold advancing on him, Sammy curled up almost comically in that little crack. All he had to do was stand here, he told himself. The Cold would fall upon him and devour him, eat up every last spot of warmth in his blood, and Sammy would be trapped in there until it left. Until it was too late to do anything. Until...

“Please!” Sammy begged. “Help me save you! I don’t want you to die!”

Jack came to life and ran.

He did not know where he was going. There were tears streaming down his face, and all the icy walls had turned against him, like teeth arrayed backwards in a gullet, trying to keep the food from coming back up. “C’mon!” he screamed behind him, his voice echoing hysterically through the empty chambers. “You big dumb thing! I’m right here! Keep up!” The Cold’s icy breath hissed down his spine and Jack ran, ran, ran, as if he could lead death itself far away from Sammy, lead it to the ends of the Earth, where no one might ever be hurt again. “Follow the leader!”

He ran, the path narrowing and narrowing until he was at a dead end, nowhere left to go. Jack sank to his knees, pressing his forehead against the ice. He could hear the Cold coming, and closed his eyes. “Sammy,” he said. “Sammy, I’m so sorry.”

The Cold first bit into his calf, shards of ice that froze his blood and nearly stopped his heart, and then he felt its awful weight on him spreading across his body almost intimate, like a lover, and he thought, if this is death then maybe Sammy was right, maybe there were worse things than this.

The sun, when it appeared, was no less terrifying from having experienced it twice before.

Uriel grunted as he shoved the flaming sword through the Cold’s chest, only lightly crisping Jack’s skin. Jack gasped and convulsed as Uriel fished the icy corpse off him, his limbs not obeying, and then then Uriel had hauled him into the air. I’m dead, Jack thought, This is Heaven, or Hell, and then he realized that it was the air in front of him that had coagulated into darkness, pulsed with the beat of a dying world.

“Where is the little snake?” Uriel was screaming at him, impatiently sheathing his sword. “You fool! We’re out of time! You understand that? We’re out of time!”

“I -” Jack tried to gesture jerkily to whatever remained of the Cold. “He told me to lead it away. So that he could - could get to the lever, could -” He broke off.

“Well, you had better hope this little plan succeeded,” Uriel snarled. “Otherwise, congratulations.” He looked up into the darkness. “You’re responsible for the end of the world.”

They stood in the lightless air, listening. The world ticked down, the vibrations of the lever running through the earth, counting towards zero. Jack felt himself shift in Uriel’s grip, one last great convulsion, the lever shifting in its axis -

And then nothing.

Jack slowly opened his eyes, seeing nothing but more darkness. He counted internally to ten, and then brought his hand up to his face and touched his left cheek, his upper lip, before finally touching the tip of his nose. “Hey,” he said. “I’m still alive.”

“Yes,” Uriel said in the darkness. “As am I.”

The sword came out again, and Jack winced and shielded his eyes, but it was dimmed this time, Uriel raising it like a torch. All around them was the ice - but only ice, slowly relaxing into water where Uriel’s sword pointed, rivulets running down and joining in their paths. Ice that caught the reflection of the flame, and was clear, showing no taint of black.

“He did it,” mumbled Jack, and then wanted to weep. He imagined Sammy, his little body sprawled out on that black altar. “He did it.”

“He did ... something,” Uriel cautiously said.

Jack clung to Uriel, the angel carrying him down the passageways, flaming sword raised to make a thousand candle flames warped through glass. Jack felt like they were walking through a church, candles lit in prayer as the wax ran and wept to make crooked cheerful shapes as all the candles bowed and guttered out. Uriel flew them into the central chamber, and far below they could see the dim outline of the plinth and its lever, unmoved. It was black, still, but all the malevolence of its blackness seemed to have gone out of it, and now it was soft as shadow.

“This is... How did this happen?” Uriel said. Jack looked up at him, uncomprehending. “It ... It ...”

And then, a small voice chimed out from the ground below them. “H-hey, could you - could you move that fire a little closer? S-some of us are c-cold-blooded, you know.”

“Oh my God!” cried Jack. “Sammy?”

Sammy was lying limply at the edge of the precipice, stirring to life as Uriel brought the flame closer. “Hey, guys,” he said, and stretched out at the warmth. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“But -” Uriel was gawking, countless eyes wide in disbelief. “What - what happened? What did you do?”

“Oh, that,” said Sammy, and glanced down at the lever. “Nothing.”

Uriel stared at him stunned.

Sammy raised his head in a smile. “Absolutely nothing. It was feeding on blood, obviously. And it hadn’t been fed in quite a while. Practically starving to death. So it was really throwing a tantrum, screaming out with all it had left to be fed. But it could only keep that up for so long, and if you just keep on not feeding it, well ...” He managed with a twist of his body what might pass as a shrug. “It’s done. It’s dead.”

“But -” Uriel stammered. “But all this time, all the sacrifices -”

“Yup,” said Sammy, nodding wearily. “It got into your head. I – I don’t blame you, having to live with a thing like this. It was blackmailing you the whole time, threatening to pull itself, threatening to take the choice out of your hands, when really…” He chuckled. “It’s a tool, you know? It could threaten, it could manipulate - but it would take someone else to use it.”

“Oh, Sammy!” Jack cried, and squeezed out of Uriel’s slack grip. The angel seemed completely at a loss, floating numbly in mid-air without a word. Jack bent over the snake and scooped him up. “I thought – oh God, I thought you were going to kill yourself.”

“Yeah,” murmured Sammy, coiling loosely around Jack’s wrist again. “I did too. It gets to the point where you ... where you think that’s maybe the only option. But I was right there, on the brink, the lever calling out to me, and all I could think about was you, and I ...” He smiled weakly. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Jack.”

“Yeah?” Jack said, wiping away a tear.

“Yeah,” said Sammy. He relaxed, laying his head against Jack’s arm. “You, me, and some wisdom from dear old dad. It took me a while, but I finally remembered his advice.” He raised his head, mimicking old Nate’s voice. “’You’ve got to lead a Cold, starve a lever.’”

#fiction #tw: suicide

90 notes · View notes

epicgeek · 5 years ago

Text

Das arenas radicais para as ruas! Hot Wheels, a marca de carrinhos em miniatura mais famosa do mundo, anuncia sua turnê de brand experience para apresentar a linha de brinquedos Hot Wheels Monster Trucks, inspirada em caminhões gigantes. Um veículo interativo e elaborado com toda a identidade visual da marca se transforma em uma enorme brinquedoteca ambulante que realizará paradas em cinco estados brasileiros e seis cidades do Sul, Sudeste e Nordeste do Brasil.

#gallery-0-10 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-10 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-10 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-10 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

É a primeira vez na história que a marca realiza uma turnê com uma brinquedoteca ambulante no País. Cada apresentação do Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Tour levará para crianças e fãs da marca toda a adrenalina de Hot Wheels com exibição de vídeos inéditos e muita diversão, em uma área que terá a linha completa de Hot Wheels Monster Trucks, com caminhões irados de rodas gigantes, capazes de fazer acrobacias com alta performance e desempenho, além de esmagarem tudo a sua volta. Para trazer ainda mais emoção para a ação, serão disponibilizadas áreas divertidas para fotos e pistas, especialmente desenvolvidas para as atividades, onde crianças poderão brincar e conhecer os carrinhos que possuem ferramentas que contribuem com o desenvolvimento de diferentes habilidades – como motoras e espírito esportivo – sem deixar a diversão de lado.

