XVIII.

At the very top of a gleaming metal tower erected in the middle of nowhere, a man in a blue shirt and a red cape was sunbathing. The scar arcing down the left side of his face gleamed in the sunlight, as did his robotic arm. He flipped through the newspaper absentmindedly and reached for the bucket of popcorn beside him. His excitement at the prospect of savoring some delicious popped kernels was shattered when he found there were barely any crumbs left. Scowling, the man hopped off of his chair on the roof, pressing a nonexistent button and teleporting many floors down.

He appeared in the middle of a bustling popcorn creation factory. Rows upon rows of tall glass towers superheated at the temperature most conducive to optimal popcorn popping stretched to the expansive ceiling, with robotic and Minecraftian workers surveying the whole project. Each worker that saw the scarred man invariably jumped up, yelped, and saluted him. The scarred man seemed to pay no mind to the patriotic behavior, muttering to himself as he walked to the largest glass tower, the one adorned with elaborate gold furnishings and patterns. It was staffed by a series of golems, each of which dropped to their knees, put their hands over their heart, and recited a poem of allegiance to the man, which actually consisted of them insulting themselves in several dead languages.

The man held his robotic hand up to silence them, and their vocal chords fell out. “I’m not here to listen about how great I am — a rarity, right? If I wanted that I’d go literally anywhere else. No, I came here to get some damn popcorn. Ya feel me, Golem #DAA520?” Golem #DAA520 nodded. “I know you feel me. You feel me deeper than maybe any other golem here, because you’re named after the hexadecimal color code of my speech. Totally coincidental, I assure you. But anyway.” The scarred man slammed his fist onto his other hand. “I remember saying I wanted popcorn.” Scrambling to activate the machine and prepare a bucket of delicious buttered popcorn, the golems practically tripped over themselves in their haste. The scarred man turned and chuckled, noticing a ventriloquist’s dummy stumbling over to him. In his hands was a stack of papers.

“Sir,” the dummy intoned, “Reports have come in about the squadron of Decoys that you dispatched to the Infinity Train several weeks ago.” The scarred man grinned. “About time. I was beginning to think that nothing would come from that whole expedition. Let me see the papers.” The dummy held on to them. “It won’t do you much good. They’re all notices of termination. Every Decoy you sent died in battle.” The scarred man blinked, looking over them curiously. “...Cipher and Flumpty, huh? Not exactly surprised to see those two powerhouses still kicking, but I’m still not that pleased about it. Did they... come back with anything, at least?” The dummy handed the scarred man an envelope, which he took and opened. Inside was a pile of golden tickets. The scarred man looked at them with glee, putting the envelope in his pocket. “Well, what do you know! I ended up getting exactly what I needed!” The dummy twitched. “Sir... If I could ask—” “Of course you can, Creepy Dummy #14D581. You’re my friend. Legally.” Taken aback slightly, the dummy started up again. “Well... What did you need a pile of train tickets for?” The scarred man laughed as the popcorn machine let out an amplified siren, a bucket of steaming hot freshly-buttered popcorn ejecting from its base. The scarred man held it in his robotic hand. “That’s for me to not tell you and for you to not know, shorty,” he said smoothly. Then the scarred man’s cape billowed as he took a few steps and teleported away.

A blinding golden light spilled from the tower as the scarred man harnessed the power within the tickets of the Infinity Train. The skies seemed to part, and the earth rumbled. And then, after a few seconds, it all stopped. The scarred man held, in his hands, a shining golden USB drive. The concept of infinity, distilled into a single piece of technology. He uploaded it to the internet, spread rumors like wildfire about Cartoon Network picking up Infinity Train as a show and posted incredibly convincing stills and videos about future episodes that had been made on the USB, and watched as rage flooded all corners of the web upon the news that they had been apparently faked by the creator of the show.

The scarred man sat back and feasted on rage. The pulsing, hazy beat of anger that clouded eardrums and put a red filter on vision. The sheer annoyance that was liable to instill idiotic decisions and cloud rationality. One that would even drive people to quit. He sat back and feasted on it all.

For that’s what he did, really. It’s what he’d always do.

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