"How you doing, Texas?" "Staying frosty?" "Better get your game face on... 'cause that's the Venture Compound over there." "Yeah, we lost a lot of good men trying to take that hill." "21, why are you wasting your breath on the new meat?" "!" "Nine out of ten don't even last a month!" "Attention, my coiled minions!" "Battle speech." "Smoke 'em if you got 'em." "Coil, my bright and bewinged army!" "Coil and prepare to strike like the deadly sky-flowers you are!" " This is making me feel a little gay." " You, sir, are a big gay." "...awaits the enemies of the Mon" " What?" "!" "OK, so I'm getting the wrap-it-up signal." "Me, The Monarch." "Yes, all right!" "Fine!" "Release the cloud of deception/diversion!" " Here we go!" " On your feet, Texas!" " Go, go, go!" " Fly, my spangly vengeance!" "Fly to victory!" "Brock Samson!" "More power!" "I must have more power!" "Look, Brock." "His fingers!" "They're twitching." "Yeah, well, a stiff will do that if you shove a gigavolt up its ass." "No, he's alive!" "Alive I tell you." "Sure, Doc." "Holy..." "Told ya." "This is it, Brock, The big one." "The holy grail of super-science!" "Brock, cliché!" "Well, great." "Just great." "Now you broke his whole head." "Hey, there, bright eyes." "Feeling better?" "So, no hard feelings." "I'll chalk your little strangle-tantrum up to the surprise resurrection... and the adrenaline enema and your basic criminal nature." "Hey, pop, why is the top of that guy's head black?" "Not black, Hank, African American." "The top of that guy's head is African American." "Dad, why is the top of this guy's head African American?" "Because Brock caved in his original cranium, and I had to use whatever fit." "So, Brock killed him?" "And you brought him back to life?" "That's right, boys." "Your father's beating death at her own game." "Father!" "No!" "No, no, no." " Father." " Oh, no." "Don't think of me as your father." "Please!" "I get enough of that noise from these two." "Darn!" "Out of gas." "Hey, gang, dig this!" "Looks like some sort of secret abandoned military base." "Patriarchal white pig square's nest." "Far out, Val." "But something's fishy in the state of Denmark." "I can feel a mystery coming on." "Ted, you said I could see my parents." "This was on the way, Patty." "We've been driving to my parents' house for ten years." " You promised." " Patty... being out of your box isn't a right, it's a privilege." "Baby, you don't want to go back in your box, do you?" "No." "Sonny, Groovy, wake up!" "Mystery time." "Please, Groov, just say something to them." "Say a "hi" or anything... just so they'll believe me." "I'm not here to talk to them." "You are the hand chosen by the master." "No!" "Yours is the Wheel of Blood." "Yours is the sword of Michael." "Hey, Sonny?" "Shut up!" "Shut up...damn it!" "I can't hear myself think." "Come on, Sonny." "Mystery." "...your mystery, man. I'm sick." "Sonny?" "Bet you'll come out for some Groovy treats." "Why do we have to eat breakfast with your dead guy?" "Venturestein has been through a lot, Dean." " Venturestein!" " You like that?" " Sure do, pop." " Good boy, Hank." "Dean?" "Right now, Hank is better than you." "Anywho, the next phase of my work will be to socialize Venturestein... to help him make the transition from dead guy to contributing member of society." "Who says dead people can't carry their own weight?" "And maybe some of your stuff while they're at it." "Dude!" "Fly walking on your eye!" "I don't know about this, Ted." "Patty, if God didn't want us to solve this mystery... he wouldn't have had us run out of gas here." "But what's the mystery?" "You know?" "We're not out of gas, man." "We got a five-gallon can in the back of the..." "Damn it!" "Why do you hate God so much?" "I don't hate God, man." "Well, God thinks you hate Him." "And that's just as bad as hating Him." "So, how about you and Groovy go start looking for some clues." "Clues to what?" "What is your trip?" "Clues to why I don't chain you to the back of my van... and road-haul you till you're nothing but a pelvis wearing a belt." "Guy is pissing on your lawn, man." "What?" "What are you looking at?" " Why does he gotta cry like that?" " l think you scare him." "I'm not the one who froze his corpse... or nuked him back from the great beyond... to be a half-dead short-bus seat-warmer." "But you did kill him." "And then when I unkilled him, you kind of did it again." "You hit him so hard he's got an afro now." "Yeah!" "You're like fire to his Frankenstein." " Venturestein." " Right!" "And Venturestein is all like..." ""Brock bad!"" "Mr. Venture, I caught you." " Yay." " As per our landlord-tenant agreement... I come to inform you of a small gathering I will host... from say 5:00 in the post-meridian until question mark." "Whatever." "Knock yourself out." "Any and all who hunger to know the secrets