#gallery-0-11 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-11 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-11 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-11 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

As dinâmicas serão gratuitas e acontecerão nas cidades de São Paulo, Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina e Londrina. Além disso, o Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Tour fará uma apresentação especial no Parque Beto Carrero World, no dia 7 de dezembro, e contará com a presença do influenciador Brancoala. O famoso youtuber participará de uma manhã de autógrafos com seus seguidores na Crash Zone, área temática de Hot Wheels onde acontece os shows irados da marca. O espaço será aberto pela primeira vez para visitação do público e os fãs poderão conhecer todos os brinquedos da linha Hot Wheels Monster Trucks e brincar, com exclusividade, na área que traz os brinquedos à realidade, em um espetáculo repleto de manobras radicais. Além disso, a Riclan, empresa licenciada da marca Hot Wheels marcará presença na turnê, levando ainda mais adrenalina para os visitantes e, a Ri Happy, maior marca brasileira do varejo infantil, também participa da ação com o mascote Solzinho, distribuição de vouchers de desconto e recreação para as crianças.

#gallery-0-12 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-12 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-12 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-12 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Agenda de apresentações

São Paulo/SP

Quando: 23 e 24/11 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Shopping Center Norte – Tv. Casalbuono, 120 – Vila Guilherme, São Paulo

Salvador/BA

Quando: 30/11 e 01/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Shopping da Bahia – Av. Tancredo Neves, 148 – Caminho das Árvores, Salvador

Penha e Balneário Camboriú/SC

Quando: 07/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Beto Carrero World – Rod. Beto Carrero World – Praia de Armação do Itapocorói, Penha

Quando: 08/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Balneário Shopping – Av. Santa Catarina, 1 – Estados, Balneário Camboriú

Londrina/PR

Quando: 10/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Boulevard Londrina Shopping – Av. Theodoro Victorelli, 150 – Carlota, Londrina

Rio de Janeiro/RJ

Quando: 14 e 15/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Via Parque Shopping – Av. Ayrton Senna, 3000 – Barra da Tijuca

São Paulo/SP

Quando: 21/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Shopping Taboão – Rod. Régis Bittencourt, 2643 – Jardim Helena, Taboão da Serra

Quando: 22/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Parque Villa-Lobos – Av. Prof. Fonseca Rodrigues, 2001 – Alto de Pinheiros

Quando: 23/12 de 12h às 20h

Onde: Ação social em comunidades de São Paulo

Fonte: Hot Wheels

Hot Wheels Monster Trucks percorre o Brasil com exibições gratuitas

#BA #Eventos #Hot Wheels #Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Tour #PR #RJ #SC #SP

0 notes

glitterandrocketfuel · 6 years ago

Text

YBC Hot Takes: Just One Yesterday

Aaand we’re back around again, like a bad penny, representing the Fightin’ Foil Fedoras of the Peterick Institute of Hot Trashfire Takes on Fall Out Boy. We dive way too deep into our dumpster for an ass-pull out of Just One Yesterday and it’s happening today (which will be yesterday by the time you read this, probably).

Just One Yesterday: The Rot at the Core

Patrick is split, disjointed, divested from himself and susceptible to this Jekyll-and-Hyde (per)version of himself as he wanders, lost, through the tangle of media interviews, live performances, touring, and promo to support his solo career while the wolves (or Foxes, as the case may be) creep closer. He's pursued by predators--fans with their own axes to grind, vixens who want him under their control. Let’s dive into the dumpster below the cut, hmmm...

youtube

The freedom of Patrick's youthful start in Fall Out Boy--freedom from expectations, from limitations, from comparisons against others and especially his own younger self, is gone and he is at the mercy of those expectations and limitations and comparisons, no longer able to "start from nothing" as it were. In many ways, it's worse than starting from nothing and being nobody.

The serpent of doubt has laid him low, sliced him up, and scattered the pieces. His confidence has been poisoned by the poison-apple of knowledge. Knowledge of all those expectations, of how hard it is to be different, of how truly lucky they were the first time around.

The serpent finds the other parts of him in the same manner--his integrity as Andy just had to fight a hobo for a can of beans (how much selling out have I done just for scraps of sustenance), his creativity as Joe puts bloody handprints all over the domestic scenario, signifying how much of it Patrick internalized, because Houses Are Us in dreams and metaphor. (Plus, who knows how much of his bloodying he "brought home" to affect his life outside music).

The lyrics in Just One Yesterday have a significant layer of alignment to a “everyone is Patrick” interpretation here--Letting people down is my thing, find yourself a new gig, this town ain't big enough for two of us. I don't have the right name or the looks. Anything you say can and will be held against you. Only say my name. I'm bad news, I want to teach you a lesson.

There's a layer of Peterick in them (as there is in just about every single one of their songs) but remember that Pete writes, and Patrick interprets, arranges, and RE-arranges his words into something coherent and significant (and does so in as much of a vacuum as he can, as he's said, so that he and Pete don't "pollute" each other's contributions with what they each think the other is saying).

Patrick's arrangement of these words suggests his own internal turmoil about occupying the "hot mess" role in the dynamic, as if he should be able to pull himself together (literally on one level) or be impervious to the breakdowns or self-doubts. He throws Pete’s words at himself--Pete telling him that there’s only room for one hot mess in their dynamic, Patrick hearing that Hollywood has Pete and Patrick could only be a pale imitation of the glam of Pete.

But as one does, when lost in the woods, Patrick happens upon a friendly denizen in the form of Foxes, aka the "Death Adder" who is again the Serpent of Doubt, only this time, unlike the serpent his confidence has taken in and regurgitated, she wears the skin of a shapeshifter and hides her nature while driving him out of the woods.

And Serpents being what they are (among this, not at all good drivers with the lack of hands to put on steering wheels and all), the ride isn't as much of a help. While she sings the lyrics of betrayal (If I spilled my guts, the world would never look at you the same way. Now I'm here to give you all my love so I can watch your face as I take it all away).

"If the world knew how much of a fake you are, they would hate you. And I, your serpent of self-doubt, will prove that by bringing the fans out to love you, just so I can watch you crumple when they take that love away because you are Patrick on your own, and not Fall Out Boy.”

It is not an accident that while Patrick is careening out of control down the highway, his Confidence/Outer Self and Pete are both chasing after a kid (fan/innocence/youth), desperate to be helped, aided, accepted, loved, but instead coming off as a monster.

Driven by the Serpent of Doubt (literally!) Patrick still manages to reassemble his crew, the parts of himself that have lost their way. First up is Andy, his Integrity, who provides a helping hand to his Creativity in assisting Joe into the back of the pickup. And finally, Patrick's Confidence gets hauled into the back with the others, giving an exhausted, half-hearted flip-off to the world as if maybe Patrick can finally get his gumption back after the disappointment of the tour and the solo album's lackluster reception in the changing landscape of the music industry.

But Patrick made one significant mistake. He rebuilt himself but he failed to cut out the rot and expel the Serpent. His pieces are still in a vehicle (Patrick...PaTruck...too much?) driven by the Serpent of Doubt. And they all drank the (polluted) water that was in the back of the truck.

