Echo: A Dystopian Science Fiction Novel

“Okay guys, gather into your assigned groups, it’s time for trust falls!”  My preschool teacher, Ms. Arglebarf, bends at the waist, claps her hands, and beams joyously at us.

Fuck me.  Even though I’m only four years old, my bullshit detector can easily sense when we’re about to engage in some utter and complete horse puckey.  The rest of my classmates burble and gibber like your typical gaggle of tiny humans.  I quietly begin shuffling away, trying to attract as little attention as—

“Gotcha!”  Arglebarf grabs me from behind, halting me in my tracks.  “Where do you think you’re going, Kent Scorponok Wayne?  Trust falls for everyone, no exceptions!”

“Tyrant,” I mutter, sticking my hands in my pockets and skulking back to my group.

I’m up first.  I cross my arms on my chest, close my eyes…then an ominous gurgle runs through my stomach.

“Wait,” I gasp.  “I have to go to the—”

“Do your trust falls, Kent!” Arglebarf calls.  “Stop trying to cut class!”

“No, you don’t understand!”  I try and run but two members of my group grab me by the arms and hold me back.  Damn this dysfunctional educational system and its ability to inculcate kids with a willingness to obey its debt-fostering mechanisms!

“No!” I plead, but Tommy Millman (blessed with freakish, prepubescent size at the tender age of four, along with a disgusting hankering for boogers and paste) snarls, “NO!  Obey our imperialist educators and finish your trust falls!” And then he pushes me back onto a tiny network of hands.

As soon as they catch me, the spicy bean and cheese burrito I had for lunch explodes out my backside, unchecked by any form of anal restraint.  Fire roars through the air, stripping my pint-size peers down to their skeletons before reducing their cells to atomic ash.  The explosion thunders outward, consuming the city and several surrounding counties before the apocalyptic backwash sucks the energy up into a giant mushroom cloud.

“No…no…NO!!!!   RAAAAAHHHH!!!”  I kneel in the ashes of what was once San Francisco, screaming at the sky like Superman in Kingdom Come, after humanity fires a nuclear missile at a gathering of metahumans and he’s the only one who manages to survive.

WHAT HAVE I DONE???

Fuck it.  Only one option left.  I open my eReader to Echo, activating its reality distortion powers.  Magic flash.

Zzzzeeeoovoop!  Time rewinds.  Tommy Millman’s paste-spotted face looms above me, sneering in disdain as he gears up to push me back.

“FUCK you, Tommy!”  I sink to a knee and punch him in the nuts, letting loose with a cheek-quivering scream that’d make Bruce proud.  Tommy drops like the sack of shit he is, clutching his nuts and curling into a fetal position.  His reddened cheeks and pie-wide eyes are a thing of beauty.

“KENT!”  Arglebarf comes running toward me, her expression twisting in pure fury.  I look to the skies and narrow my gaze as a small, triangular shape eclipses the sun.

FWOOP!  My bat-glider comes in low and I grab its bottom rung.  As I fly away from Arglebarf’s grasping fingers, Hans Zimmer’s Batman theme kicks into full gear, lifting my heart and electrifying my soul.

“FUUUUCCCKKK YOOOOUUUUuuuuuu…”  I bestow my oppressors with a parting gift:  my extended middle finger.

And I make it to the bathroom.  The world lives to see another day.

😉

Have childhood tyrants interfered with your gastronomical functions and put all of humanity in grave peril?  Never fear!  Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here:  Vol. 1 on Kindle.  Vol. 2 on Kindle here:  Vol.2 on Kindle  Vol. 3 on Kindle here:  Vol. 3 on Kindle  Vol.4 on Kindle here:  Vol. 4 on Kindle  Echo Omnibus here:  Echo Omnibus  Echo Vol. 1 & 2 Combined Edition here:  Combined Edition  Musings, Volume 1 is available here:  Musings, Volume 1  If you wanna hear me babble on about anything and everything, and strain my FREAKIN’ BRAIN, then here’s a link to my podcast:  Strained Brains!  It is on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and Google Play!  Please give it a listen and a five-star review!  Here’s the miscellaneous gear that I use to try and become an uber-human:  Optimization!  🙂 🙂 😀

Hold on!  I just got approved to be an Amazon affiliate!  If you’re going to buy ANY product from Amazon, and you’d like to support my efforts for absolutely free, then simply click on one of the Echo links I’ve provided—they’ll send you to Echo’s Amazon page—and THEN buy whatever product you wish.  Amazon gives me a small referral fee each time this happens!  In this manner you can support my books, musings, podcast, zany ads, or my adventures along the noble path known as The Way of The Man Child WITHOUT spending any more money than you were already going to!  Should you do this, I vow to send you a silent blessing, causing your genitals to adopt the optimum size, shape, smell, and death-ray attachment of choice that paralyzes your enemies with fear and envy!  Entire worlds will bow before your nether parts!  😲💪 😜