Here's a little snipped from Chapter 4-5ish. Enjoy!
“So you’re telling me that you have never heard a fart joke?” I asked Steve.
“Passing gas in public is forbidden,” he unemotionally responded.
“Well, sure, it’s frowned upon back at home, like urinating on park benches, but you know, we do it anyway, and no one guns us down. What happens when someone laughs?”
His face turned white. “They are taken to the Ironic Punishment Division in FreedomCorp’s Ministry of Sin and Punishment tower. No one ever returns from there.”
“A corporation runs the state here?”
“Can we talk about this elsewhere? I feel…uncomfortable talking about this in public. FreedomCorp is always watching.” To emphasize that point, he motioned to three cameras about fifteen feet up each wall to either side of us, barely visible on the beige walls that surrounded the alley we were in. As I looked around, I also caught two more on the floating bridge above us, and mini zeppelins navigating the narrow alleys with cameras and mic booms hanging down from their rafters.
“Man, these guys have more cameras than Big Brother.”
At the mention of Big Brother, Steve’s face turned even more perilous. “Please, no more talking, and follow me.”
Shrugging, I did as I was told. We walked down the alley a bit, into what appeared to be a crossroads of sort. As we turned the corner, the scope of what Steve was up against came into full vision.
“Mother of Mercy,” I gasped as I looked up. And up. And up.
FreedomCorp’s main complex hovered a few blocks away, but it was big enough to block out the sun – from horizon to horizon. The complex had thirteen major superstructures, surrounded by numerous other buildings below. The superstructures were easily over two hundred stories, jutting up from the center of the city like a big middle finger to ward off anyone who even thought of going against the corporation. Every building was made of see-through clear glass.
“There must be hundreds of buildings in their main complex,” I murmured, looking up at the ominous structures. Steve nodded.
“There are the ten ministry buildings, the Justice building, Parliament, the Office of Compliance, and hundreds of others as well. The people who work for the corporation live in the complex.”
“What are the ministries?”
“Well, I already mentioned the Ministry of Sin and Punishment. There’s the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Freedom, the Ministry of Foreign Entanglements, the Ministry of Meat and Grain, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Creationism and God, and finally, the Ministry of Secrets.”
“So it’s one big bureaucracy? Man, what happened here? We are still in the United States, aren’t we?”
“Shh,” Steve hissed, shooting me an alarmed glare. “You are going to get us killed. At least whisper.”
“Sorry,” I sheepishly mouthed as we continued to walk. “So, we must be in the United States, but where?”
“I found a history book from an era called the 1950’s. I believe you would call this land ‘Texas.’”
I nodded. “Well, that makes perfect sense then,” I whispered. “Where are we going?”
“Please, just be quiet for a few more minutes. We are almost there.” We walked along a concrete walkway next to another beige building. Since I couldn’t ask questions as I walked, I placed my Datapad on full record, recording everything on my arm as we walked by. I can delve into the world a bit later, I thought to myself as Steve sped up his walk.
After a few minutes of walking (and only seeing one other person, a woman dressed in the 1940’s/1950’s style poodle dress and beehive hair for some reason), Steve took a good look around to make sure there weren’t any cameras around, and then lightly tapped his foot on a slab of cement in an irregular beat. The cement slab next to where he was standing groaned and opened up to a hole. He motioned for me to follow. We came down a few steps, and then we walked down a long, dimly lit tunnel. I am not sure how long the tunnel was, but my Datapad said it was 10 minutes. Being a tad claustrophobic, it felt like 12 hours.
Eventually, we came across a door, one of the ones you see in the old mobster movies. You know the ones; dingy, rusty, with an ancient lock, and a slat for seeing who is outside the door. Steve knocked twice, then three times rapidly. The slat slammed open to reveal a set of brown eyes.
“Password?” brown eyes grumbled.
“A priest, an airline pilot, and a banker walk into a bar,” Steve proudly said. Brown eyes glinted in approval, until he looked over at me.
“Who’s the new guy?” brown eyes asked Steve. “He your brother or something? You look a lot a like.”
“Sort of,” Steve responded, “but I’ll vouch for him. His name is Vinnie.”
“Does he know any good jokes?” Brown Eyes queried.
“Do I know jokes?” I laughed. This startled Brown eyes and Steve.
“Keep it down, dammit! Get your butt in here.” Brown Eyes slammed the slat shut and unlocked the heavy door, allowing entrance into the inside.
At that point, I didn’t know what to expect. The first thought in my head was that Steve was taking me to a headquarters for a resistance against FreedomCorp. I expected to see walls slathered with maps and architectural designs. I wanted to see people with weapons, soldiers ready to do battle against the oppressive regime. I was hoping to see hordes of people reading intelligence and communication reports to gain weak spots in FreedomCorp’s systems.