Patrick shared a grip with Andy/Integrity, and a meaningful Look of acknowledgment and recognition with Joe/Creativity, touchstones to be sure.

The only connection he makes with Pete/Confidence is after the Serpent returns to her true form and Patrick's enraged, pain-driven, monstrous form takes over.

#peterick institute #ybc meta #YBC hot take

4 notes · View notes

monstersmonthly · 6 years ago

Text

Hot Wheels Invades National Champions to Conclude Winter Season

Being a champion means being the absolute best at what one does. That’s something the New England Patriots said in early February when they hoisted the Lombardi Trophy for a sixth time. Joey Logano raised the Monster Energy Championship last November at Homestead, and weeks prior, the best team by far in Major League Baseball raised a World Series trophy, the Boston Red Sox.

Each event for Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live is considered it’s own championship event. No season points, no multiple champions, but at the end of each show is a champion.

The final week of the winter tour for the tour invaded a venue that not long ago got to say they were the best. It was in early April when the Virginia Cavaliers could tell the world they were the absolute best in college basketball, as they won the bracket and brought home the biggest title in basketball. It was only fitting that the final stop come at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Cavaliers’ home court. The hardwood was not on the floor for this weekend, but rather stacks of cars, tires, and vans to welcome droves of fans for some intense action on what has been a spectacular start to the series.

Saturday provided an evening show with a full Crash Zone to every fan with a paid ticket, many of which waited hours for the doors to open prior to the show.

Once the red carpets were moved, and the trucks did their traditional parade lap for introductions, the stacked crowd was ready for some intense competition, and they got that right away with the opening wheelie contest.

Every truck attacked the cars with power, but going early had its benefits because one week removed from his first Titan Cup, Cody Holman made the Bone Shaker hot rod roar to life, sending the skull on the nose towards the roof each hit. Despite the remaining five trucks putting on a strong effort, Holman was the top dog in the show, taking the opening competition.

After a bit of entertainment by hosts Ken Navitsky and Freddie Shepard, it was time to spin things into the donut competition, but it ultimately was more of the same since once again, Snellen took the V8 Bomber into a cyclone that smoked up the venue, and put his streak of consecutive contest wins at 20, an unbelievable mark.

But, following the antics of freestyle motocross, one truck would go on ad dominate the remaining events of the evening.

Derick Anson was held out of a Titan Cup a week ago in the Demo Derby Cadillac. However, he was not wanting to give up and decided to push his chassis to the limit on this evening. He started out quickly with a strong launch in the long jump competition, something he’s been accustomed to all year long. Then, after intermission, he worked his way through the bracket and matched up against Christian Norman in the Hot Wheels Racing 1 Raptor. A quick reaction time and a heavy right foot put Anson on top on this night, meaning he was in prime position for the overall championship.

All that was left was freestyle, but that competition got off to a rough, and wild, beginning.

Darron Schnell was one of the early trucks to take to the track and decided to take the all-blue Bigfoot machine right to the center of the track and hammer the van stack. The problem was, the rear tires were not quite straight on the stack, unlike the front. The truck pitched hard to the left, and hammered the concrete floor. Despite laying on the throttle trying to get the truck to correct, the concrete won and Bigfoot was on it’s side, the second roll for any truck on the circuit.

Immediately officials hit the kill radio and rushed to the truck, along with Norman, his brother Phillip, and Schnell’s wife, Rebecca. Luckily, the driver was alright. After maneuvering the truck around a bit in order to have enough room to put the truck on the wheels, the truck was righted onto the tires, and the crews reviewed the aftermath.

Surprisingly, the body itself only showed some scuff marks right on the cab where it slid across the floor. But, the left-front wheel was a different story. The tire was holding air, but the rim itself was bent hard, and would ultimately need replaced.

Still, the truck fired back up and was pulled into the pits, allowing the competition to continue.

As the action got back under way, every truck pushed things harder, including Snellen almost getting on his side after a cross-thread hit on the cars. But, at the end of it all, Anson would push harder than anyone and ultimately be declared the winner, and that was more than enough to take home the Titan Cup on this night. A champion once again, Anson celebrated with the fans afterwards in the autograph line.

SATURDAY RESULTS:

Wheelie Competition: Cody Holman, Bone Shaker

Donut Contest: Steven Snellen, V8 Bomber

Long Jump: Derick Anson, Demo Derby

Racing Finals: Derick Anson, Demo Derby, def. Christian Norman, Hot Wheels Racing 1

Freestyle: Derick Anson, Demo Derby

Titan Cup Champion: Derick Anson, Demo Derby

It became all-hands on to ensure all the trucks were ready for the final performance of not just the weekend, but also the final performance of the winter tour. Teams were working together to make sure the Bigfoot truck was ready to go for the mid-afternoon matinee, when in fact there was not as much damage as expected. Aside from the bent rim and the body rub, the actual chassis was fully intact.

Call them battle scars, or call it pushing the envelope, but every team was prepared for the final performance and showed it when the fans came in for the final crash zone.

What became of the final performance was a truck that only had one Cup to his name, but decided to make the ultimate performance on this day. Bobby Holman had the most unique body on his truck all season, an aquatic mammal that was deemed the Tiger Shark. To start the Sunday program, that Shark pointed its nose directly at the roof of the arena on both hits, enough to earn him the top honors to start the afternoon.

Snellen once again decided to spin his way to a donut victory, what would be his 21st consecutive, but then Bobby showed that the ole Shark can sky out of the water along with look to the roof.

His long jump victory gave him two wins on the night, which was more than when he won his Titan Cup a few weeks prior. When it came to racing, the Hall of Fame driver showed he too can still get the job done on the lights, as he bested even Anson to get the racing victory on the afternoon. At that point, with three wins, the Cup was heading back to Ohio, but the Shark was wanting to make a near sweep of the event.

Alas, Anson had other ideas.

For a second straight day, the Demo Derby machine was roaring to life and made the floor of the John Paul Jones Arena his own personal playground. Anson would be the freestyle champion, but on the final show, it was the Tiger Shark taking home the Titan Cup, and bragging rights.

SUNDAY RESULTS:

Wheelie Competition: Bobby Holman, Tiger Shark

Donut Contest: Steven Snellen, V8 Bomber

Long Jump: Bobby Holman, Tiger Shark

Racing Finals: Bobby Holman, Tiger Shark, def. Derick Anson, Demo Derby

Freestyle: Derick Anson, Demo Derby

Titan Cup Champion: Bobby Holman, Tiger Shark

And there it is, the final event of the winter tour for the inaugural Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live season. So, does that mean that everything is done, and the tour will be dormant for the next seven or eight months?

Far from it. As was posted on the Hot Wheels Live Facebook page, this Friday will be a major announcement. According to the post, the “smashing and crashing is not done yet.”

So, does this mean some summer dates have been achieve, maybe perhaps some shows that are not set up at arenas, but more along the lines of being outdoors? After all, these trucks have only done shows on concrete. Could we see some faster speeds, bigger air, and even bigger obstacles following the announcement?

All we know is Friday is a big day for the tour, and immediately after, be sure to visit HotWheelsMonsterTrucksLive.com to find out even more details.

