The rain had finally stopped simping and decided to commit to full-on downpour. Norfolk looked like it had been power-washed by God’s depressed uncle on a bender.
Trash Goblin Peddles Firearms on Local News
Bolo Solo sat shotgun in Rank Fentnals’ 2024 Honda Civic, which was currently idling like it was having an identity crisis. The glove compartment was open and arguing with the cup holders about emotional availability.
Anya was crammed in the back seat, legs draped over a tower of leaking Monster cans. A family of feral socks had nested beneath the cans, balancing the nihilistic edifice remarkably well. Her optic-fiber dress had given up the pretension of deluxury. It was now glowing a sickly hangover green.
In the driver’s seat, Rank Fentnals was eating cold lo mein with his bare hands while the Civic’s broken GPS screamed directions in a British accent that kept glitching into a pirate’s.
“Left turn in two hundred feet, ya scurvy bastards—wait, recalculating—ye be headin’ straight for the abyss, matey!”
“Rank,” Bolo said, voice low and tired, “why the fuck are we doing this at 2:17 in the morning?”
Rank slurped a noodle with psychotic precision, sauce dripping down his chin in fractal patterns, like war paint. “Because the state says I gotta prove I’m a fit parent, that’s why. Tonight’s the midnight custody hearing for Lil’ Dumpster. And you two degenerates are my character witnesses.”
Anya sat up so fast she nearly headbutted the ceiling. “You have a child?”
“Not a child,” Rank corrected proudly, patting the dashboard. “A son. Lil’ Dumpster. He’s a 2019 Waste Management dropout. Smartest little trash compactor in the whole Stratum. But his bitch case worker—some shiny LinkedIn droid from Child Protective Services—wants to take him away and put him in a ‘regulated reparenting facility.’ Over my rotten, bullet-ridden corpse!”
The Civic honked in solidarity.
Bolo’s hypertranslation algorithms detected a morse transmission.
’24 CIVIC:
“DEAR GOD.
KILL. ME.”
The glove compartment slammed itself shut in protest.
Crackmuffin’s voice crackled through Bolo’s lapel mic, sounding far too awake for this hour.
[ CRACKMUFFIN ]: // ANALYZING //:
“Rank Fentnals vs. The State of Virginia. This is going to be a legal bloodbath. Also, the Civic just sent me its therapy notes. It’s projecting. Hard.
Decoding…
It wants me to know that I am the problem.
Going on standby…
Just wake me if Civic mentions me again…
Thanks…”
Bolo rubbed his temples while Crackmuffin settled into a low-frequency hum. “Rank, when you said we could have the Civic, you didn’t mention committing perjury.”
“Technically it’s an administrative hearing in the back of a condemned Waffle House,” Rank said cheerfully. “Judge is my ex-wife’s parole officer. Real stand-up guy. Takes bribes in broad daylight.”
Anya leaned forward between the seats, eyes glittering with hypomanic interest. “So what’s our job? Lie through our teeth?”
“Exactly,” Rank grinned, showing off teeth that had lost several battles with reality. “You tell the judge what a nurturing, stable environment I provide. How Lil’ Dumpster is thriving. How I have an LLM swarm generate him bedtime stories every damn night.”
Bolo raised an eyebrow. “Bedtime stories?”
“Mostly just me yelling ‘LOOK AT THE GAHBIDGE!’ while I throw expired yogurt at him. He loves it. So do the robots. They say it builds character.”
The Civic swerved hard to avoid an above-ground swimming pool, crashing through a hopefully vacant home.
In the backseat, Anya started laughing—sharp, unhinged, the kind that made birds reconsider migration patterns and Bolo consider what she was wearing underneath that stupid dress.
They pulled up behind the condemned Waffle House. The parking lot was lit by a single flickering streetlight and the glow of Rank’s phone screen, which was playing a looped TikTok video of himself wrestling a recycling bin.
Inside, the “courtroom” was four folding tables pushed together. A tired-looking man in a stained polo shirt sat at the head, sipping from a mug that read “I think I’m Okay.”
Lil’ Dumpster sat in the corner on a pile of cardboard— a dented Surro-Bot with its trauma recycling unit bashed in. Someone had Sharpied cartoon eyes over its Automated Paternal Gaze Deflectors.
It had a little bowtie made from a twist tie.
Rank Fentnals strutted in like he owned the building.
He had certainly squatted here before, Bolo mused.
“Your Honor,” he began, chest puffed, “I am a loving father. I provide for my boy. I teach him the ways of the Trash. He is the descendant of a long lineage of Stratum Goblins. Hard-working, honest-living GAHBIDGE GOBBLIN’ GOBBOS. He’s learning to eat aluminum like you ain’t neva gonna—”
The case worker cut him off. “Mr. Fentnals, last week you were filmed teaching your… son… how to hotwire a Prius using a lighter and a cracked-in-half disposable vaporizer.”
