Chapter 32

Margot Robbie was the best and only secret weapon to bring down the Illuminati. Nobody else would do. Isaac couldn’t believe his luck. The world’s luck. What were the chances Margot would have a palm reading right as Tupac and Isaac returned from Thugz Mansion? And that Margot would also have a penchant for saving the world? It was almost too good to be true, making Isaac wonder if Anne really did work in mysterious ways. Could she have planned this?

But Isaac should have expected this serendipity. After all, he had read Save the Cat! This was the climax of his story, and the climax of the story was always going to be preceded by things falling into place, the gathering of the hero’s ragtag team to take on the final foe with the power of friendship. Now, that team included Margot Robbie. It was all going according to plan, forcing Isaac to contend with questions regarding fate and free will.

Tupac was the most taken aback by the turn of events and the newest addition. Margot looked so much like his current girlfriend he couldn’t believe his eyes. He could only differentiate the two because he wasn’t a little afraid to be around Margot Robbie, a quality he loved in Zee.

After introductions and pleasantries were exchanged, it was time to brainstorm. And they immediately settled on a classic gambit, the Trojan Horse strategy. First, they would leverage Margot’s acting skills and resemblance to Zee to gain entry into Fox Studios by passing Margot off as the Most Wanted Screenwriter in the World. Then, once inside Fox Studios, they would crash the production bay and sabotage the Super Jesus showing before Mr. Lennox released the mind-altering footage to the public.

It would be a small operation, just Tupac, Margot, and Isaac, but it felt fitting. Only a small team like that could best the Goliath that an advanced alien species represented. Or that’s how Anne pitched the idea because she remained unwilling to come along, even when asked, repeating to them how humans needed to save themselves because what was the point otherwise?

But wasn’t she human? Isaac wondered.

And Anne responded, “Not really.”

Anne would help in one capacity, however. Make-up. Because in addition to her witchy powers, she was also a wizard with a mascara wand. After only a few minutes of sitting in front of Anne’s vanity, Margot looked like a carbon copy of the sorry screenwriter. The transformation was as subtle as it was seamless. All it took was a touch of black underneath her eyes, and some contour to hollow out her cheeks. The effect on Tupac was pronounced, whose dick was a thumbs-up seal of approval.

The rest of the preparations were simple enough: lock and load. To Isaac’s surprise, Anne had a small armory on hand, holding onto everything Tupac had left in her trust before ascending to Thugz Mansion all those years ago. Once he blew off the cobwebs, Tupac strapped dual Uzis to himself while Isaac opted for a pistol that felt heavy in his hand. Margot declined a weapon of her own. She told them that nothing killed quite like kindness.

Finally ready, Isaac picked up his phone and texted Liz, “Secured the bag. See you at Fox Studios tonight to deliver the goods. Over and out. #imteamlizardnow”

To which Liz texted back, “?”

Isaac responded by taking and sending a picture of Margot Robbie as Zee. To add credibility to the set-up, Tupac had tied his red bandana over Margot’s eyes as a blindfold to make her more hostage-like.

“Pico entrance. I’ll be waiting. Tell no one,” Liz responded and then quickly followed that up with a double text of “Don’t fuck this up.”

Isaac showed them the message. Tupac smiled, evincing the hype of the moment. It was all systems go.

While on their way to Century City for their climactic battle against the lizard threat, Isaac, Tupac, and Margot Robbie sat in traffic at a total standstill. The road congestion was far worse than anything Isaac had ever experienced, living up to the epic proportions of the moment. Thank Super Jesus. To mourn the loss of their superhero, the city shut down the 405 to a single lane where the accident occurred. The effect was to make the site a memorial, a moving wake, where people could pay their respects from their cars. And people did. They threw roses and respectfully frisbeed Super Jesus DVDs out of their driver’s side windows as they passed the chalk outline. The shards of the broken DVDs glittered.

Everywhere Isaac looked, whether through the car window or on his phone, there was something else to commemorate Super Jesus’s passing. Billboards gave their condolences, restaurant menus featured Taco Tuesday pricing on the daily, and Disciple recruitment numbers were at an all-time high.

