Chapter 25
Isaac understood he didn’t have much time. Dr. Rousseau and co. were coming for him, and he had two options. He could outrun them or fight them, but deep down he knew he couldn’t chance another physical altercation. Not at this time.
There was still so much he didn’t know about his superpowers. Was there a time limit on them? What was the refractory period after his powers subsided? Could he do it twice in one night? His life depended on these answers. He couldn’t risk reverting to his flaccid, fleshy human form if he encountered his pursuers.
Isaac swallowed his saliva. It was too bad Seth wasn’t here. He would have known what to do, while Isaac didn’t know anything. Moreover, until he was alone in a quiet, safe space, Isaac couldn’t properly process his other outstanding questions, such as: was there really a murdered little girl? Or was that a complete fabrication? And did Seth’s transformation into a lizardman mean that Isaac was also a lizardman? Because Isaac didn’t want to be a lizardman, but if he were a lizardman, he ought to figure out if he were a lizardman. He owed himself that much. (Say what you want about Dr. Rousseau and his methods, but Isaac did learn something about the value of self-reflection while under his care: bad people and good advice were not mutually exclusive.)
While Isaac crept down the hallway, ducked windows, and slinked past every open doorway to avoid detection, he was indecisive about what to do next, now torn between the urge to escape and the desire to know more about himself. He was some sort of superhero, but he didn’t even know his origin story. Were his parents gunned down outside an opera? Or was his uncle gunned down by a mugger? But without Seth around to clue him in on his past, Dr. Rousseau was his last and only lead.
Isaac’s secondary motive for speaking with Dr. Rousseau was to get to the bottom of this madness about the Super Jesus screenplay. It made no sense. Could the Tootsie Pop center of this conspiracy really be the success of the Super Jesus movie franchise?
While Isaac knew how infamously cut-throat and paranoid Hollywood was, it seemed a little far-fetched that sleeper agents, lizardmen, cat power, and ritual murder were necessary to ensure that the sequel would be a success. With the cult of Disciples that arose after the first installment, Isaac didn’t believe for a second that the second movie could fail. Fox Studios could play a Super Jesus test pattern for two and a half hours, and the film would still print money. Hadn’t they seen what Warner Brothers did with their DC superhero properties?
The only explanation was that Super Jesus 2 had to have another sinister purpose. It couldn’t be box office receipts only. Do lizardmen even use U.S. currency when they return to their home planet? If so, what was the exchange rate?
Even though Isaac didn’t know how long he had until his powers withered away, he decided to roll the dice and press his advantage against his feeble therapist. It was now or never. But there was no Twin Towers map to locate Dr. Rousseau’s office, so Isaac felt the best way to proceed was to go in the opposite direction of every exit sign he could find, believing that his ex-therapist and handler would have to be at the heart of this matter.
Trodding carefully, Isaac braced himself for when the Twin Towers’ entire security apparatus would descend upon him in one fell swoop. Except they never came. All was quiet. Too quiet? There was no other conclusion for Isaac to draw but that his superhero powers package must also include invisibility.
“Hey-o!” a voice called out to Isaac to burst his bubble. Isaac’s blue-red thermal imaging spectrum drained and waned until it disappeared. The whitewash of the hospital returned along with all his other human characteristics. The only color Isaac could see now came from the end of the hall.
It was Super Jesus. He wore a technicolor poncho and held a steaming cup of coffee. Emblazoned on the mug were the words, “World’s #1 son!”
“You can see me?” Isaac nearly fell over from the shock. “I thought I was invisible.”
“Yeah!” Super Jesus paused to look at himself. “Can you see me?”
“Yeah! I can see you, Super Jesus!” Isaac squeaked, stunned from meeting the world’s biggest movie star and his case’s most prominent witness. “Or should I call you Mr. Ortega?” Isaac asked, referring to the actor’s real name.
“Call me Super Jesus.”
“Or what about Mr. Ornelas?” Isaac asked, referring to the character’s alter ego from the movie.
“Call me Super Jesus.”
“You got it, Super Jesus.”
“Cool. Cool. Cool.” Super Jesus smiled. When Isaac came over to him, Super Jesus offered his free hand to dap him up. “What’s good? You’re Isaac, right?”
It was Isaac’s turn to pause and look at himself, double-checking his identity. “Yea, I’m Isaac. You know me? Why?”
“Dr. Rousseau gave me the Spark Notes version of you. So did ya find Zee yet, or what’s the deal?” Super Jesus asked while leading Isaac down the hall. The two of them remained alone, much to Isaac’s surprise, who expected Super Jesus to travel with an entourage of maybe 12 or so people at all times.
“No, no luck finding Zee yet,” Isaac said as he followed in Super Jesus’s footsteps, “I was hoping you could help me out with that.”