What I didn’t expect was an auditorium of sorts, with a small stage. The stage had a brick background, with a piano and one mic stand in the foreground. Surrounding the stage were circular tables with two or three chairs. On each table was one of those ugly red candleholders you see at every Pizza Hut. At the back of the room were other doorways similar to the one we came through. In between some of the doors, a young kid with his hair greased back handed out bottles of water. There must have been ten or fifteen people there, all dressed in the similar style of the woman I saw outside on the street.
What the Hell is this place? I thought to myself. The brick stage and the mic stand finally brought clarity to my confusion.
“You’re joking, right? A god-damned comedy club?”
“We don’t joke,” Steve flatlined. “And yes, this is a comedy club. We try and come up with something funny, as every book that had ever made anyone laugh or chuckle was burned. You have to understand what it is like, to never laugh. We had to have someone steal a dictionary that existed before FreedomCorp came around just so we know what laughter even means. We come here to try and bring some joy to this joyless world.”
“Jesus, if it’s jokes you want, I have plenty of those. But why aren’t you building a resistance to the clearly evil corporation?”
“We don’t want to die,” Brown eyes responded. “We would rather live than risk dying for something we can’t understand anyways. Where are you from, Vinnie? You aren’t from around here, are you?”
“No, I’m not, but that’s beside the point. What the Hell does that even mean?” I angrily responded. “Back home, we would all die to protect the freedoms we inherited from our forefathers.”
“You don’t understand,” Steve said, crestfallen. “We only know what FreedomCorp has given us. We don’t know any better.”
Again, clarity struck me across the face. “Earlier, you gave me a warning glance when I mentioned Big Brother. You know what that reference means, right?”
“No. We only know not to mention it out loud.”
“My God. You poor bastards have never known any better than what they gave you, but you must have an itch to scratch if you started this comedy club.”
“Small steps,” Brown Eyes slightly grinned. “You have to start somewhere. Seriously, where did you come from?”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, ignoring Brown eye’s query, “I just… it’s hard for me to understand how this could all happen. But that conversation can happen a bit later. Who wants to hear some jokes?”
“You can be up after Bryan,” Steve replied, leading me to a table. “Want a drink?”
“Do you have anything other than water?”
“No.”
“Water, then.” Steve snapped his fingers, and the teenage greaser brought two bottles of water over.
“So what kind of jokes do you normally do here?”
“Well, whatever we can. Right now, we are trying insult comedy. Bryan is our lead insult comedy writer. Here he comes now!” We all stood up, lightly clapping as Bryan took the stage.
Bryan was a tall drink of water. He was wearing a light gray suit, with slicked back hair and shiny black shoes. As he walked out on stage and we took our seats, I immediately knew something was off.
Comedians tend to have a way with how they walk up to the mic. It can range from self-deprecating to prideful arrogance, but all comedians know that their movements mean as much as what comes out of their mouth.
Bryan nervously walked up to the mic, shuffling his feet with anxious abandon. He was as nervous as a black man at a KKK meeting. The problem with such anxious behavior is it doesn’t breed smiles or laughs, and I knew right then this wasn’t going to be funny. Sweat slid down his face and into his blue eyes as he cleared his throat and spoke with a slightly baritone voice.
“Hello everyone,” he mumbled. “How about that walk in here, huh?”
No one laughed. I grimaced.
“So, um, I see some people in the audience. Can I call you fat?”
No one laughed. I groaned heavily.
“Cause I can tell a good joke if I can call you fat.” A couple more seconds of silence. “Okay, what about ugly people? Any ugly people I can make fun of?”
The poor bastard was completely lost. He didn’t even know how to form a joke, much less deliver it. It was like watching him try and swim upstream, in a river filled with mutant eels and sharks with laser beams on their heads, and he couldn’t swim in the first place.
I felt bad for Bryan, so I raised my hand.
“I’m ugly. You can make fun of me.”
Bryan looked relieved. “Okay sir, what’s your name?”
“My name is Vinnie.”
“Okay Vinnie, do you know why you are ugly?”
“…No, you’re supposed to tell me why I’m ugly. I don’t tell you.”
“Oh! Oh my…umm…your forehead is huge, and your nostrils flare up when you say the letter ‘O’.” Steve chuckled.
“That’s not funny,” I whispered. “Can I help you out Bryan?” I asked him as I walked towards the stage.
Again, a relieved look from Bryan. “Sure.”
I grabbed the mic from his hand. “Okay, so we’ll start by making fun of my forehead. As you had mentioned, it is quite big. Did you know, it is so big that when bugs crawl up on me at night, they consider the race across my forehead to be a marathon?” Some chuckles from the audience. “And my nostrils flaring up? When I was a kid I used to snort whole chickens up there with ease!” More laughter.
“But seriously folks, I’m so ugly that my mom used to wash my clothes on the “hideous” cycle. I was such an ugly kid, that my dad wanted to sell me to science as an experiment, and they wouldn’t take me because they weren’t sure I was human. I’m so ugly, the last date I had, I had to have a bag over my head so she wouldn’t gag in horror when I went to shake her hand.”
Loud laughter now.
“But enough about me, let’s talk about Steve’s mom…”
