The Lizards -Installment 2-

-Have you read installment 1? If not, this won't make much sense to you.-

“Look at you, waking up before noon barely hung over, what a rock star. That bitch with her stupid, crazy-attractive face doesn’t know what she’s talking about; you’re awesome,” Amylace,a twenty-two year old lizard with a brain like a quantum computer, assured herself into a reflective sheet of metal screwed into the wall in her bathroom. She, after a second, flashed the careful smile of a person who doesn’t want other people to know she smiles.

Amylace had woken up that morning with a stabbing pain in her lower back. She was irritated by this, but really it's hard to know what she expected sleeping on a piece of cardboard on the floor. That's what you get for being poor, as well as lots of other things. For example, cavities and a flat stomach. It's a trade off.

The young woman exited the bathroom and swept the cell-like "apartment" interior with her eyes. Nothing was missing that morning, which was always a plus. The place was shaped like a hexagon, with the bathroom in one corner, a useless fridge and stove--useless because they hadn't had electricity for months--in another, and their cardboard yoga-mats/beds/food-when-things-get-tight in a third corner. Architects in the future/present/past have finally acknowledged the usefulness of corners in their building plans, hence the hexagon, and everyone has benefited for it, well, almost everyone. If you could see me I'd be looking into the distance, meaningfully.

When Grover, Amylace's despondent roommate, finally groaned awake, it was almost three in the afternoon. In his defense, he'd had a lot to drink the night before. The young man, slightly older than his roommate, wobbled into a standing position and rubbed his eyes.

"Aw, my princess is awake. How did you sleep, Gorgeous?"

Grover found the strength somewhere inside himself to glare at her, but it was unimpressive, and Amylace decided not to reward him with her trademark indignance. Instead she went back to scribbling mathy strings of consciousness on the wall with a rusty piece of iron pipe. Grover went to sit on the floor at their table made from a huge, industrial tire covered on the top with cardboard. What do you know? Another of the nearly-infinite uses for cardboard.

"Do we have food?" Grover grunted, sleep in his voice. Amylace hardly acknowledged him.

"No."

"Beer?"

"Nope."

"Anything? Do we have anything?"

"The rainwater bucket is half full. You could trade that for something, a cigarette maybe."

"Amylace, that rainwater is poison. I drank some yesterday, and it gave me hallucinations."

Amylace stopped scribbling for a second, tossing a thoughtful look over her shoulder. Grover didn't notice. He was busy pouting.

"Drug-hallucinations? Could you tell people it's a new-age drug?"

Grover wrinkled his face and unwrinkled it. He wasn't an especially motivated person.

"No, more like fever-hallucinations, not addictive either. People are more into inhaling their drugs lately anyway."

Amylace shrugged and went back to scribbling.

"Alright, that's fine, but you'd better get your ass in gear networking through the complex. There's a whole community out there we're not capitalizing on. Why don't you go talk to that guy who trades squirrel meat for hooch? We can ferment our nasty acid-rain water and get some food."

Grover moaned and stood up, throwing his head back like his roommate had asked him to go to her daughter's fundraiser.

"Why don't you ever go 'network'?"

"Because I'm busy being a genius and sustaining your pampered lifestyle, Grover. It's a full-time job."

"You're a terrible sugar daddy and a sub-par genius, Amylace," Grover informed her flatly. She could hear how he knew he was inferior in his voice. The tone might've been imagined, but regardless of his awareness or lack there of, Grover was inferior. If Amylace was sure of anything, she was sure of that.

The young woman, despite all that, ground her teeth like any manically egotistical pride-monster would, and Xenu knows Amylace is the definition of a manically egotistical pride-monster. After a few seconds she pointed at a letter sitting open under the mail-hole next to their door.

“You can do it later if you want," the young woman growled. "Someone invited us to a dinner party.”

You are cordially invited to a dinner party, the thing said. At my fancy mansion that I own because I am rich and attractive. Mostly because I’m rich, I guess; I’m an entrepreneur if you were wondering by the way. A car will be by to pick you up at seven o’clock should you choose to attend.