of self... which stud like internal suns in the inky lattice-work of our very minds... may join us in our purgative journey of... ls that man dead?" "No." "Once again, Mr. Venture you cut decency to the quick... and leave her to die in prostitute alley!" "Prostitoo!" "Prostitute." " Prostitoo!" " Prostitute." "Brock, you're a man of no small character." " What say you on this?" " Not really my department." "But we two souls have shared a cheese sandwich more than twice... and the stitched together quilt of your stony silences... forms a tapestry of quiet desperation." "No, it doesn't." "You are truly a Grim Reaper, my friend." "But when you need to talk, I will be there." "All right then." "Brock bad." "Good!" "Suffixed consonants!" "Good!" "Brock bad!" "And that's the problem with men, Patty." "The Y-gene is just an incomplete X-chromosome, dig?" "A man is an incomplete female." "Just a walking abortion." "Gosh!" "I hope Ted lets me take a shower soon." "Zip it, gang." "Something's going down." "Oh, my God!" "Who is Héctor Molina... and why do they keep sending me his junk mail?" "Heads up, kids." "Think we may have stumbled onto a Dracula factory." "Where the heck did they put African America?" "I don't know, Hank... but it's not on any of my charts." "I know." "To the learning beds!" "Dude, I am not getting in that thing with stinky old Venturestein." "What's he doing in there anyway?" "Dad said he needs to socialize him?" "Stand by for Part 7-B of Volume One." "Take this time to reflect..." "Who's down in the old manufacturing wing?" "I'll get the flashlight!" "I'll get the astronaut ice cream!" "Hi!" "I'm Everyday Joe!" "I speak for you because..." "Well, heck, I am you!" "And sometimes I catch both of us wondering..." ""Hey, what's good about child labor?"" "Yes, General Manhowers." "My Venturesteins could be easily adapted to ground warfare." "I suppose their chest cavities could hold quite a lot of C4, certainly." "That many?" "No, of course!" "No, that's wonderful, General." "Wonderful!" "Good." "Everything's going my way, finally." "Cross that off the old to do list." "Come on!" "Come on." "Look, grandpa!" "I made a shoe all by myself!" "Little Jorge knows the satisfaction of a job well done... and so can you!" "Just watch and listen carefully... and soon you'll be ready for a career in bonded servitude!" " See you in a jiffy!" " Vivan los zapatos!" "Prostitoo!" "Prostitoo!" "Brock!" "Think I might be a tapestry of quiet desperation." "Excellent!" "Everyone!" "The sacred death vine ceremony is about to begin." "Allow me to introduce our guide..." "Don Rio impossible lsabanco... one of the Amazon's most learned shaman." "I can feel it, friends!" "Tonight will be a night of great healing and human oneness." "I'm not sure this is my scene." "Correction!" "Dracula-Frankenstein factory!" "The few remaining men will exist as studs... breeding in the cow pasture." "Or they could go off to the nearest suicide center... where they'll be quietly gassed to death." "Come on, guys!" "Val, don't." "Pray tell, Brock Samson, you old so and so." "What burden does your soul carry to our sacred circle?" "I don't know." "Just not on my game today." "Something's not...right." "You are a child of the past." "We must be children of the future." " Hang on a sec." "What?" " Brock." "I need dead people." "Lots and lots of dead people." "I've got twelve with the henchmen you killed... not counting the black guy with half a head." "But we need like 100-something." "We need like a full gross of dead people." "Right, and...where are we gonna get all these dead people?" "Well, I thought seeing as how you're..." "you know, you and all... I thought...maybe..." "you could go out and..." "No." " Make some..." " No." " ...dead people." " No." " Well, fine!" " Thanks a lot for not helping!" " Anything else?" "Help me get dead people!" "Soup's on, everyone!" "Painted lips." "Schoolgirl outfits." "And the pretty hair, Sonny." "The hair needs to be punished, Sonny!" "Would ya give it a rest, Groov?" "Start doing the master's bidding!" "You're already filthy with wrath and sin!" " Halt!" " Who goes there?" "!" " ..." "God, wow!" " A hippie!" " We better follow him!" " And how!" " What is this?" " Liquid extract of the death vine." "Your portal to another world of consciousness." "This some kind of Jonestown deal?" "Let not the Dixie cup mislead you!" "The death vine will allow you to shed your ego." "Only then... can the repair of your spiritual whole commence." "What the hell." "Sonny, Groovy!" " There you are!" " Ted!" "I'm losing it, man!" "No Groovy treat until you find a clue, dirtbag." "I just saw those kids!" "What kids, Sonny?" "The squares from back in Baja when I was all freaked!" "Don't you remember?" "!" "Like, two years ago!" "Me and Groovy had just run into something." "Groov said it was a monitor lizard, but I wasn't so sure." "And then, all of a sudden..." "Sonny!" "What happened?" "!" "They freaked me, man." "What?" "You think I need this kind of heat?" "!" "Do you?" "!" " l'm sorry!" " Do you?" "!" "Sonny, I swear to the Lord God, my savior... I will kill the living...out of that dog!" "Shut that dog up!" "No." "No, no." "It's OK, Groovy." " l got to learn..." " Yeah." "That's right." "Learn what?" "Got to learn to respect... and not to harsh Ted's mellow." "Boys?" "!" "Boys?" "!" "Brock got the X-1 started." "Let's go!" "Don't make me come down there, boys!" "These are my dress-up shoes." "Don't you see, Ted?" "They have to be ghosts... 