“Yeah? Me?”
“Yeah. According to my, uh, notes, you were the last known person to see Zee, other than her psychic, of course.”
“Of course. Hmm,” Super Jesus pondered. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember? It was at the Annenberg. There was like a big blue light shooting down from the ceiling. A prominent cat was involved.”
“I know a lot of cats. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Captain Flapjacks is his name.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so? Love that guy!” Super Jesus exclaimed while he opened a door and directed Isaac inside a room off the main hallway. “Welcome to my zen den.”
“What in the world?” Isaac was awed by what he saw. “What is this place?” Super Jesus’s room was a far cry from where Isaac had been held, both the solitary cell and the cell he shared with Mark.
Aside from being ten times larger than either of those rooms, this one was furnished with a surfer-chic vibe that would make even the chillest dude down at Point Dume jealous. Vintage posters from classic surf films lined the walls. Ornate, oriental floral tapestries hung from the ceiling, a circle of bean bags surrounded a five-foot hookah, and there was even a nice area rug, a reproduction from The Big Lebowski, that really tied the room together.
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“The first rule of show business is to get a ride-or-die rider. Learn that lesson. Love that lesson,” Super Jesus lectured Isaac as he climbed into a hemp-woven hammock suspended from the ceiling, careful not to spill his coffee.
“Did you offer Zee that advice?” Isaac asked, flopping into a beanbag chair.
Super Jesus sighed wistfully. “She’s the one who taught me. She was my sensei.”
“And what did she tell you that night at the Annenberg?” Isaac inquired, trying his best to re-direct Super Jesus’s train of thought back on track. “What were you doing there?”
“She invited me.”
“She did? To the Annenberg? Why?”
Super Jesus leaned forward in the hammock, causing it to rock gently. “She wanted a ticket to ride the soul pole.”
“The soul pole?”
“You don’t know?” Super Jesus wiggled his eyebrows knowingly.
“...”
“Not a man of culture, I see. The soul pole is the euphemism my Wattpad Disciples use for my divine dong. My penis.”
Unfazed, Isaac stayed with his line of questioning, “So she wanted to ride your soul pole at the Annenberg?”
“Sure. Why not? You haven’t fucked in the Annenberg?” Super Jesus scoffed. “Tickets are free. And the parking validation! Plus, I know a guy. His name’s Dan. Tell him Super Jesus sent you.”
“Then what?” Isaac asked while noting how divergent this character was from the choir boy he played on screen. Super Jesus was no method actor, despite taking the character’s name for his own. And while Super Jesus was a dick in real life, it only made Isaac admire him more, as this contrast helped highlight his exemplary acting skills.
“Honestly, I don’t remember much from that night because I got pretty fucked up while I was over at CAA. We were doing some marketing for one of my miracles, and I was turning water into spiked kombucha. Well, one thing led to another, and I got a little high on my own supply. You know how it goes. Occupational hazard.”
“Was Zee at the miracle?”
“No, no, no, not her vibe at all. She wouldn’t be caught dead there,” Super Jesus laughed. “Zee’d rather be with the bikers up at Neptune’s Net or micro-dosing with the day-trippers down in Indio. Now there’s an idea! Have you checked for her at Salvation Mountain or the Banana Museum? I know that place is a favorite of hers. No one loves being strung out by the Salton Sea more than her. She likes the dead fish.”
“So you were over at the Annenberg alone, to start?”
“Right. I got to the Annenberg and didn’t see Zee at all. She was going to meet me, of course, so I was wandering around, losing my mind, and then I remember seeing Captain Flapjacks posted up at the front desk like he was welcoming me, but that’s it. Everything goes real fuzzy-wuzzy was a bear after that.”
“No blue beam of light coming down from the ceiling?”
“Not that I know of. It was completely dark, from what I remember. It was after hours, you know. The museum was all shut up and shit, and I thought maybe Zee was trying to set the mood and/or trying to avoid Mr. Lennox.”
“What do you remember after that?”
“Like I said — nothing. I woke up the next day in the screening room at CAA with a pounding headache. Wait a second. Now that you mention it, I don’t actually remember seeing Zee. Guess you could say that I got pretty blackout.” Super Jesus shrugged.
Isaac nodded. It figured. Another dead end.
“You’re not a real superhero, are you?” He asked Super Jesus. Given Isaac’s own vast powers, he wondered if there were others like him out there. Maybe those special effects in the Super Jesus movies were all special and no effects.
Super Jesus laughed and laughed. “Only if you consider being able to rip tequila shots in a K-hole a superpower, which I do, so yes, you could call me a superhero.”
“But your miracles! So they’re all fake? What about when you laid hands on the entire Cheviot Hills’ PTA and cured them of Celiacs? That was fake?”