All sketchiness aside, neither of them had eaten anything for at least three days, might’ve been longer but they were so drunk all the time it was hard to remember, Grover and Amylace decided it’d be a good idea to jump on a free meal when they had a chance.

A few hours and one awkward public transit ride later, Amylace and Grover found themselves standing in a dirty garage under a lizard apartment complex, a different one from their own, with three other lizards. One was a tall, thin, gorgeous black woman, clearly a hooker, with neon-orange eyes like fire. She stood apart from the other two with her arms crossed over her chest.

The aforementioned other two were a strange pair. One, a man in his thirties, was dressed in a dirty tuxedo he'd undoubtedly found in a dumpster somewhere and was smiling a wide, unrelenting smile donned by serial killers and overly-enthusiastic, old, distant relatives everywhere.

His partner was much less human than the others in the room. She was clearly descended partially from a POE viper with her sharply curved spine; scaly skin with feathers sticking erratically out from her arms, neck, back, and scalp; wide, reptilian eyes; warped, clawed feet and hands; and her long face with sharp teeth like a dinosaur.

“Amylace! So happy you could come! Who’s your friend?” the tuxedo man cried, too excited, and Amylace took a startled step backward.

“This is Grover; he lives with me. He’s not a threat, or anything-”

“Oh of course not, just look at him.” Grover made a slightly offended face. “Nice to meet you Grover and Amylace, my name is Maurice. This beautiful creature,” Maurice gestured at the dinosaur girl, “is my good friend Zoey Owens, and that woman’s name is Monique Capone. She prefers Moe, and good Xenu do what she says. You do not want to make her angry.” Maurice chuckled ominously to himself. Amylace’s eyes were wide with fear-irritation, an emotion she’d practically invented.

“What,” she spat.

“That’s Moe, I’m Maurice, and this is Zoey,” Maurice reiterated.

“No. After that.”

“Oh, ha, ‘good Xenu do what she says. You don’t want to make her angry.’ Moe explodes when she gets upset; it’s a mutation in the Z Chromosome, the Viper Chromosome. Let’s sit, shall we? I have a business proposal I’d like to pitch to you three.”

The five of them went to sit at four chairs Maurice had set up for them. Grover sat on the ground, and he didn't really mind. Honestly, it sort of fit with the rest of his life up to that point. Sort of like, of course there weren't enough chairs for him.

"So, I've gathered you here today to propose to you the chance of a lifetime-"

Amylace cut the man off with a raised hand.

"Um, before this gets totally batshit insane," she began as though it wasn't already, "I have a few things I'd like to say."

"Of course, Amylace. I live to serve you."

Thoughts like "what the fuck," and "oh god he's going to kill us and wear our fingers for a necklace," came to mind while the girl hesitated to respond.

"Ok, first of all, where's the food? The only reason I'm here is because there was going to be food. Second, in what world is this a mansion you lying shit? Third, you're not actually that attractive, who are you kidding? Four, what's the deal with your friend, she's freaking me out. Did she just lick her own eyeball? Also, are you going to kill us and eat us, because I'm like three percent body fat, and frankly that's just a waste of your time."

Maurice shook his head without breaking his smile.

"There's no food Amylace, and no this is not a mansion. I included those things in my letter to be a glimpse into the future. I think our partnership, if we all choose to form one, will be very fruitful and will greatly benefit all parties involved.

"My physical appearance is a matter of opinion,

"Zoey, my friend, is descended from a POE viper created to resemble the ancient dinosaurs. Because of this she struggles with an in-and-out mental state, but don't underestimate her. She is an essential piece of our pentagon.

"And, no, I do not intend to kill you or eat you. I simply wish to propose an arrangement to you that you may find rather enticing. May I?"

Amylace thought for a few moments, and eventually she nodded. Maurice smiled wider somehow, like he was a lion in a territory dispute, and proposed to them his proposal.