When people weren’t in their cars, they grieved on street corners, coming together in makeshift choirs to sing Super Jesus’s title theme in a sort of Gregorian chant, which unnerved Isaac. But what Isaac found most disturbing was how every reference to the passing of Super Jesus, from his obituary to social media hashtag campaigns, was about the character rather than the actor who played the role, of whom there was no mention.

As ubiquitous as the words of mourning and remembrance were, so too were the advertisements for tonight’s Super Jesus event. It was one or the other, a total market saturation. Everything from bus stop ads to Twitter bot armies promoted the trailer or the watch parties for the trailer, encouraging people to gather together at bars, movie theatres, or local Disciple chapters. People were listening. Already, long lines formed around these institutions in preparation for the night’s release.

Isaac couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t see a single Harry Potter house badge pinned to anyone. He was stunned. Instead, everyone was wearing some form of the middle school “S.” Super Jesus had completely captured the public consciousness, eclipsing Harry Potter. The masses were now undivided. They were pure of heart. They were ripe for the picking.

“These vibes are fucked,” Tupac said once they got to Fox Studios. Margot and Isaac agreed. Together, the three stood in front of the massive front gate rivaling the one guarding the entrance to Thugz Mansion. It felt like they were storming a castle. It was go time.

Lights.

Camera.

Action.

Sandwiched between Isaac and Tupac, Margot-as-Zee pretended to fight for her freedom while they pretended to restrain her. Then, clumsily, they shuffled to the gate’s side entrance meant for pedestrians.

“You’re late,” Liz greeted them, her expression grim. “Quickly! Quickly!” she commanded the group while propping the door open. “Who’s this?” Liz asked Tupac with suspicion after the lock clicked closed behind them. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Hastily, Isaac responded, “This guy gave Zee up, but only after I told him he’d get some sort of finder’s fee from Mr. Lennox. I hope that’s okay,” Isaac explained.

Liz nodded. “Of course. Follow me.”

Tupac grunted his acknowledgment, trying his hardest to keep his telltale voice a mystery to Liz. With Margot pinned between them, he and Isaac followed Liz as she wound her way through the studio, in and around various sound stages, until they reached a vacant one. Tupac nudged Isaac discreetly, letting him know that the feeling in his gut was sour. He stopped the parade.

“What’s going on?” Liz demanded.

Isaac spoke up for Tupac. “Uh, what are we doing, Liz? Where are we going? We need to take Zee to Mr. Lennox right now. Before tonight’s event. Having her might change things.” He pointed to the lit penthouse suite at the top of the nearby Fox Plaza skyscraper as his desired destination. That was Mr. Lennox’s primary office and was not to be confused with his secondary one at CAA across the street.

Liz coughed out a cold laugh. “What, and let you steal the glory from me? One of these days, Isaac, you’ll learn something about this industry. Lizard people or not, this is a den of vipers.” Liz then raised her arm to send a signal. And before anyone could react, a squad of armed security guards encircled our heroes. Liz grabbed Margot, separating her from Tupac and Isaac, who were powerless to stop her. Even the ever-confident Tupac didn’t dare trust his quick-twitch trigger finger, not now, deciding it was best to keep his powder dry and hidden beneath his baggy denim jacket.

“Liz!” Isaac pleaded, “there’s no need to do this. We’re on the same team. Mr. Lennox will want to see me. I can help. I’ve broken through my writer’s block!”

A consummate Hollywood professional, Liz didn’t respond. There was no need to acknowledge Isaac, not when she had already extracted everything from him. So she spoke to the guards instead, saying, “Please escort these trespassers off the lot and make sure they never re-enter these premises again. Then blacklist them.” Which felt like a euphemism for murder to Isaac.

“What a cold-blooded bitch,” Tupac spat as they were marched out of the Fox Studio gates at gunpoint.