1 note · View note

greyslasvegas · 2 years ago

Text

Monster truck jam

Monster truck jam drivers#

Monster truck jam series#

Every month has multiple events with the season calendar leading up to the Monster Jam World Finals in May. Don't miss Monster Jam in Detroit at Ford Field or Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.Įvery tour has its own version of the most popular trucks so you’re guaranteed to see Grave Digger compete at every event on the schedule. Multiple tours compete in different regions of the United States meaning there’s no shortage of events to attend in person.

Monster truck jam drivers#

The Monster Jam schedule features drivers and trucks touring around the country throughout the year with no off-season. Tickets are starting at prices as low as $36.00 and going as high as $925.00. There are 1357 tickets listed for sale on TicketSmarter for the race, which will be held at Allstate Arena, 6920 Mannheim Road, Rosemont, IL. The Monster Jam event will take place on September 16th, 2022 at 7:00pm. The average price for a ticket to a single race during the 2022 season is around $109.68. Monster Jam tickets for races during the 2022 season are found in a price range between $27.00 and $3402.00. The pricing point for each venue will be a little different, with the stadium events being the most expensive to attend. Monster Jam events take place at racetracks, arenas and NFL stadiums. Add-ons such as pit passes can be bought to create a truly memorable experience. The average price of Monster Jam tickets is typically around $45. Tickets for most Monster Jam events start around the $20 to $30 range. Monster Jam is a family-friendly event with low-cost ticket options that makes it easy to bring the kids. Monster Trucks are designed to be a very affordable night out for a family.

Monster truck jam series#

The Monster Jam Triple Threat Series in Grand Rapids at Van Andel Arena, tickets can start for less than $30 per ticket. Some of the variables that will affect the price you pay will include the size of the venue, available seating capacity and seating location. The price of Monster Jam tickets does tend to fluctuate due to several factors. Monster Jam ticket prices are relatively low, which makes it easy to bring the whole family to their events. Get your Monster Jam tickets at TicketSmarter to see thrilling monster truck racing and car-crushing action in arenas and stadiums across North America! Monster Jam Ticket Prices There are multiple versions of the same trucks that compete on each tour, which guarantees that you will see your favorite truck in action. The Arena Championship Series features a single group of drivers and trucks on tour. The Stadium and Triple Threat Series are both split into three groups of touring drivers. Monster Jam features many series and tours that compete throughout the year. All events fall under sanctions by the United States Hot Rod Association, which has promoted monster truck events dating back to the early 1980s. The events feature three forms of competition including freestyle, racing and two-wheel skills. The series tours all over the world with the majority of events being held in the United States and Canada.

Keeping the theme, Monster Jam would debut a new theme song for Monster Jam on the day the dates and schedule were announced, written and sung by Sydney Mack.Secure your Monster Jam tickets at TicketSmarter to see monster trucks like Grave Digger, Max-D and El Toro Loco create carnage on the track! Monster Jam has been a staple of motorsports in the United States since 1992.

With the theme, a special musical themed World Finals XXII logo would be created and used for promoting the event, designed by Torch Creative.

World Finals XXII will notably have a minor musical theme to it, to fit the tone of the event taking place in Nashville, TN, with the city being called "Music City".

On July 2nd, the day after all competitions are held, the 2023 Awards Show and the St.

This marks the first World Finals since World Finals XIV in 2013 where all competitions will take place on the same day.

It's also currently unknown what the stunt to be performed will be.

While not publicly stated, it is said that the stunt encore will very likely be dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Max-D.

It also marks the first time the World Finals were outside of Spring, being held in summer for the first time.

It also marks the third month change for the World Finals, now moving into July.

It also marks Monster Jam's second venue for World Finals since moving into a rotational schedule.

Nissan Stadium marks the third venue used for the Monster Jam World Finals.

This World Finals will see all four competitions take place on the same day and will feature an encore where a special stunt will be performed, most likely in honor of Max-D's 20th anniversary. It will be held at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, TN. Monster Jam World Finals XXII (Also written as Monster Jam World Finals 22) will be the 22nd Monster Jam World Finals, and will be held on July 1st, 2023.

#Monster truck jam

0 notes

tealquil · 6 years ago

Text

Jacksepticeye Series that I want to rewatch

Just leaving this list hear for my own reference, also in case anyone is new to @therealjacksepticeye ‘s channel or wanting to rewatch some old series and would like a list of some sort or suggestions.

Skate 3 The Wolf Among Us Akinator Aperture Tag Douchebag Games Little Big Planet 3 Scribblenauts Dumb Ways To Die Jackventure Jack’s Paradox Sims 4 Hunnie Pop I saw her standing there Valiant Hearts Deadpool Jack to the Future Grand Theft Auto 5 Agario The Escapists I am Bread Henry Stickman Series Mario Kart Franbow Turbo Dismount Geometry Dash Yandere Simulator Cleverbot Evie Undertale Papers, Please Ben & Ed Who's Your Daddy FaceRig TubeTycoon Super Mario Maker HunnieCam Studio Slither.io Surgeon Simulator Goat Simulator Game Dev Tycoon Farming Simulator Riddle School Youtubers Life Job Simulator Pokemon Go Spyro 3 Plague Inc: Evolved This is the police Higher or Lower Rocket League Tuber Sim Manual Samuel Social Interaction Trainer Happy Wheels Destroy All Humans Planet Coaster Cluster Truck Hitman Super Hot The Last Guardian Garry's Mod Party Hard Surgeon Simulator VR Portal 2 Co-op Don’t Starve Together Challenges Totally Accurate Battle Simulator Happy Room Peace Death Ben and Edd Pool Party Mario Kart 8 Rick and Morty VR Night in the Woods Emily is Away Emily is Away 2 Oh… Sir! The Battle Simulator Kindergarten Bio Inc. Redemption Drawing Your Tweets Crash Bandicoot Warped Passpartout Dream Daddy The Escapists 2 Beast Battle Simulator Multiplayer Collabs Drum Videos Try not to laugh/cringe Guessing phrases in other languages Playerunknown's Battlegrounds Duck Life Slime Rancher Opening Your Gifts Overwatch South Park The Fractured Butthole Doki Doki Literature Club Bloopers & Outtakes Cuphead Superhot Mind Control The Impossible Quiz A Day with Jack Vlogs Prop Hunt 2018 Vlogs Would You Rather Trollface Quests Best of Jacksepticeye Tour Vlogs (Plus Bonus Video) The Boss Batman: The Telltale series Surgery Games Reading Your Comments Jacksepticeye Power Hour Detroit Become Human Fortnite Jacksepticeye’s Funniest Home Videos Akinator Animated Videos VR Games Snipperclips Saint Patrick's Day Jackbox games Lego Harry Potter Roast Videos Papers, Please: From Ivan Cluedo Uno How Dirty Is Your Mind Pumpkin Carving Videos Spiderman 2 Colour Blind Test Jack meets Ryan Reynolds Check Please Monster Prom How Irish DNA Test things (Can’t remember what the videos were called) Cooldog teaches typing Once Upon A Coma Pinstripe Training to be a stuntman Cooking Mamma Heartbound Watching Over You (Overwatch Live Stream) SepticArt Monster Inside

#jacksepticeye #therealjacksepticeye #list #series #youtube #youtuber #jacksepitceye series #septicegos #this is a long list

12 notes · View notes

thorne93 · 7 years ago

Text

Custody Battle (Part 6)

Prompt: You had a son with your first husband, Keanu, but he’s being raised by your new husband, Tom. The two men cannot stand each other, and every time Keanu shows up unannounced to see the kid, he and Tom always end up arguing.

