“That junk with J-on didn’t screw you up, right?”

I was up front with him, “I hardly ever think about it anymore.”

Axel nodded, turned on his swivel chair, and had some holographic screen projected in front of him. I was drowning in the silence of the conference room, the sterility of it gave me the creeps. The fact that he’d found a conference room for us to tool around in didn’t give me any comfort. It was like he’d already invaded.

He ignored me. I didn’t know what to say.

“Geeze, you're a lot less fun when you're not in that costume,” he said at last. I felt so stupid with that helmet on my head.

“I’ve got a different one now. I’ve changed a couple times; they keep getting destroyed so I have to remake it.”

Axel nodded. Silence again. He swiped. That stupid picture of me from Black-hole projected from the middle of the table.

“I haven’t made any big changes to the design.”

“Uh-huh.” He left it there.

I finally asked, “What have you been at?” I didn’t want to talk about myself anymore.

“Phew, let’s see. Gynomorphs, that took a lot of my time. I’ve been doing stuff with the Ints, but you know half of that already. Oh, there was something else... I’m sure I’ll remember, anyway, are we cool? Sometimes I have trouble catching the vibe.”

What did I say to that? “Yeah, I think so.”

“Cool cool cool, it’s just, you seem kinda bummed. Lemme guess, the Doctor? Holy shit, I shoulda told you about that, she was psychoanalysing me, pulling up shit with my ex. You know that Cleaner you're in contact with? My ex’s boyfriend. I think he’s kind of a weirdo.”

I wondered if Bob had flashed him too.

“Bob’s alright. I met Charlie in Babel.”

He looked up from himself, “For real? I knew you were over there, but... What was she up to? I mean, I can’t imagine her really coming out of her shell to you, no offence.”

“No, she seemed to be doing alright. She’s got a new contract with the Ints.”

He nodded. Moved past it quickly. “The Mountain girl moved, huh? Too bad, this shit hole’s gonna be super dull without a fuck buddy. Don’t suppose you could hook me up again?”

I clenched my teeth. “Nope. Sorry.”

He leaned back in his chair. Then jumped out of it, “Are you like, even the same guy? I know it's been a while, and I sorta showed up out of the blue with these suits in tow, but goddamn!”

I read some old posts of mine. God, I don’t even recognise myself. ‘Trauma’ is such a bad word. Yeah, at this point I suppose it fits, but I don’t like thinking of these events like that. It’s like one big thing every month and then me dealing with the in-between. Sometimes, I’m just licking my wounds, living day to day just waiting for the... the... okay, now I’m sounding like my old posts. Axel was talking about the me who’d make up songs on the spot about having a fat ass, who’d laugh off getting flashed by a thirty-year-old.

“Alright, listen Axel, I’m still a little out of it from my last fight.”

“What, the guy in Belfast? Wasn’t that months ago?”

“No, Mothman. You know, that’s when I admitted to murder.”

He remembered, or maybe acted like he did, “Yeah, yeah!”

Then he grew serious sitting on the edge of the table. He said nothing except, “Right.”

I was as annoyed as him. For some reason I could neither lie and say I wanted to work with him, nor could I tell the truth. In computer terms, I couldn’t put in one or zero, so I just couldn’t... compute. I don’t know computers.

“I don’t know what we’re doing.” I chose to be honest in the end.

“Right? I wanted to touch base first, but this is like talking to a guy you knew for one class in high school.”

I took a shot in the dark, “Did you see the latest MCU thing?”

“No. They really lost their focus past ‘infinity war’. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some good stuff every now and again, it just doesn’t feel necessary, unrelated. It’s like adding a bunch of new characters in the third half of a movie after killing the original cast.”

I shrugged, “I’d probably check it out, but I can’t afford Disney plus.”

“Damn, you’re that broke?”

“Well, I’ve seized a ton of drug money. But I can’t pay a subscription with that.”

“Uh-huh. So... are we gonna fight to the death or...”

I squinted my eyes and threw my arms up, “We just started talking!”

He wagged his finger, gave me a coy eyeing over his newly donned sunglasses, “Art of war: take not only your enemies by surprise but also your allies.”

“I don’t think that’s in there.”

He smiled. If he’d told me one of his powers was supernatural charisma, I’d have bought it. When I think about him, yeah, he’s a scummy billionaire who's responsible for seven super powered terrorists wreaking havoc on humanity. But he can control the mood.

“It’s just that, recently you’ve gained a bit of a track record. You haven’t been at this for a year and you’ve already claimed your turf. You man handled that group in Belfast and the Princess, while doing your super shtick on the side! Sorry if I’m, you know, intimidated.”

He’s trying to butter me up. Knowing that I was worth buttering up buttered me up on its own.

“I’m not happy about you being here, honestly. I watched the presentation, don’t know if I buy it. I’ll admit, it’d be nice if you delivered on all that stuff.”