“No,” Isaac sighed, “she’s only human.” He turned around to watch Liz and a guard walk Margot toward the back recesses of the studio lot. Then, Isaac and Margot made eye contact, and his blood froze when he saw the terror on Margot’s face as she was hauled away. What had he done? He killed Margot Robbie. And for what? Their master plan didn’t last two minutes.

Outside the studio, Isaac sat on a curb, dejected, reduced to watching cars trudge to points east and west on Pico Boulevard. Well, that was anti-climatic, Isaac thought. “It was a good try, Tupac,” was all Isaac could mutter.

Stolen novel; please report.

“It was a good try, Tupac?” Tupac mocked Isaac, “Fuck that. We’re not taking our ball and going home. We’ll figure this shit out. Giving up is not the thug life mentality, you know what I’m saying?”

“No!” Isaac protested. “I never know what the fuck you’re saying. It’s over! We’re barred from Fox Studios. They have Margot. The real Zee is living it up in Thugz Mansion, dead to the world. Anne, the only person who can do anything, is paralyzed by step-daddy issues. And the Super Jesus trailer will premiere in a couple of hours, and everyone who watches it will have their mind melted. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Tupac wound up and hit Isaac with a back-handed pimp slap to the face. “Shut your sorry ass up, Isaac. You’re not some bitch. You’re half-lizard and partially clairvoyant. So start acting like it. As my girl Aliyah would say: Try again.”

Isaac buried his head in his hands. “I don’t even know how to use my lizard powers,” he whimpered.

“All I’m saying is that you can do a fuck-ton more than bitch and moan, you know? Use that third eye of yours to find us a back door into Fox. Dream something up.”

Isaac picked his head up, eyes shining. “That’s it! Tupac, you’re a genius. There is a back door into Fox, and I know where it is.” Together, they took off at a run, heading on foot to the Annenberg Space for Photography.

To Tupac and Isaac’s confusion, hordes of people thronged the Century City Park complex when they arrived. They had inadvertently stumbled upon LA’s biggest watch party for the new Super Jesus event, put on, to no surprise, by CAA and the Annenbergs. The centerpiece of the festivities was a huge stage erected upon the park’s pyramid eye design. And hung above it was the largest screen Isaac had ever seen that was sure to attract the eyeballs of anyone within a country mile of it. Underneath it and rocking out in the screen’s shadow was Beyonce, who played a set to warm up the audience and, Isaac assumed, get everyone’s force flowing before the big unveiling. That was the bad news, but at least the crowds created a perfect opportunity for Tupac and Isaac to slip into the Annenberg Space for Photography unnoticed, which was currently open to the public and exhibiting their Beauty CULTure show. While navigating through the museum, Tupac kept his head down to avoid being recognized by the crowds, and Isaac made sure to circle around the room where the great big blue beam resided because it still scared the shit out of him.

They waited by the back service door until an employee rushed out and left the door ajar for a split second, which was long enough to allow Tupac and Isaac to sneak inside and enter the elevator bay. So down the elevator, they went. When they reached the bottom, they traveled through the same halls and corridors Isaac traversed in his dream until they reached the patterned door Isaac encountered with Seth oh so long ago.

“What the fuck is this?” Tupac wondered as he stared at the ornate door that confounded Isaac the last time he visited this place.

“I believe it’s a backdoor into the heart of Fox Studios.”

“No, the symbols, Isaac.” Tupac pointed to the odd arrangement of lines and dashes that marked the front of the door.

image [https://i.imgur.com/h6QUWUn.png]

“No idea,” Isaac admitted, “but it must mean something.”

“No shit,” Tupac observed. “There’s no door handle or nothing.” He pushed and prodded, but nothing budged. “What ya thinkin’? This is like some crazy-ass cuneiform.”

“Well, it’s not hieroglyphics or anything like that,” Isaac said, realizing these symbols must be some sort of runes like Anne spoke about. There had to be a magic trick he wasn’t seeing.

“It’s probably some lizard-language bullshit that translates into ‘go fuck yourself.’”