Word Count: 2402

Warnings: divorce, anger, fighting, language

Notes: this took me so long to write….But thanks to my beta @like-a-bag-of-potatoes I got it done

Forever Tags: @capsmuscles @cocosierra94 @essie1876 @magpiegirl80 @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @iamwarrenspeace @marvel-imagines-yes-please @superwholocked527 @missinstantgratification @thejemersoninferno @rda1989 @munlis @thefridgeismybestie @bubblyanarocks3 @random-fluffy-pink-unicorn @hardcollectionworldtrash @igiveupicantthinkofausername@kaliforniacoastalteens @feelmyroarrrr @kaeling @friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo

Tom Hiddleston: @camigt1999 @lenawiinchester

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Keanu and Tom had stuck to the deal you’d created. They attended their events and you had explained to Jaxton that everyone wanted to dedicate all their time and attention they could to the events that he had going on, but not everyone could be at every event. He said he was okay with it as long as someone was there for him, and so far, they had been. You’d made every game for soccer, and you left Keanu and Jaxton to the boy scout meetings, letting the men bond.

But now, of course, another thing had occurred for Jaxton. A birthday party. Not for him, but for a child in his class. He had brought home the silly looking invitation one day after school. So now, you had to take a night and go shopping with Jaxton to try and find a gift. As if you needed any more shit to do. Work was hectic as the year was coming to a close and the summer clothes were already in demand and you only had half your line sketched out. Not to mention running to all of his games, making sure dinner was on every night, keeping the house clean, and then getting him in bed every night.

“Alright, bud, what does this Carter kid like?” you asked as you pushed the cart and he sat in the big part of it, eyeing all the toys. “Does he like Hot Wheels, GI Joe, Monster trucks…?” you asked, listing off things as you saw them.

“I don’t really know,” he answered with a shrug.

“Oh, come on now, surely you noticed or heard him say something. Maybe his backpack has someone on it? Or maybe he was watching a movie he liked and said something to you?” you urged, praying you didn’t have to just pick up something generic.

“Mmmm,” he thought, twisting his little pink mouth to the side, looking adorable. “Oh, he likes Thor!” he suddenly said as he pointed to a Thor action figure. You wanted to laugh, but you resisted.

“Oh yeah?” you murmured as you pulled the figure off the wall. It was about $40, which was steep for a child’s toy, but you and Tom could spare some money for him. Heaven forbid you didn’t get a nice gift then all the other parents berate you for being rich and not sparing a dime on their kid. You rolled your eyes at the very thought.

Eyeing it, you had an idea for the toy, dropping it in the car.

Next was the birthday boy wrapping and birthday card. So the two of you ventured there, then picked up pizza on the way home, since you wouldn’t have time to make dinner.

--------------------------

The party day had arrived and you were ready to take Jaxton and the gift to the party. Tom would be working about sixteen hours today and Keanu was on a press tour for one of his movies.

“Jaxton! Come on, baby!” you called up the stairs as you checked your phone for the time, gathering your purse, the gift, the card, and everything else you needed to get him to this party.

A minute later, you heard his little legs coming down the stairs.

“Ready, bud?” you asked sweetly and he nodded. “Okay, let’s go,” you said with a smile as you led him outside, locked the door, and then got in the SUV and drove about twenty minutes to the boy’s home.

Jaxton got out, offering to take the present, you handed it to him, and took your purse and the card, going to the door and ringing the doorbell. A blonde woman, probably the Carter’s mother, answered.

“Hey!” she greeted, smiling brightly at you two.

“Hi! I hope we aren’t too late!” you said, realizing you were about five minutes late.

“No not at all. I’m Rebecca,” she said, leaning forward and shaking your hand.

“Y/N,” you responded. “And this here is Jaxton,” you said, putting your hand on his head as he smiled up at her.

“So nice to meet you. Well come on in! Jaxton, you can put that present over here with the others,” she instructed.

He followed her to the table and you handed him the card to stick with the gift. Meanwhile, you looked around at all of the balloons, decorations, the cake over on the counter. It was any kid’s dream birthday party.

“Everyone is out back in the bouncy house if you’d like to join them,” she said, leaning down to be closer to eye level with your son. He nodded and ran off.

You laughed and smiled as his dark curls bounced around his cherub, pale face, and you saw him join about ten other kids in a bouncy house.

“So, Y/N, what do you do?” Rebecca asked as a mom came from the backyard, leaving another woman out there.

“Oh, I design clothes,” you said simply.

The other woman slid up beside Rebecca, eyeing your knee length red dress, shiny pump heels, handbag, and accessories. You looked like you’d just stepped off a fashion magazine photoshoot.

“And...is this your design?” the new woman, a dark brunette with olive skin asked, a slight distaste in her tone and expression.

“Actually, yes, it is. I try to wear my designs as often as possible. To be a bit of a billboard,” you said, laughing but they didn’t return the gesture.

“I’m Lori, by the way,” the brunette suddenly said.

“Y/N,” you introduced, shaking her hand.

“So, Y/N, are you one of those designers that overprices her clothing so high normal, middle class people can’t wear them?” Lori inquired with a challenging eyebrow quirk.

You shook your head slightly, pursing your lips. “I don’t believe so.”

“How much is that dress?”

“About $95, but some of my dresses go as low as $35 and up to $1000... I try to market business savvy, professional women who want a fresh look. I don’t want women to feel like as soon as they hit thirty they have to suddenly settle for drab colors and patterns, but I don’t want them to feel like they’re dressing out of their age. I try to make it so that a realtor, an accountant, a marketing advisor...any professional woman can feel youthful and vibrant.”

“Do you always remember your mission statement?” Rebecca asked, incredulous.

“Well...it is my mission statement,” you reminded, getting a very jealous and hateful vibe from these women.

“Right,” Rebecca noted as she eyed you up and down. “Well, you’re welcome to stay or if you have things to attend to…” she said, sneering at you.

Typically, you would’ve left Jaxton to have fun, but these women were being vicious to you, what would they do to your child if you left him alone? Would they single him out too? Would they cast judgement?

“No, I think I’ll stay…” you said.

They nodded, looking at you as if you were a walking parasite.

“So, Lori, what do you do?” you asked.

“I’m a domestic engineer.”

“So...a stay at home mom?” you clarified.

She nodded, as if she were a CEO. “Mhm.”

The three of you continued to talk as you learned their occupations and their kids’ ‘names. Then you set out to help the kids, play with them, get drinks for them. The pizza was delivered and all the kids horded around the food as if they’d never seen food before. You helped get pizza’s on plates and get the kids the slices they wanted. After that, it was cake and ice cream time. They got Carter a Thor cake and you smiled, knowing he would absolutely flip over the gift you and Jaxton had picked out. Rebecca cut the cake, and Lori scooped the ice cream.

“Can I help?” you asked as you walked over to Lori.

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t want you to dirty up that pretty dress of yours,” she remarked.

You frowned slightly. “I’m sorry. Did I do something to offend you or did we get off on the wrong foot or…?”

