Frank Iero and the Meaning of Life

Chapter Twenty-Nine - They Came From the Internet!

I rounded up the original squad and had them all come with me to the Hyper Band the very next day; what remained of my powerful army stuffed themselves into the terminal as best as they could, but the majority of them had to stand around outside as they waited for my commands. Both the CEO and Korse showed up fifteen minutes late in Hawaiian shirts and starbucks in hand.

They were the ugliest fucking outfits I had ever seen in my entire life.

"Uh," I said, "what's with the...interesting getup?"

"Well," said the CEO, "now that we have freed ourselves from the dreadful tyranny of the Internet, I figured that now would be a great time to take a vacation in the physical world. After all, it's not like it's a two-way machine. Might as well make the best of being stuck there for the rest of eternity."

"Can we go to Disneyland?!" exclaimed Korse.

"Absolutely," said the CEO. "I've always wanted to visit Disneyland. It's such a shame that it was nuked during the Wars."

"Are we gonna nuke it again?" asked Korse.

"Obviously not," she said. "When we inevitably take over the entire planet, we don't want to nuke our most valuable sources of income, do we?"

"You make a fair point," said Korse. "Let's turn their whole studio into a propaganda machine!"

I tried to ignore their hideous costumes and walked over to the leader Ray, who typed away at a computer.

"Hey," I said. "Did you guys manage to get this thing calibrated to wherever the hell my stupid author lives?"

"Yes, sir," he said. "It's a good thing that she posts way too much information about herself on social media, so it was not difficult to triangulate her exact location through a little bit of data mining."

"Excellent," I said.

"But, seriously," he said. "You should see her Insta. It's absolutely appalling. The amount of information she posts about herself is astronomical, and quite frankly, disturbing. For instance, were you aware that she refers to herself as a 'dom' at 16 years old?"

"She ain't a fuckin' dom," I said. "She needs to shut up and do her homework. Also, too much information, Toro. Too much information."

"Right. Sorry," he said. "The Hyper Band is warmed up and ready for use, sir."

"Alright, gang," I said. "Let's step into the death laser, shall we? I have to pay my author a little...visit."

Poison, Kobra, Jet, the Girl, the CEO, Korse, and Sandwich Gerard all stepped into the circle of death and stared up at the laser like a couple of stupid cats waiting for it to turn on. In the meantime, I put on a pair of sunglasses as all of the scientist Rays scrambled into position.

"Hadron collider warming up," said the leader Ray.

Poison looked over at me with nervous eyes and reached over to me; I didn't want to risk getting caught dead in front of the whole squad, so I casually batted his hand away and pretended to not notice anything.

"W-well," said Poison, "this is it. We're crossing the threshold."

"Indeed," I said. "I can't wait to kick my author's ass—er, I mean, establish freedom and peace."

"Hadron collider fully charged," said the leader Ray. "Goggles on, keys ready."

The rest of the squad put on sunglasses and prepared to be zapped.

"This is Toro to Toro and Toro and To—"

"Can you fuckers just skip to the end?" I yelled.

"Right. Sorry," said the leader Ray. "Let's just cut to the chase, shall we? Ahem...IGNITION!"