THE ZILLIONAIRES XVIII

(The Death of Ryan)

"Please?!" begged Andrea Jr. for the 12^th time, "Please? I’ll be back by midnight. Please?!"

"No, Andrea, you can’t go and see the movie tonight." Ryan told his daughter, "You have school tomorrow at 8 a.m.. Besides, the movie is rated ‘R’. You’re only 14. How could you get in without permission?"

"Now-a-days you have to be 16 to see ‘R’ movies. I’m two year off. Big deal. If that didn’t work, you could give me a signed permission slip saying that I was allowed to see "The Death Crystal III" without you being there."

"I’m sorry, Andrea, but no."

"Yeah, You’re really sorry. Then why won’t you let me go?" Andrea muttered as she stormed off to her room. She was as mad she could possibly be.

Why won’t he let me go?! She thought, I’m old enough to slip in. All of my friends get to go see it but do I? NO! It’s not fair!!!! I’ll pay Dad back!

Andrea was in the same mood all night long. She was the kind of person that could hold a grudge against some one forever. She was still mad at her brother and Eric for the joke they played on her a while back. She didn’t get much sleep that night because she was planning revenge.

At around 6:00 a.m., Andrea got ready for school and went to the kitchen for some breakfast. Her mind was still a big blank for revenge ideas. She hoped that some food would help her think clearly.

Ryan came into the room and sat down. As soon as he noticed how tired his daughter was, he asked, "What’s the matter, Andrea? You look like you’ve been up all night. Is there something wrong?"

"No, Dad, I’m fine. I just didn’t get much sleep last night."

"Oh, were you up late studying for that big science exam?"

"SCIENCE EXAM?!!!" Andrea exclaimed, "OH NO!!!!! I forgot all about it!" she hopped up from the table and shouted, "I gotta go study! Science is my hardest subject! If I fail this, I’ll have to go to summer school!"

Ryan finished his breakfast and took a shower. He got dressed and grabbed his gun and keys. Ryan walked out the door to go to work when Keith sped around the side of the house in his newly invented Hydro Flyer.

It was a 5,000 H.P. helicopter/plane that could change to off-road truck. It could also change to Hydrocraft and to a submarine. At that time, it was a truck.

Keith skidded to a smoking stop inches from Ryan. Dust flew every, including on Ryan’s brand-new suit.

"Hey Ry, how ya doing? Ready to go to work? Come on. I’ll give you a lift in my Hydro Flyer."

"Do you mind?!" Ryan asked furiously, "This is a new suit! It’s the only one in existence! If it gets ruined, I’ll... I’ll... Arrrrrrgggg!!!"

"Well sorry O.K.? Now do you want to ride to work with me?"

"You think I’m going to get in that death trap with you? You haven’t even tested it yet!" Ryan said, and got in anyway, "Pretty comfortable in here."

"Thanks. So which way do you want to go? Land or air?"

"I choose all of them... the back way."

"All right! Let’s go!" Keith stepped on the gas and spun the truck around.

The Hydro Flyer zoomed through the trees in the back yard and into the lake. The vehicle turned into a boat and hovered across the water.

200 feet before it reached the other side, Keith jumped it into the air with the extremely powerful turbo rockets that he had invented a month before. When it reached it’s highest possible peak, Keith turned it into the helicopter. Keith and his amazed brother flew to the secret base in minutes. The rest of their day was uneventful.

When they got home, the front door was locked.

"Hey, what’s going on?" Ryan said. He pushed harder, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he tried the access code again. It didn’t work.

Suddenly, Ryan heard someone giggled from inside of the house. He peeked through the window and saw his daughter Andrea laughing.

"Andrea!" he called, "Open the door right now or you’re in big trouble!"

"No, Dad. I don’t want to. It’s not that I don’t love you, its just that I want revenge. See what it feels like to not get your way. Also, I’m not going to let you inside until tomorrow morning."

"But why are you doing this? What’s gotten into you? "

"Are you dumb? You were mean to me and wouldn’t let me go and see the movie. That’s why I’m mad at you."

"Please let me in."