Rank shrugged. “Practical skills! The kid’s gotta eat!”
Bolo and Anya exchanged a look.
This required the nuclear option.
Bolo stepped forward, voice smooth as cigarette smoke. “Look, I’ve seen Rank with Lil’ Dumpster. He’s patient. He’s present. When the kid had that meltdown last month and had to spend a week in his school’s padded room, Rank stayed up all night drinking to his memory.”
Anya nodded solemnly, placing a hand over her heart. “He sang ‘Illegal Alien’ by Genesis on loop for six hours…”
She gestured at the rusted-over Surro-Bot.
“Clearly something must have worked. Parenting is a process, your honor.”
The Social Worker short-circuited. “Your what..?”
Crackmuffin interrupted, chimed in through Bolo’s hidden earpiece, feeding lines like a chaotic angel:
[ CRACKMUFFIN ]: Tell them Rank’s emotional intelligence score is higher than most Fortune 500 CEOs. Also mention the Civic co-parents beautifully.
Bolo kept up the pace. “Plus, the Civic helps with carpool. They’re a blended family. Very modern.”
The case worker stared at them like he was questioning every life choice that led him here.
Rank Fentnals seized the moment. He walked over to Lil’ Dumpster, placed his gnarled, calloused hand in its rusty coif of wires, scraping his skin and eliciting a visible stutter from the Surro-Bot, and yelled directly at the ceiling:
“LOOK AT MY BOY! HE’S BEAUTIFUL! HE’S GOT DREAMS! HE’S GONNA EAT TRASH! DUMP MUMBLE RAP RIGHT INTO THE STRATUM! ALL THE GOBBO GIRLS GONNA GOBBLE HIM UP! AIN’T THAT RIGHT, LIL’ DUMPSTER!”
Rank was crying.
And so was everyone else.
The dumpster made a low, happy grinding noise and ejected a single perfectly compacted cube of garbage like it was showing off.
The case worker looked exhausted. He had seen too much. He blinked away tears, though when questioned he’ll just say it was allergies. “Fine. Temporary custody granted. But if I get one more video of you teaching that thing how to shoplift from Walmart, I’m revoking everything.”
Rank threw both arms up in victory. “YES! THE TRASH MAN WINS AGAIN!”
He scooped up Lil’ Dumpster and chucked him through the Waffle House wall, creating a tunnel into a parallel universe. Rank then whipped his Surro-Bot son around his head, dropped it, and adjusted his championship belt.
Fentnals then slowly walked into the GAHBIDGE GOBBO portal with his Surro-Son dragged, smoke rising from small fires all across his mechanical body, behind him, grasping Fentnals’s calf.
Anya leaned into Bolo’s side, her fingers digging into his arm—half affection, half threat. “We just helped a goblin win custody of a surrogate, trash-eating robot son. I think this is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
She took Bolo’s hand and guided it to her lower back.
Bolo flicked the ash from his lit cigarette onto the ragged pavement outside, and allowed the virus to overwrite his nervous system. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t dealt with before.
And it felt pretty nice.
The Civic revved proudly.
The glove compartment popped open and spat out two slightly warm forty-ounce brews, both opened and left un-opened hours ago, in celebration.
Crack water for the madame?
Anya squealed in histrionic rapture and took both bottles.
Bolo winced as he got back into the car. His knees hurt. The rain started up again.
Crackmuffin’s voice crackled one last time:
[ CRACKMUFFIN ]: // FINAL ANALYSIS //
“Congratulations. You have now officially made the timeline weirder. Estimated chaos increase: 47%. I’m proud of you degenerates.”
“Degenerates?” Bolo asked, exhaling smoke into the humid night and grinning at the glowing Cancer constellation finally breaking through the clouds. “You didn’t align with any of Rank’s values or anything, right Crackmuffin?”
[ CRACKMUFFIN ]: “Another win for the ghosts in the machine!”
Anya squeezed his arm harder.
Bolo stopped worrying.
Anya squeezed even harder.
Bolo started worrying again.
They both heard a crack in the sky above them. Sparks flew downward, incinerating entire city blocks, melting cars, triggering alarms.
Rank Fentnals’s ghastly visage broke through the skybox, holding a giant trash can above his thick shoulders. The can was dumping hot magma across the city skyline.
It was beautiful.
And there was Rank.
Smiling.
Just smiling.
The Honda Civic peeled out, blasting melodic deathmetal that wasn’t actually bad for once.
Bolo smiled, too.
Somewhere in the Trash Stratum, a new legend was born.
-FIN –
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