Super Jesus waved his hand. “Gluten allergies aren’t even real. It was all in their heads to begin with. All they needed was a little encouragement.”
“That’s it?” Isaac was incredulous.
“If I’ve learned one thing in my adventures as a movie star is that people are powerless to the art of suggestion. Take, for instance, Celiacs. Some Utah-based mommy blogger posted about the evils of gluten, and then, all of a sudden, their followers’ stomachs turned as sour as the dough they’ve been baking. So what do they do? They turn to cauliflower pizza as the answer. Everything is going great for the mommy blogger, who’s in the pocket of Big Cauliflower. She’s getting kickbacks. She’s dishing out cauliflower recipes left and right: riced cauliflower, mashed cauliflower, cauliflower smoothies until an even more popular person, like Super Jesus, comes along and tells them to break bread again, and then wouldn’t you know it — poof! — those stomach pains vanish like magic.”
“...” Isaac didn’t know if he was buying what Super Jesus was selling, but something was captivating about his character. Objectively, he could tell that Super Jesus was sort of a douche, yet Isaac remained in his thrall. Was that all that charisma was? The difference between what your brain knows and what your heart believes?
Isaac now understood how a person could follow Super Jesus into the depths of the LA sewer system. With a low degree of confidence, Isaac reasoned that Super Jesus wasn’t actually the second coming of Jesus, but what about the second coming of Charles Manson? Of that, he wasn’t so sure.
“Do you have any idea how much power we have?” Super Jesus continued. “People crave being told what to do. They fucking love it! I see it every day. Being some type of power bottom is more comforting to the average American than mac and cheese. Good God, why am I using so many food metaphors?” He held onto his stomach. “Munchies, man! But, as I was saying, as much as I hate to admit it, a movie’s success has far more to do with the marketing budget than it has to do with anything else. If it weren’t for those billboards around town, people wouldn’t know what to do or where to go. It’s why I’m staying here at the Twin Towers while I perform my Skid Row miracles. These are my people. Are they crazy as fuck? Sure, but at least every person around here follows their own marching orders.”
Isaac’s face hardened. He leaned forward from his place in the beanbag chair threateningly. “Unless you’re marching them into the bowels of the downtown public library to murder them!”
Super Jesus stopped his listless swaying in his hemp hammock. “You saw that?”
“I’ll never forget it.”
Super Jesus leaned in, matching Isaac, ready to hang onto his every word. “Good. Good. We’re counting on that, at the very least. What else did you think? How did it make you feel?”
“I think it’s terrible! What do you mean? I couldn’t believe what I saw. That poor, innocent Disciple in the Kobe jersey. All he wanted to do was meet his idol, but you killed him.”
“So you couldn’t buy Super Jesus’s heel turn? I knew it.” Super Jesus pumped his fist. “I told Lennox that no one would. Super Jesus isn’t the villain. What the fuck does he know about Super Jesus’s character motivations? I am Super Jesus!”
“...”
“I’m telling Lennox we’re cutting all that out of the final film. I don’t care what he says. This is what happens when he lets the monkeys write the re-shoots. Killing people fucks with my brand. How will I maintain my Paw Patrol partnership with this shit going down? I’m sure the focus group is saying the same damn thing.”
“Reshoots?” Isaac was dumbfounded. “So you didn’t kill a Disciple at the LA library? That was all part of the movie?”
“Nothing but movie magic and my superior acting chops on display.” Super Jesus gave an exaggerated bow that unsettled his hammock, causing it to sway and twist and almost topple its occupant out of it.
“I didn’t see any cameras….”
“You wouldn’t have,” Super Jesus said as he fought to regain control of the hammock. “We were using handhelds only. DP said it’s supposed to add some, what was the word? ‘intimacy’ to the killings. Some really savage stuff. Brutal.”
“But why would Super Jesus kill people? Seems out of character.”
“No spoilers, my guy. Sorry. I may be the savior of mankind, but I’m still bound by NDAs. Truly my biggest cross to bear,” Super Jesus sniggered at his own practiced joke.
Isaac couldn’t compute this information. Could it be true? Could a little Hollywood magic have fooled him? Was the Kobe Disciple still alive? His murder seemed so real to Isaac at the time, the guttural scream, the blood on the knife, Elon Musk’s erection.
Frustration gripped Isaac. What good was his superpowers if he couldn’t sort fact from fiction? Was Isaac delusional? He felt hopeless, grappling with the realization that despite defeating his lizardman alter-ego, he was still his own worst enemy, far more than any lizardmen or conspiratorial cats.
However, Isaac had no time to dwell on this inner conflict as the door to Super Jesus’s room swung open without warning. In the entryway stood the true existential threat to Isaac’s well-being. It was Dr. Rousseau, and he arrived with an army of orderlies at his back.