“Maybe,” Isaac agreed absently while trying to figure out this door’s secret. He thought and thought and thought until his pineal gland burned and then burned out. “Argh!!” he cried out with frustration. “I got nothing. I’m at a total loss.” But that’s precisely when Isaac figured out the answer. “Is this loss?” He started jumping up and down with excitement. “It’s loss! It’s loss!”

“What’s loss?”

“It’s a meme,” he pointed to the markings. “But these lines are a minimalist abstraction of the cartoon. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, how does that get us inside?”

“It’s loss! We gotta lose something. What else?” Isaac said plainly. “In the original meme, the cartoon's author lost a baby by miscarriage….Quick, give me a second. Do you have a baby?”

Tupac patted down his pockets before answering, “No.”

“Fine.” Isaac’s brain worked in overdrive, recognizing this riddle from somewhere else. He just had to remember! A few seconds passed before he got it. “It’s blood magic.”

“Goddamn!”

Isaac bit hard on his finger until he broke skin and could push out a drop or two of lizard blood. Then, using that same finger, he traced the outline of the loss rune. When he was finished, the symbol lit up brilliantly in a flash of white light that temporarily blinded Isaac and Tupac, but when the shock subsided, a strange red glow emanated from the door, highlighting the pattern. The rune was activated. Next, the door began to move, retracting into the ceiling to open the way.

“How’d you do that?” Tupac asked, astonished.

“The clue was from Harry Potter, of course. This is how Dumbledore and Harry get into Voldemort’s cave.”

“Never heard of ‘em,” Tupac said before entering the world beyond the door and treading into a giant underground tunnel. “What the fuck is this?”

“C’mon,” Isaac said with the newfound confidence he earned from cracking the loss puzzle. Of course, Isaac had been here before, but just on the other side of the vast tunnel system whose tendrils he now understood stretched from the downtown library to the west side and probably went city-wide. Only there were no construction workers or TBMs in this section. It was vacant. Even the tiny, wary steps Tupac used to move through the tunnel echoed off the walls with nothing to absorb the sound.

After winding and weaving through the tunnel, Tupac and Isaac found a staircase cut into a wall and followed it up to the surface. They didn’t end up on the Fox lot once they exited the tunnels, as expected, but they did themselves one better. They were now inside the Fox Plaza building itself.

The building was alive. A flurry of people hustled in various directions to address their various responsibilities, too busy with the night’s preparations to worry about the sudden appearance of Isaac and Tupac.

“Wait,” Tupac instructed when Isaac tried to slide into the fray. “We gotta’ grab one of these important-looking niggas and get the lowdown on what’s happening. Do a little recon work before we attack, you know? That’s the move. That’s some sound decision-making.”

Isaac agreed, so they peered out from an alcove that served as the boundary between the tunnel and the building, waiting for the right moment to ambush somebody. Not that girl. Too young. Not that guy. Too ethnic to be important. Nope. Nope. Nope. Suddenly, off a head nod from Tupac, they reached out into the hall, pulled a passing middle-aged white man back into the tunnel’s stairway, and closed the door behind him. The man’s face turned from panic to pure horror when he saw Tupac brandishing one of his Uzis at him. “Tell me everything you know about the trailer premiere tonight,” Tupac ordered.

“The trailer?” the man asked, aghast. “What about it?”

“What’s the plan, my guy? What’s gonna happen after you play it? What you gonna do with the zombies?” Tupac clicked the gun's safety off. The sound echoed through the chamber.

“Wait,” the man stuttered, looking up past the gun. His eyes went wide. “Are… are you Tupac?”

“In the flesh, nigga.”

“Holy shit! I knew you weren’t dead. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” The man extended his hand to Tupac, seeking a firm handshake. “The name’s Eric,” he said, but Tupac knocked Eric’s hand away with his gun.

“Tell me about tonight,” Tupac commanded. “What’s the run of show? Tell me the setlist.”