She put her hands on the counter as she looked at you. “We don’t like rich women in the area pretending they’re better than us. Just because you’re some hot shot designer and married two actors doesn’t make you some superstar, okay?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was making anyone feel bad,” you offered.

“My kid wants to know why he doesn't have brand new shoes like Jaxton, or why his coat isn’t as nice as Jaxton or why he doesn’t have all the newest and greatest comic book stuff. So you and your son know you’re shoving your money in everyone’s faces,” she retorted.

“I would never do that,” you evenly said. “I’m sorry you feel that way but my son nor I would ever make anyone feel bad about money.”

“Save it, okay?” she said, exhaustion in her voice as she carried over the ice cream plates.

You frowned, not understanding why they held a resentment towards you or your son. You sighed and just let it go and rejoined the festivities, texting Tom.

“Do you think I flaunt our money?” you texted.

“What? No? Why?”

“This mom here....well, she said I pretend I’m better than everyone,” you said, chewing your lip.

“You don’t, darling. You’re classy and you like finer things. But I’ve never seen you rub it in anyone’s face…”

“Thanks,” you said.

“Sounds like a fun party, hehe.”

You smiled at his response, loving the fact that he could always make you smile, even when you were feeling mad or upset.

“Oh, it is, lol. Jaxton seems to be having a good time.”

“Well, that’s all that matters, right? : )”

“Right,” you agreed.

You put your phone away in your handbag and the eating finished and Rebecca announced that it was time to open gifts and all of the kids cheered and squealed. The presents were getting opened and you realized a lot of the gifts were way under the budget you’d spent. The most expensive gift you’d seen so far was about $20 and it was for a monster truck you’d remembered seeing at the store.

They got to yours and Jaxton’s gift and Carter tore off the paper excitedly, seeing a Thor action figure.

“Oh my gosh! Wow!” he exclaimed, clearly excited as he gripped it. “Thank you!” he said.

“Thor signed it!” Jaxton said suddenly, pointing at it.

Rebecca, Lori, and Charlene, the other mom, snapped their eyes to you then back to the gift.

“Mhm, Thor signed it,” you confirmed. “Flip it over,” you instructed and Carter did. On the back, in big black Sharpie, you had Chris sign it. He signed it as Thor and as himself. It said “To Carter, from the Mighty Thor.”

“You had Chris Hemsworth sign a Thor action figure?” Lori asked, clearly put out with you.

You shrugged. “Well, yeah, he’s a good friend of ours, especially Tom’s. We just called him and--”

“And how much did this set you back?” Rebecca demanded. “This is the collector’s edition. It’s about fifty bucks,” she remarked, looking t the other women, shock and disdain on her face. “But adding that signature makes it over $100.”

“I’m sorry, I don't understand the problem. I got your son a wonderful gift,” you said, confused, gesturing to the box still in his hands.

“There was a $20 cap,” Charlene informed, her voice condescending.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” you said, apologetic. You weren’t trying to show anyone up, but you were new to the whole birthday thing. You didn’t want to show up with a cheap gift and everyone accusing you of being a tightass.

“Well maybe if you spent more time being a mother, and spent time with your son, you would know,” Lori snapped.

Your eyes went wide at her attack. Was she really attacking you for being a working mother? For supporting your child? For supporting your family?

“Excuse me for wanting to get your child a thoughtful, priceless gift. I won’t make that mistake again with any of you.” You started yanking your things onto your arms. “Jaxton, baby, come on, we’re leaving. Clearly we aren’t welcome here.”

“No, you’re not,” Rebecca noted as Jaxton was out of his chair and walking over to you, his face fallen.

“I told you she’s a stuck up you-know-what,” Lori said quietly to the other two.

You gritted your teeth. “You know what? I’m not going to feel bad that I didn’t know about this stupid spending cap. Not all of us can lay round on our asses all day while our kids are at school. Some of us work to support our families, to make sure they have the very best. If you don’t like your kids feeling inadequate, don’t blame me or my son, get up off your ass and do something about it,” you snapped.

You took Jaxton’s hand and nearly ran out of the home, getting him in the car and belted in before driving home, muttering the entire time. A few times, you chanced a glance to Jaxton, who seemed sad. You assumed it was because you’d taken him from the party early.

“Bud, I’m real sorry about all of that,” you said, reaching over and patting his leg. “Those other mom’s were being real mean to me though and...Mommy lost her cool,” you said, sighing and running a hand through your hair.

“Now they’ll be even meaner to me,” he said so quietly, so under his breath you almost didn’t catch it.

You narrowed your eyes and stopped at a red light. “What did you say?” you inquired, your voice gentle but firm.

“The other kids...they...they’re gonna be mean to me now. More than ever,” he informed.

“The other kids are mean to you?” you asked before someone honked behind you, letting you know the light had turned green, but you’d been facing Jaxton and not paying attention. You jumped, waved a friendly wave in the mirror, and drove forward. “Honey, I want you to hold that thought, okay? We’ll talk when we get home.”

Your hands were kneading the steering wheel as your gut dropped. Your chest filled with dread. The idea of your son being bullied was...nauseating, enraging, and heartbreaking.

#custody battle #tom hiddleston fic #tom hiddleston x reader #tom hiddleston #keanu reeves fic #keanu reeves

59 notes · View notes

katesummervsthemultiverse · 7 years ago

Text

“Alternate dimensions,” Kate says. If she doesn’t sound impressed, it’s because she isn’t.

“An infinite number of ‘em,” the old woman – Margo - agrees, with a wicked grin. “Means they can’t ever kick you outta alla them.”

“And this has been a major concern in your life.”

Margo meets Kate’s eyes, gestures to herself.

“Yeah, I still don’t know who you are, so that’s effectively meaningless to me,” Kate says.

“ ‘s not much to know. Me and the band tour galaxies. When things get too hot we skip dimensions. I hadda leave one in a hurry, and now here we are.” She grins, holding her arms wide, and Kate narrows her eyes.

“No, I don’t buy it. You’ve been teasing me about being curious ever since you picked me up, you’re not really gonna pretend that this is all there is to it?”

“Kid, I said we skip dimensions. We tour galaxies. Your planet’s scientific community’s still trying to work out if there’s mold on Mars, am I right?”

“Okay, yeah, fine,” Kate admits. “That’s…pretty cool.”

Margo’s smile is almost bigger than her face.

“And now you’re part of it. You’re welcome,” she says. “Be one hell of a story to tell the grandkids, eh?”

“Yeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.” Kate tries not to grimace.

“Come on, you’re having fun,” Margo says, hitting Kate in the shoulder with the back of her hand. “Now get this bucket of bolts moving again before I blast your head off and take your car.”

“You wouldn’t,” Kate says, but she stomps down on the clutch and shifts into first anyway.

The Bug starts rolling again, slow at first but then picking up speed. Now that she’s not tearing through the forest with all the weight of momentum on her side, Kate notices that it’s not just her slow reflexes that made it hard to dodge the jumping trees – the ground itself seems to suck at the Bug’s wheels, making it sluggish and slow to respond.

“Why did you decide to take us here of all places if we’re trying to get away from someone?” she asks, and Margo scowls.

“Look, it was the closest parallel that wouldn’t have dropped us straight into the same place as another version of this car with other versions of you in it and fused all our molecules, instantly destroying that entire universe and possibly causing a ripple effect that would eventually collapse the entire infinite multiverse.” She kicks her feet back up on the dash. “That a good enough answer for you?”