"Alright, as lizards, we all know what it's like to be brutally oppressed, given the short end of the proverbial stick, and spat on. Until now, what have we done about it? Nothing. Because we were alone, but imagine what we could do together. If not actually make a substantial change or give hope to our fellow minorities, at least we could band together to make life as a lizard in Neo-America easier for each other. I say it's time for some social activism."

The four were quiet for a few moments.

"So," Grover interrupted the silence, who was mildly offended, "like charity work?"

Maurice shook his head.

"No. Charity work would only feed a corrupted system. If you chose to join me, we would exact revenge on the vipers and humans who oppress us, in small ways at first, but we'd grow as more lizards heard about us. Eventually, we'd be the largest vigilante operation in history."

While the idea was undeniably enticing, Moe, the combustible hooker Amylace reminded herself, was still skeptical.

“A ‘vigilante operation?’ You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. The OPVI kills lizards who forget to apologize for coughing near their vipers. Not to mention you picked a prostitute, a lesbian, a mutant, and some guy to help you fight the most powerful NGO since the Illuminati. This is bullshit, count me out, freak.”

Maurice nodded respectfully, but wouldn’t be shot down so easily.

“I’ve been watching you and Amylace, Moe. You two are special. Amylace built a self-aware robot with AI advanced enough to feel emotion; admittedly she repeatedly told it that she loved her dishwasher more, and eventually it became manically depressed and dropped itself into the bathtub, but the point is she did it. You, on the other hand, are a living ball of unstable lighter fluid. I’m an entrepreneur; Zoey is a terrifying mutant, and Grover can…um, whatever. What I’m trying to say is that we’re basically a textbook formula for a rag-tag band of superheroes. Come on, it’ll be fun-” He stopped when Moe lunged forward and literally roared at him. Grover used Amylace’s skinny body to shield himself from the disaster coming at them like a train.

“We’re not special,” Moe shouted in a coarse, throaty voice, and the sound was deafening. “We’re freaks. We’re nothing, Maurice. We’re fucking lizards.”

The woman crumpled into herself, and when she re-expanded a shockwave shot out from her body that shattered anything that would shatter in the underground storage unit and sent the other lizards flying backward onto the floor and against the walls. With an alarming ‘foop’ Moe burst into flame.

There was a good amount of chaos and screaming, and for some reason Zoey was laughing, before Moe calmed down enough stop, drop, and roll. After that, the lizards had to exit the building that was by that time very on fire.

They stood in a slightly-charred row, facing the inferno, in silence for a few moments.

“Now that,” Maurice grunted, “was impressive. So what do you guys say?”

Amylace and Grover were undeniably shaken, visibly so. Grover's limbs threatened to give out any second. With his liver and kidneys already on strike and his corrupt brain too busy taking bribes and dosing itself with heavy narcotics to care, the man's body was fragile as it was.

Amylace put her arm around her older roommate like her little brother and shook her head.

"No, Maurice, this has been hilarious and uncomfortable and terrifying and all, but we were born lizards. It's shitty, but that's just how it goes. I'd rather live out my pre-ordained miserable existence and die peacefully, unremembered, in a ditch somewhere than pretend I'm some noble social-rights activist for a few weeks and die, gored by an OPVI officer, unremembered, in a ditch somewhere," she explained, resolute but apologetic. Grover nodded and they broke from the row to begin the long walk home.

"Moe?" Maurice pled, desperation leaking into his cracked composure. Moe glared at him and left without a word.

Zoey looked at Maurice with cloudy confusion in her giant, avian eyes.

"Did it work, Maurice?"

Maurice frowned and shook his head. He took Zoey's clawed hand in his and guided her with him towards their home under a concrete, pig-iron mega-bridge.

"No, but don't worry, Zoey. They'll come around."

"What if they don't?" her voice was warbley like a bird's song.

"I'll make it work for us. Don't worry."

Zoey smiled and rested her head on the young man's shoulder.

"I'm not worried," she whispered with all the charming naivety of a child.

-to be continued...-