'cause I killed them!" "Yeah." "He was just this guy." "A guy in a butterfly suit who got in over his head." "And I could see it in his eyes... that if I let him get away this one time... he'd never come back." "But... then I also thought, you know... kill him." "What kind of way is that to..." "One time... I'm on the Amazon in my canoe... and I see swim the dolphin... the beautiful dolphin... so, I slip out of my canoe... and I grab her...this fish... and then I...it, this fish!" "Hell's that got to do with anything?" "!" "Hot dolphin!" "You're an idiot!" "Don Rio is a transcendent multidimensional genius, Brock." "His every word an onion of infinite leaf... his every pearl..." "Yes." "This is coming on... 30,000 feet." "Cruising altitude." "Oh, God!" "Feel like I got a stomach full of drunk bees." "Brock Samson... this is your chance to find the way of peace... of positive rainbow energization... and karmic repair." "Dried up little Keebler!" "You poisoned me!" "Venturestein?" "!" "Change of curriculum." "You're going to military school!" "Problemo." "You know what?" "I think I... I feel a little bad about killing that guy." "Yes, my friend." "A splendid first step ind" "All right!" "Yeah!" "Just cool out, Sonny." "Look." "Val found some tools and crap that I think we can sell." "For money?" " What are you doing?" "!" " Yeah!" "That's our dad's stuff!" "Get off our property!" "Sonny!" "You were right!" "And this dog...talks, man!" "Think these guys have a screw loose, Hanker." "Copy that." "No, no!" "Sonny killed you." "I'm telling you." "Like, they're ghosts, man!" "Only one way to find out." "Super run-away!" "You see, Brock Samson, we're all one." "We all share the same need... for shelter, warmth, fulfillment." "The secret of happiness, lies not in conquest... but in empathy." "Better dolphin!" " Samson!" " Hunter?" "!" "What is all this nambi-pambi feel bad about good wet-work moose crap?" "!" "You're beyond good and evil, Superman!" " You work for the Government." " What about... humanity and empathy and all that garbage?" "Who cares?" "You're going to Special Ops heaven." " Really?" " Really!" "And it's...damn great!" "A G-Man Valhala!" "There's trim and guns everywhere." "We eat steak-flavored clouds and poop secrets!" "But you're not even dead!" "You're a woman." "And you're a tool, boy." "A tool!" "Built for a single purpose by the United States... of shut your third...damn eye for a...reason!" "You can't teach a hammer to love nails, son." "That dog don't hunt!" "Don't hunt!" "Don't hunt!" "I didn't think hippies had guns!" "They're probably, like, pirate hippies!" "Find it, Groov." "Find it!" "Ghosts don't run away from bullets." "So, what are you?" "Ted!" "Like, look!" "Dean?" "!" "Dean?" "!" " What is this?" "!" " Oh, Hank." "You're not ghosts." "You're the...boys from Brazil." "Frankenstein!" "I want to go back to my mom!" "Prostitoo!" "No!" "Another one!" " Don't hunt!" " Not so fast, los" "Don't shoot me!" " Oh, God!" " Oh, God!" "Mine is the sword of Michael!" "I'm so cold, man." "I'm so...cold." "Oh, no." "Well, Venturestein... I'd say that radioactive isotope I put in your spine... is worth its weight in radioactivity." " Doc!" " What's going on here?" "!" "It's bad, Doc, real bad." "The boys saw their own clones." "I think they're in some kind of... saw-your-own-clone coma." "Boys!" "Get up!" " Yes, sir!" " l hope you're proud of yourselves." "You've..." " You've ruined the surprise." " The what?" "!" "This was going to be your Christmas present." "A whole big army of yous... ready to think you're the coolest, and do your chores... maybe eliminate targets in high-risk combat zones." "But now you've ruined the surprise!" "So I'll have to think of something even better." "Even better?" "!" "Now, get upstairs, you little Indians, and wash off all that Chicanery." "Macaroni and cheese tonight!" "Dad, you're the best dad ever." "Yes, I am." "Two, plus..." "Well, it's a start." "Prostitoos!" "You got it, V-stein." "That's the game plan." " Shoe!" " Oh, no, man, no." "They're not gonna give it up for a shoe you made out of a dog." " Shoe." " Forget it, V. lt's my treat." "Brock good!" "Qué sopa más buena!"