“Okay, that sounds pretty bad,” Kate admits.

“No fuckin’ shit.” Margo tucks her hands behind her head, leaning back. “Plus, with any luck those harpies’ll get a false positive from one of those other parallels with you in it, and we can lose ‘em in the thick of it.”

They’re still going slowly enough that Kate feels like she can risk a glance over at Margo. “Who – what are they, anyway? And why are they after you?”

“You heard of the Kindly Ones?”

“From Greek mythology?” Kate asks, shifting down and stepping hard on the gas. The Bug lurches, jumps, the sucking softness of the ground dragging it back even as it strains to speed forward. “The Furies?”

“Yeah, maybe don’t call them that while they’re in earshot,” Margo says, with a glance back over her shoulder and out the rearview window.

“What? Wh- are they?” Kate tosses a frantic glance into the rearview mirror, sees nothing but leaping trees moving in seemingly random patterns. She knows just enough of classical mythology to know that if the Furies are what’s following them, then her initial impression that they’re something to be feared was probably not strong enough.

“Nah,” Margo says, dismissive, and laughs at the look on Kate’s face. “Chill, you’re the jumpiest fucker I’ve met this side of the Milky Way. We’re not bein’ chased by a buncha myths.”

“Then why would you bring them up,” Kate hisses. The sentence has no sibilants in it, but she manages.

“We’re bein’ chased by something way worse,” Margo says, conversationally. “The Greeks called ‘em the Kindly Ones. Shakespeare had Macbeth’s witches. And us -” She pauses, tilting her head sharp to one side to crack her neck. “You ever seen Mean Girls?”

Kate swerves around another tree, hangs a hard left to avoid driving straight off a cliff.

“You’re saying that you’ve been chased across multiple dimensions by the stereotypical nasty popular chicks from every teen dramedy from about 1995 to 2010,” she says. The words fall out of her mouth sounding exhausted, flat.

“Yup. Hang a right here,” Margo says. Kate glances over to give the woman an incredulous look, notices that she’s totally engrossed in fiddling with the silver cube.

“We’ll drive directly off that cliff if I do.”

“I know that,” Margo says. “Now, before we lose our window.”

“So now I’m driving off a cliff to avoid being caught by a two-dimensional bleach-blonde valley girl caricature who might…call me a whale? Insult my hair?” Kate snaps back. “Yeah, I kinda don’t fucking think so.”

“You were down to ram that Bimmer in front of us, no questions asked,” Margo says, and the words are crisp with annoyance.

“Yeah, see, a monster insurance payment is a little less intimidating than certain death or dismemberment on an alien planet!”

“Fuckin’ pussy,” Margo mutters, and then reaches out and grabs the wheel, giving it a hard yank to the right.

Kate’s heart stutters to a halt in her chest. She tries to wrench the wheel back, but Margo’s clawed hands and skinny arms have a grip that’s like steel and the car’s momentum in the sludgy ground makes it hard to turn. Kate gives the wheel another futile tug anyway, and is rewarded with a piercing look from Margo. She knows, somehow, to her bones, that the old woman would easily cut both her hands off just to make sure she didn’t alter their course off this cliff, and feel not the slightest shred of remorse.

The horizon races up to meet them. The Bug’s front wheels slip over the edge, the undercarriage grinding along the overhang until the back wheels slide free as well. For an instant, the bottom of Kate’s stomach plummets as a feeling of weightlessness overwhelms her –

- then there’s a flash, a sickening lurch, and the Bug thumps about a half-inch down onto an underpass and takes off like a rocket, the smooth, hard pavement under its wheels finally giving it traction. Kate’s jolted, but not hurt; more just startled and shaken and feeling like she’s drunk six or seven large coffees in a row.

“Now what did we learn?” Margo says, smug, from the passenger seat, and Kate brushes hair out of her eyes to get a better look at her, lounging against the seat like nothing had happened. “Trust me. I know what the fuck I’m doing.”

Kate opens her mouth to speak, can’t find anything to say. She shuts her mouth again, shakes her head, bangs the flat of her hand against the steering wheel. The horn beeps, once, startling both of them.

Kate takes the nearest exit, pulling off onto the shoulder once she’s sure she’s not going to get run down by trucks coming off the overpass. The Bug rolls to a halt, and she kills the engine, ignoring the pucker of annoyance in the middle of Margo’s forehead and her protest that she never told Kate to pull off.

Kate takes a deep breath, composing herself, and slowly trying to pry her clenched fingers off of the steering wheel. They don’t seem to want to move.

“You need to get out of my car,” she hears herself saying, without looking away from the windshield. There’s a chip in it she hadn’t noticed – unless it’s started raining.

“Excuse me?”

“Out. Of my car.” When Margo makes no immediate move towards the door, Kate pointedly clicks the ‘unlock’ button.

“Whoa, what brought this on?”

“You made me drive off a fucking cliff,” Kate says, still staring at the chip – unless it’s a raindrop. “I don’t know who the fuck you are. I don’t know why you decided to pick on me. I don’t really care. I am done with this bullshit, okay? I am done with – with leaping trees and alternate dimensions and mythical mean girls and resurrected extinct species and the whole fucking mess! I am a graduate paleobiology student, not some kind of – of fucking space wizard’s apprentice! My life is normal! And it’s hard enough as it is without all this – this - high-concept sci-fi bullshit!” She bangs her hand on the steering wheel again, and the horn gives another short, sharp, unnecessarily cheery beep.

“Whoa,” Margo says, holding up both hands, palms out, in Kate’s direction, like she’s expecting her to lash out. “Somebody’s grumpy.”

“Get out of my car,” Kate repeats.

“Fine.” Margo reaches out, tugging on the door handle. The door cracks open, letting in a breath of chilly air that swirls uncomfortably around Kate’s ankles. “Try to do a girl a favour, yeesh.”

“You have a very, very skewed definition of the word ‘favour’,” Kate says.

“Whatever. ‘s not like I had to bring you along, I coulda just taken your car. But I figured you’d get a kick outta seeing the world behind the curtain. Figured you were clever, and curious. Thought you thought for yourself.” Margo shoves the door the rest of the way open. “But I guess you’d rather just be normal.”

“Yeah, I actually don’t think of that as an insult. And you’re still in my car,” Kate snaps. Margo sticks out her tongue – which, Kate is unsurprised to see, has a barbell through it – and swings her legs out of the open door. She looks back over her shoulder to fire one last parting shot at Kate, who has almost completely succeeded in tuning her out.

“Fine. Looks like we’ve shaken ‘em anyway -”

She stops, the rest of her sentence dying on her tongue. Kate can instantly tell why. She hasn’t heard anything, hasn’t seen anything – hell, nothing at all has indicated that they’re not alone here on the side of the road. And yet.

The crawling feeling up her spine is familiar, the same sick shudder as the first time she’d gone to the pool and realized that other kids were laughing and whispering, looking in her direction, falling silent when she came near only to break into uncontrollable giggles when she passed. The same sinking sensation as when her friends had invited her to go shopping with them – at a store that only ran up to a size 6. The same crushing sense of being pinned in place as when she’d finally, finally cut off all her long hair and her mother had taken one look at her, feeling delighted and light and free, and asked sadly what she thought she had going for her now.