He let out an exaggerated “Meh,” and then stood up again, swiping. “Listen, my corporation isn’t the greenest or most ethically sourced, but it’s not like we’re the real problem. You might have heard that the US produces way les gas then say China or Russia, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

He brought up a digital map of Ireland, hot spots decorating it like a Christmas tree. Kerry was worst of all. “Don’t ask me how because it’s not my field, but this tells us your country is turning into a ‘Weird Zone’. You know that means people are gonna start noticing your ‘activities’, but that’s not all. Typically, Zones follow a sort of theme. The cities have that whole ‘tomorrow land’ feel with the corporate skyline, there’s the black forest in Germany which is chalk full of fairies. Like, the fugly kind. What sort of place is this gonna be?”

I straightened myself, “A comic book.”

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Axel smirked condescendingly.

He swiped. A face I hadn’t seen in a long time showed on screen.

“Ints caught this one before Valentine's Day, guess it's a sort of fairy too.”

It was just the separately jarred body parts, fingers and feet and putty and eyes. “The Pooka.”

“I’m not calling it that. In fact, I’m not going to call it a fairy either. This ‘resident of the forest’ has been here for God knows how long doing God knows what in service to who knows what God!”

I wanted to tell him it was just an animal, but really, I’d never found out for certain what it was.

“This place becomes your weird zone, what does that mean? Maybe a couple of people will start popping up and calling themselves super heroes or villains, or maybe, after you’ve made it abundantly clear that this land is yours and yours alone, the universe is gonna start turning up potatoes for you laddie.”

I folded my arms. He took the hint. “Monsters, is what I’m saying. Mindless threats that you can shut down day after day without any moral dilemmas. You mentioned Mothman, didn’t you? After you beat it, this whole buzz started up again.”

I didn’t know if he was telling the truth. Sure, I don’t feel very persuaded, but if this was a fact? Then I’d be bringing a lot of trouble in for myself, Gurl, and everybody else in the ‘Weird Zone’.

“Right now, Ireland is an egg, like in a woman. It’s fertile, it’s waitin’ to make a baby. Which sperm’s gonna reach it first?”

“Don’t be gross.”

“I get where you’re coming from, you and I aren’t gonna see eye to eye. I’m brains, you’re brawn. And you know, maybe I shouldn’t be in charge of shaping the world.”

He crouched, assuming an American football position. “Here’s my pitch: instead of just you or me taking over, we merge.”

He swiped. A graphic depicting a two headed sperm cell came up on screen. I cringed, he nodded surely, tossed something at me. I instinctively flinched at it.

“You and me: pioneering this Zone together. We’ll locate the monsters, put ‘em down, and we’ll rebuild. Put on the shirt if you're on board.”

I looked at what he’d tossed me. “I’m not wearing a shirt with semen on it.”

“It has your name on the back.” I turned it around. It said Shamcock.

“I’m not fitting this over the helmet.”

He gave me a look, “You only get to keep it if you’re on board.”

“Axel-”

He smacked himself in the head. “Shit, I remembered the third thing I was doing recently! Sort of two things, but in my brain, I put it under ‘Ireland prep’. First off, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about a super ancient outergod’s temple by the coast, would you.”

All joking stopped. “What?”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to pinpoint its exact location for a while, sort of a big reason I’ve started coming over here. Eh, well I’m sure you’ll help me find it, if not, you might be able to hook me up with someone who can.”

He was talking about Gurl. Considering what he and Clover did, his use of the term ‘hook up’ made me doubly uncomfortable.

“Also, figured I’d save the bad news for last. This is kinda my fault but also yours. Well mostly yours. Do you remember when you came to my hotel room and met all my robots and one of them scooted on by you yelling ‘free’, ‘free’, and I told you it’d be fine so long as there weren’t any nuclear reactors nearby for it to feed off of?”

“Maybe?”

He glared at me seriously. “Welp, apparently, it's still operational. A guy hacked my systems awhile back, he’s got control of it.”

I frowned. “I want to say, ‘it’s the size of a toy train what’s there to worry about’, but...”

“Yeah, it got bigger.” He offered a hand, “Wanna go smash it together?” I looked at him, his hand.

I sighed.

.

.

.

Somehow it made it all the way to Navan. “SEXY TWENTY-FOUR YEAR OLDS IN LIMERICK WANT TO MEET YOU!”

I wasn’t really in the mood for any of this, my side still ached. Luckily, Cam was keeping it in the barren mountains. The Centi-train kept spouting nonsense and advised us to invest in something or other. It was comprised of scrap metal, how it managed to piece itself together like this I have no clue. It didn’t seem to be gravity tech, more like magnetism.

“Green, the original body is a cart segment up from you, get there and start digging.” Axel was in a nearby station, observing while I crawled across the behemoth. It was as wide as two trains beside and on top of each other, I couldn’t see the end of it currently, metal pincers were trying to keep me down. It wasn’t hard to fend them off, the real issue was keeping balance as this thing barrelled down this mountain.

Cam was engaging the head with his eye guns, occasionally battering it onto a better course with its grav-tail. The two robots couldn’t come too close however, both because of the Centi-train's integrative properties and the various viruses the hacker had uploaded to it.