“I’ll tell you everything, Tupac. I swear! I’m west side for life,” Eric pleaded, his hands held high, each with its ring finger and middle finger interlocked. “Before the premiere, Super Jesus will be resurrected on stage.”

“But Super Jesus is dead,” Tupac interrupted.

“That’s what makes it a resurrection,” Isaac offered, trying to help.

“He’s not dead,” Eric corrected. “Super Jesus doesn’t do his own miracles, of course. It was his stuntman who died, regrettably…. And where some of us saw tragedy, marketing saw an opportunity.” Eric continued with profound sadness, “We miss Trevor every day. For those of us in production, tonight is in his honor. Trevor would have wanted the show to go on.”

“Every news outlet confirmed that Super Jesus himself died,” Isaac countered, “not a stuntman.”

“The news?” Eric scoffed. “You listen to that? That’s just filmed at the next sound stage over from where we shot the movie.”

“You bastards,” Tupac hissed.

“I’ll help you, Tupac! Give me a chance!” Eric begged. “What can I do?” But Isaac stopped listening, too distraught at realizing how powerful a resurrection would be three days after Super Jesus’s supposed death, a perfect mirror of the superhero’s predecessor. This was a disaster. The newest miracle would whip everyone into a frenzy to supercharge their force and maximize the hypnotic effect of the movie. This, combined with the force multiplier that was the summer solstice, was how Mr. Lennox planned to overcome Zee’s absence during the reshoots. The audience wouldn’t stand a chance. Isaac knew they would succumb to the film’s effects when they saw the trailer’s opening image.

Isaac felt a punch to his gut, realizing this meant his entire adventure had been for naught. He didn’t want to believe it, but he had failed. The lizards simply found another option without their golden screenwriter. Why did Isaac assume they couldn’t? Chop off a leg, and they would grow it back. It was that easy for them. This must have been why Isaac’s mission was to save the cat because finding Zee never mattered and protecting Zee never mattered. In the end, Zee didn’t matter. Wait until she found out she was only a red herring.

Keeping his gun trained on Eric, Tupac turned to Isaac so they could formulate their own plan B. If the lizards could adapt, then so must they. Finally, they agreed on a two-pronged attack as a measure of insurance should one of them fail. Prong 1: Isaac sabotages the transmission of the video. Prong 2: Tupac and Eric go to the Century Park watch party and intercept Super Jesus before he can ascend to the stage for his resurrection.

Tupac held Isaac’s shoulder to steady him, sensing Isaac’s shaken confidence at the prospect of going it alone. “You got this, my man. But before I go, first, let me drop a little knowledge on you. You listening? Trust yourself. That’s most important, you understand?”

Isaac nodded.

“Lastly, Zee told me that whenever she wanted to tap into her lizard abilities, all she had to do was think about what made her hungry.”

“Hungry?” Isaac asked.

“Hungry,” Tupac confirmed. “Usually, she’d just have to think about this dick, you know what I’m saying?” he cackled.

“I know what you be saying!” Eric declared, laughing along until Tupac shot him a dirty look.

“Aight, Isaac. It’s time. Gangsta times call for gangsta lives. Let’s fucking go. Let’s take down those Illuminati chicken shits.” Tupac then dapped Isaac up, who returned the gesture with maximum awkwardness. “Peace,” Tupac declared before marching Eric back down the tunnels toward the Annenberg Space for Photography.

“Peace,” Isaac repeated, his words echoing off the tunnel walls. Now alone, surrounded in darkness, Isaac’s constitution wavered again. He had to take some time to steel his nerves and breathe deeply, reminding himself of the stakes of what he was about to undertake.

Although he very much wanted to, he couldn’t back out now. He could still make a difference. This was his grand finale. But the entire world and Margot Robbie depended on him, and that responsibility was too great and daunting. He was about to have a nervous breakdown. What he could do, however, was take his old therapist’s advice and take life one step at a time, so he did so and climbed the staircase up from the tunnel and back to Fox Plaza to the horrors that awaited him.

Left foot, right foot.

Left foot, right foot.

Left foot, right foot.

Up, up, up.