"No, Dad. If I do, you’ll only punish me severely. And don’t try to get in. All of the doors and windows are locked and you’ll never figure out my own special code. It can’t be broken. Good night, Dad. See you in the morning." With that, Andrea turned and went up to her room.

"ANDREA!!!" Ryan screamed. It was no use. She wouldn’t come. And there was no-one else in the house to let him in. His wife and son were gone to a teacher conference in another state. They wouldn’t be back until early the next morning.

Ryan walked around into the back yard and tried to find a place to sleep. He spotted a 4 foot deep hole were there was once a tree. He gathered up a bunch of leaves and made a bed. Ryan sat in the hole for a while, and then he fell asleep at around eleven. Little did he know, he never should have gone near the hole.

The hole that Ryan was in was actually a home to a deadly beast that Ryan didn’t know about. It was the Gorzak, a monster that could wipe out people with unbelievable force.

The Gorzak was a blueish-gray color, and about seven feet tall. It had a huge mouth full of razor-sharp teeth that spun like a chainsaw. No-one knew what they were made of. Six eyes stuck out from all over it’s head, allowing for superb vision capabilities. It had seven tusks sticking out from the mouth and it had twelve long horns jutting from all over it’s body. The Gorzak stood on it’s hind legs. It was almost human-like. On each side of it’s body, it had three arms with huge hands. The palms of the hands had thorns on them. Each arm had three fingers with claws like raptors. It always grunted as it walked. The Gorzak’s back had a line of spikes which could puncture through anything.

It approached the hole, and saw that a human was in it. "RRRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRKKKKKKKK!" it exclaimed.

Ryan shot up. The sound he had just heard chilled him to the bones. He peaked over the edge of the hole and screamed bloody murder.

Their was no escape. Ryan tried to run but it was futile. The Gorzak overtook him and swung it’s fist into Ryan’s back. The spikes penetrated his back bone but missed his spinal cord. Ryan screamed in pain and fell to the ground as he spit up blood. The beast grabbed Ryan’s leg and twisted it. It curled up and popped off with a sickening crack. The bone crunched and broke.

The Gorzak smashed Ryan’s head with the disembodied leg. Blood splattered all over and blood came out of his mouth onto the ground. Ryan was dead.

The beast tore off Ryan’s head and threw it towards the house. Then it began pulling off parts of Ryan and eating him. It spit out Ryan’s bones into the hole. It used it’s arms and jabbed them into Ryan’s gut. The Gorzak pulled Ryan’s belly apart and brought it up to it’s mouth. The Gorzak sucked out Ryan’s intestines like spaghetti and the heart fell onto the blood-soaked grass. It was smeared into the ground as the monster walked over it towards the woods.

The next day, Andrea was felling like being kind to her dad after what she had done. She could hear her mom’s car coming up the drive about a mile away. She went to the front door and opened it. Andrea called out, "Dad! You can come in now! Dad!" she called him for a few more minutes before she went to look for her father. Then she found the blood and his head, a look of unimaginable terror on his face. Andrea screamed. People from miles away heard her. Everyone, including her entire family, came running, and they saw what was left of Ryan’s body.

"OH RYAN!" screamed his wife. She kept calling out his name. "Ryan! Ryan! She started crying over what was left of his body."

"Wait!" Keith said, "I might be able to make him live again! I can take his brain and use it to bring him back to life!"

Keith got Ryan’s head and took it down to his lab. He opened it up and took out Ryan’s brain. He put it in a cylinder used in cryosurgery. He took it and put it is a container of liquid nitrogen. Then Keith began to build an android robot to put Ryan’s brain in. Ryan would have all of his memories and everything, but he would be a robot with fake skin and real brains.

Keith finished the robot and removed Ryan’s brain from his cryolab. The brain was put in the android while everyone watched. Keith hooked it up and put in a power charge, the world’s longest lasting battery. It only had to be charged every 150 years. A minute later, Ryan came back to life.

Everyone cheered, and they really cheered. Keith’s ears felt like they were going to burst from the noise.

Ryan sat up from the table and looked around through his video cameras in his eyes. "What is going on?" he asked, in his own voice. He got up and walked around. Everyone watched, amazed. Ryan was completely normal in every way, except that he didn’t feel pain, eat, sleep, or use the bathroom. Other than that, he was perfect and super-strong.