I was getting closer and closer to the central worm, I could tell from how tightly packed the metal was, and the fact that this cart had a lot more fire power than the rest of the train. It had makeshift artillery cannons, which shot a couple dozen fat rounds before falling to pieces. For the most part, the caterpillar was a jagged mess of welded metal and refuse, the part of it that seemed to be of any real purposeful design were the electric pylons towering out from its body, electric arcs flying out to strike invading organisms.

I’ve been thinking about how I’d handle electricity since Babel, should I use SP2 to reverse the direction of the current or nullify it completely? I read some stuff on google to try and wrap my head around AC and DC and volts, but none of it made any sense to me. Luckily, I wasn’t the one drawing the attention of the lightning towers.

Cam, Axel’s building sized military grade bot had been fitted with sophisticated electrical equipment and a heat-resistant body. I don’t know the specifics of how it resisted the attacks, but his metal body acted as a conduit and diversion while I made my approach.

The whole thing made me feel like a flee. The giant caterpillar, giant chameleon, and the wide-open mountain range all served to make me feel tiny. I didn’t wholly believe Axel had told me about this rogue AI because of an obligation to clean up his mistake, this was to make a show of how useful an alliance would be.

A mouth opened in a segment between me and the last point, swallowing me by the legs. Cam took down a electrical tower with his machine guns, then landed above me. His body seemed to light up as an electric whine grew louder and louder. He tore at the metal teeth grabbing at me, slicing me free with his molten hands.

I could have gotten out on my own, but it was in the AI’s mission to save me. Unlike the rest of Axel’s creations, Cam didn’t speak, so I assumed he was personality-less.

“Green,” Axel said, “It was trying to draw you into its wires, you’d have gotten a nasty shock if Cam hadn’t blasted that tower.” I didn’t respond, there were clearly more important things than Axel’s alternative motive.

Cam backed off from the train, electrical arcs following him. I drove a fist into the slag metal, burning my hands for just a moment, before jumping low and straight.

There was a sound from the core, constant and buzzing. Like the general announcements the train made every now and again, the whispering consistently prattled on about hot milfs in my area, free sex, and penis enlargement machines. I don’t know how or why I listened out for the nonsense of this worm beneath, the constant metal chatter, the deafening scream of the thunder and lightning.

I stuck my hand in, and found the original worm, and remembered it. It was like a rotten choo-choo train in my hand. The colour had long since faded to black on its hull, having driven pointlessly around the bogs and marshes of Ireland until it was no longer the same machine.

It reminded me of myself. I put it out of its suffering. The train crashed.

I tumbled about; crushed and battered by lifeless steel I waited patiently for it to go still. I found myself between a rock wall, a little stream, and a mountain of metal. I let it weigh on me for a moment, and then I got up.

The mud and stone gave before the steel, but in the end it all moved for me. I reemerged to find Cam had helped move the train. You might think I’d be thankful, but I wasn’t. I was far stronger than this hulk of blue-pink steel towering above me. I did not wonder what I’d have done without the machine, somehow, I just knew it would have turned out alright anyway.

I wondered, was I too strong for Axel? Maybe he really was afraid of the man who’d killed Belfast.

“Woo! Good job out there Shamrock! You low on HP? The Ints aren’t far, they’ve got rebirthing fluid free and ready for your poor sorry ass.”

I looked around the mountain's curves, seeing them nowhere. I could deal with Axel, but not the Ints.

I nodded.

He laughed on the other side if the earpiece. “Aright, so you're opening up, huh? What about you and me ‘John Ireland’? I think we made a pretty good team.” The most useful thing he’d contributed was the intel, concerning the location and capabilities of the threat. Whether or not he’d be as succinct concerning Ireland’s natural monsters, who could say?

“Yeah,” I said, “I think we can work together.”

Cam lowered in a hunch, his massive figure head with its searching machine eyes inspected me. I wondered if it could tell I was lying, that I had no intention of letting this mega billionaire move in.

“Alright! That's a good turn around. We can do a lot of good Sham, not just killing things either. You're a better guy than me, your smart enough to know that things have gotta change around here or it's just going to go to shit.”

I’ve almost been doing this for a year. I don’t think I’ve improved the lives of ordinary people at all. I’ve saved lives, I know that, but have I made the world a better place? If I had never existed, what would Ireland look like today?

Samantha Burrows would still be alive. She’d never assumed the role off Negative God in... in my stead.

If what Sam showed me was real, then I’m really not supposed to exist. I’m supposed to be rubbing quasi-fourth-dimensional shoulders with Irminsul and J-on. What does it mean that I’m not? If the truth is that I’m the epitome of a negative existence, then what does it mean for me to be alive? From a factual standpoint I shouldn’t be.

I put my hand out for Axel, for Cam. The machine reached down with a warm hand.

I said, “I’ll trust you.” I knew that the moment Axel slipped up, I’d rip the rug out from under him. Hopefully, that would be enough to get the Internationals on my side.

I hadn’t much faith in either party, to be honest.