The same hot, tight feeling that talking with Marcia Ledbetter tonight had left her with.

It doesn’t come as any real surprise, then, when a perfectly-manicured hand, too flawlessly smooth and unblemished to be quite real, clamps down hard on Margo’s shoulder.

“Margie,” the eerily perfect blonde says, through teeth like a string of little white pearls, her ocean-coloured eyes flicking up in Kate’s direction for only the skin of a second before turning, dismissively, away. “Long time no see. Have you been staying out of trouble?”

She laughs at her own joke, and two more voices join in from behind Kate. Kate spins, to find the blonde’s redheaded and dark-haired counterparts smiling winningly and emptily at her as the redhead swings open the driver’s side door. Gentle but inexorable hands pull Kate out of the car, despite her resistance, like she’s nothing more than a recalcitrant cat.

“Where’d you pick up this stray, Margie?” the blonde asks, looking Kate over head to toe with the kind of laser focus that makes Kate suddenly and acutely aware of the way her hair has fallen out of anything remotely resembling a style, the way her dress is folded up at the hem and the spreading stains under her arms, Wanda’s makeup melting down her face.

Margo’s stare over the top of the Bug, as the blonde hauls her out of it, is cutting. “I didn’t ‘pick her up’. She ain’t mine. She wants nothin’ to do with me.”

“Well, we can’t always get what we want,” the blonde says, her voice dripping with mocking, insincere sympathy. “Now move it. The Argument’s waiting.”

...

The way the Mean Girls move between dimensions is different from Margo’s. Kate watches for any sign of a silvery box, or any other device that might be what’s moving them, but she doesn’t see anything that looks like it. It just seems like the blonde tosses her hair, and they’re somewhere else.

‘Somewhere else’ is a little dimmer than the side of the road, the flaring flame-colours of the sunset giving way to a cool, eerie blue-green light that seems to be emanating from the pale stone of the ceiling that arches at least two storeys overhead. The Mean Girls hustle Kate and Margo along the hall before Kate has a chance to really take the place in, the blonde leading as the brunette and the redhead bring up the rear, pinning Kate and Margo between them.

“What is this place?” Kate asks, watching the pillars pass by overhead. Art Deco, she figures, mixed with a little Vernean futurism. The softly-glowing stone looks almost translucent, like the verdigris-coloured light is gently beaming through it from somewhere behind. The bronze detailing around the pillars is a nice touch.

Nobody answers her question, but the brunette takes the time to give Kate a look like Kate’s just asked if she can go out with the most popular boy in school, and make a disgusted clicking noise at the back of her throat.

“The whole Argument, huh?” Margo’s saying, and Kate turns her attention back to the building they’ve found themselves in. The stone under their feet rings with each step, the high, empty space echoing with the sound. “Wow, this’s gotta be some kinda big deal, to drag ‘em all out here in between Ladies’ Nights Out.”

She doesn’t get any more response than Kate did, but she doesn’t stop talking, her flat, sarcastic slur filling up the echoing silence. “So what’m I gettin’ hauled into the principal’s office for today? Not the Belthazar smuggling job, that one was over more’n five galactic cycles ago and helped get badly-needed ammonia to the Venusians, it was practically a humanitarian mission. Maybe that prince on Caramis? I already told the police I had nothing to do with that, it was a total coincidence we were both in the same ixval den that night -”

“Nobody cares, Margie,” the redhead says, rolling her eyes. Margo bristles like a hedgehog.

“Margo. Margo Brown. Get it right.”

“Whatever, Margie,” the brunette says, and she and the redhead both titter behind their hands. Kate just barely manages to resist rolling her own eyes.

“Sure, okay, Jessica,” Margo says, short. “You know, your eyebrows are looking a little asymmetrical there.”

The brunette’s eyes flick up, nearly crossing as her brow creases in worry and she raises both hands to her temples. Then she seems to realise what she’s doing, and the worry turns into a glare that she turns on Margo like a laser beam.

“At least I have two separate eyebrows,” she says, in a way that Kate can only describe as ‘snottily’. “What was your mother again? A sasquatch?”

The redhead snickers.

Margo half-shrugs one shoulder. Her expression is blank, unperturbed.

“Girls,” the blonde says, warningly, and both the redhead and the brunette toss their hair and turn back to face her back, though not before the brunette throws a vicious glare in Margo’s direction.

The massive hallway eventually ends, leading into a lower-ceilinged corridor lined with ornate doors. Every one of them looks different, some plain metal doors, some fake-woodgrain with fake-brass plaques and names inscribed on them, some real solid wood with real brass plaques, some elaborately carved and dark as though they’ve been sunk in a bog for ten thousand years, some with intricately wrought iron screens, one or two sliding glass doors, and one revolving door that swishes automatically into motion when Kate, Margo, and the Mean Girls pass by. None of them look at all aesthetically consistent with the corridor, its eerie underwater light and carved embellishments, or the tangle of coppery pipes and cranks and gears that coil, like a nest of snakes, along the ceiling overhead. It doesn’t take Kate long to realise that one pipe connects to the top of every door.

As they pass by a door with an arched stained-glass window overtop, a flat black stripe on the pipe leading down into its trim suddenly lights up, a vivid Mediterranean blue-green. The blonde steers their little convoy to the left, away from the door, as it swings open and a woman steps through. Her blonde beehive is perfectly coiffed, her cat’s-eye glasses bright red and bejewelled, and it takes Kate a moment to look past the superficialities and realise her face is familiar.

“Was that -” Kate starts to ask, as the woman turns and starts to stride down the corridor towards the massive hall they’d first arrived in.

“Me,” Margo interrupts, sounding bored. “One of these dimensions’ version of me, anyway. Off-brand me.” She sounds proud of the joke, so Kate doesn’t laugh.

“I thought having two of a person in the same dimension would cause your molecules to fuse and the whole multiverse to collapse in on itself.”

“Where’d you get that dumbass idea? I said if you did a jump and landed in the same place as yourself, everything would explode, not if you shared a dimension with another you. Hell, that’d really put a crimp in my style.”

Kate chooses to ignore this.

“Where are we, anyway?” she asks, looking back down the corridor of doors behind them to see if she can catch any others about to open.

Margo doesn’t sound at all impressed – in fact, she sounds downright pissed off. “Peggy’s place.”

“It’s Margaret, actually.”

Kate spins.

The woman standing at the end of the corridor of doors, leaning against the railing of a little balcony, is instantly unmistakable. From the top of her short, stylish silver hairdo to the tips of her sensible low-heeled leather pumps, she looks – well, Kate’s first thought is that she looks like a banker. Prim and proper, attractive in a way that doesn’t call undue attention to her, professional and businesslike. Put-together.

And yet, even with her carefully-plucked brows and silver-screen-perfect makeup, the faces are identical. And there’s something in the jut of her hip and the cross of her arms, the slight hint of frown drawing her silvery brows together, the angle of her upper lip and the cold intelligence in her strangely pale eyes –

“Margaret Brown,” she says, her gaze settling for a moment on Kate, who can’t help but feel she’s being laser x-rayed by it, before turning to Margo. “I know how much you hate being called by the wrong nickname, Margie. I’d thank you to extend me the same courtesy.”

#excerpt #origfic #kate summer versus the multiverse

32 notes · View notes