The next day, Ryan new exactly what happened. He had been connected to Keith’s computer by Keith and knew everything. He also scanned the outside video cameras and found the tape with his murder. It was very gory.

Only Ryan and Keith and their wives were allowed to see it. No-one else did. Andrea Jr., Ryan Jr., Eric, and Sarah didn’t get to see it either.

Meanwhile, Ryan had severely punished Andrea. Her anger had gotten him killed. She was, at the moment, in the Punishment Room.

The Punishment Room was a room that Ryan had built a year before. It was small, and had a bathroom and a bed in it. It also had a desk and a small window. It had no toys or books except school stuff. Andrea would be living there for one year. She would not leave except to go to school and eat and work. She would not play or see her friends. She could not use the phone, watch T.V., or use a computer. She was being punished and there was no way around it. Not even an army could have made Ryan lift the punishment off of his daughter.

Ryan looked over himself closely. He was amazed at Keith’s skill in making androids. No-one would ever know that he was a robot by looking at him, or even by studying him closely.

Keith went to his brother and said to him, "Well, Ryan, I guess you are ready to try out your new skills. I’ve come up with the perfect plan. We’ll go to New York and stop the crime. We’ll get money from the people we arrest and build jails. That way, the badguys will have to pay for their jails and food. Jails are like hotels that you can’t check out of. You should have to pay for yourself, so we’ll do that to the criminals. It’s the right thing to do. The government shouldn’t have to pay for the criminals. The criminals should."

Ryan said, "Do you really want to do that with me? I’m still a human, sorta."

"Ryan, you are not human. You just have a human brain. That’s all."

"Oh."

Then they went to New York to fight the crime. New York was filled with it. All over the city, .5% of the population was either killed, beaten up, or robbed every time they went outside their doors. It was horrible.

Keith and his android brother checked into a hotel there. Then they went out onto the streets. As they walked outside, a man came up to them. He walked by them and bumped into Keith.

"Hey!" Keith shouted. He knew that no-one just bumped into you unless they were pickpockets. He reached down and put his hand in his pocket and sure enough, his fake wallet, the bait, had been taken.

The guy ran down the street with Keith and Ryan hot on his trail.

"Stop in the name of the law!" Keith shouted, as he aimed his stun gun at the guy and fired. The stunner hit a wall and blew a chuck out of it. The robber turned down an alley and ran by some garbage cans. Keith and Ryan followed at top speed.

Ryan was running 40 miles an hour so he easily passed Keith, who ran half as fast.

The criminal pushed down an elderly lady and jumped into a taxi cab and forced the driver to drive.

Keith made sure that the woman was alright, then continued the chase.

Ryan was ahead and jumped onto the taxi. Keith grabbed a motorcycle, gave the owner a 4,000 dollar check, and took off. He dodged in and out of traffic and managed to come along side of the taxi. Meanwhile, Ryan had punched out the back window and was reaching in for the guy. The criminal forced the taxi driver out of the car and slid into the driver’s seat. The cab driver fell right into the way of Keith, but Keith jerked the bike out of the way in time. He dropped a 50,000 dollar check beside the guy to pay for the car. He raced up to the cab again and knocked out the driver’s side window. Just then, the badguy swerved the car into the oncoming lane and spun around. He headed back the way he came. Keith turned around and followed. Ryan climbed into the back seat and stuck a gun at the guy’s neck.

"All right, buddy," Ryan said, "pull this car off the road now!"

The pickpocket, instead of obeying, swerved the car around in a 360^o turn. Ryan flew over to the right and was flung out of the door. Keith picked him up and they chased the guy. Keith came up to the left and grabbed the steering wheel. He spun it to the right and the car jerked right and into an alley. Keith was still beside the car, and the alley was getting narrower and narrower. A dumpster was up ahead on the left wall, and the criminal stayed as close as he could, intending on making Keith and Ryan crash into it. Ryan jumped off of the bike and onto the taxi. He punched out the front windshield and as Keith slowed down to get to the right of the car, Ryan moved the wheel to the left hard. The car crashed into the side and kept going towards the dumpster, showering sparks all over the trash-strewn alley. The car hit the dumpster. It was instantly forced to a stop. The dumpster flew through the air, out of the alley, and into the front window of a restaurant. Everyone inside screamed as the dumpster, glass, and garbage flew all over the room. No-one was hurt, but they were all covered with garbage. Ryan and the criminal didn’t know that this was happening, because as it did, they were flying through the air too.

The robber flew forward and just barely managed to grab a hold of a fire escape. Ryan missed his legs by a fraction of a centimeter as he soared by.

Just then, the taxi cab exploded into a zillion shards of metal. Pieces of it flew all over the alley and out into the road. Flames roared up into the air and people screamed. The walls on either side blew inward into the buildings but missed the cars in the parking garages.

The badguy raced up the stairs. Keith went up after him while Ryan flew up the side with his turbo rocket boosters attached to his feet. The robber was amazed, but he still ran.

"Stop or I’ll kill you!" said Ryan, "I will catch you and I’m an expert shooter!"

The criminal didn’t even slow down. When he reached the top of the roof, he went to the door that led down into the building. Keith and Ryan chased him.

They were in an apartment building.

The badguy was getting tired, so when he didn’t see his pursuers, he went into a storage room and hid to rest. Ryan snuck into the room and scanned it with his heat sensors. He knew where the man was, and blasted away the box he was hiding behind. Ryan went over to him and held a gun at his face. Keith finally came in and blocked the door.

"You are under arrest." Ryan said. He handcuffed the guy and took him to jail until they got his money and built a jail with it. He also had to pay for the taxi and the restaurant damage.

The rest of the night they chased badguys and caught a lot of them, but it took them a week to get them all.

Keith and Ryan caught the badguys easily because Ryan could detect crime. He also traced the brain waves of the entire town. He was able to see if the people had committed any crimes and if they had been already punished for because his robot body could see what was in the memories of all the people.

New York had almost no criminals now, because of the two brothers.

The next day, Keith and Ryan went home.

"Well, Ryan," said Keith, "I think that it’s time for you to kill that Gorzak."

"What?! Kill the Gorzak?? But how?! It’ll kill me again!"

"Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. I built you. You are a robot. The Gorzak isn’t strong enough to beat you. All you need is a special weapon. I’ll make you one."

"When will you make it and when will I get the Gorzak?" Ryan inquired.

"Now." Keith answered.

Keith immediately went to work on the weapon. It would be a gun with bombs and everything else, even a flame thrower. When it was done, Keith connected it to Ryan. He took off Ryan’s arm and put on the gun. It was specially designed to be taken on and off of Ryan.

Keith also designed a giant claw with a hand span of five feet! It had ten "fingers" that could crush a car with ease.

Then Ryan went out to find the Gorzak. He went back to the hole where he was killed, and looked around.

There were some footprints that were made by the monster. But the monster wasn’t there.

Ryan walked around the yard and to the back fence. He followed it until he came to a hole going under it. There were the Gorzak’s footprints.

Ryan looked in all directions and saw a bush move to his left. He went over to examine it. Before he got five feet from it, the Gorzak jumped out and lunged onto Ryan, knocking on the ground!

His body instantly retaliated. Ryan punched at the beast’s face and made a direct hit. It howled in pain and sliced into Ryan’s face. It revealed the robotic interior. The circuits sparked and shocked the monster’s clawed hand with a quick, electrical pulse, burning it.

The Gorzak was amazed and in mild pain, but kept on fighting to kill Ryan a second time.

Ryan didn’t feel any pain.

He grabbed the monster’s upper right arm with his claw and said, "This is for killing me." Ryan squeezed and the beast’s arm off. It fell to the ground, dripping blood, and, while the Gorzak screamed in never-before felt pain, the arm jerked around like a headless chicken.

Ryan grabbed the monster by the throat and pulled the head and body apart. The Gorzak was dead! He used his gun to pump the body full of lead and then he torched it. Then, finally, he blew it into chunky kibblets.

Ryan gathered up the body parts and incinerated them until they were nothing but a pile of white ashes. As Ryan walked away, he thanked God that he was alive and that he had survived. He walked home to continue his new life, given to him by God with Keith’s help.