Chương 223: Chapter 222: The Fourth Time (01/18/2016)

DATE: Tuesday, January 18, 2016 LOCATION: Burbank, CA | The Tonight Show The lights of The Tonight Show stage were blinding, but the atmosphere was decidedly surreal. Neil Tillman, a man whose smile always seemed to be held in place by professional obligation, leaned forward in his chair.

"We're back with two of my favorite people," Tillman said, gesturing to his guests.

"We have the legendary Norm Macdonald, and the man who makes the cosmos feel like a math test, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Guys, we have to talk about it. The Ragnarok event. Antarctica. The pyramid. The whole world is talking about it." Neil deGrasse Tyson immediately leaned into his microphone, his hands clasped as if explaining a complex formula to a slow student.

"Look, Neil, I've been getting tweets about this for forty-eight hours. People are worried. They're saying the planet is shifting, they're talking about Draco entities coming through neural links. But I have to be the guy at the party who looks at the cake and says, 'This isn't real cake.'""It's not cake?" Norm asked, staring blankly at the studio ceiling.

"Is it a sponge? A dense, rubbery sponge?" Tyson ignored him.

"The footage shows a tropical jungle in Antarctica. Do you know what kind of solar radiation and tectonic plate alignment would be required to sustain a tropical climate at the South Pole? It's not just 'highly unlikely.' It is physically impossible under the current laws of thermodynamics…" Norm nodded slowly, looking like he was deep in thought.

"Yeah, Al Gore was right. Global warming really is going to kill everyone on the planet. I mean… uh… the melting glaciers in Antarctica are hiding Nazis." Neil deGrasse Tyson stared at Norm in genuine shock.

"They're not Nazis, Norm. They are procedurally generated assets in what is clearly Meridian Entertainment's most expensive marketing campaign to date. The lighting on those ferns was amateurish, by the way." Norm scratched his chin, looking genuinely pained.

"You know, Neil, you're very smart. You're a very smart guy. And it's nice that you know about ferns and the sun. But I don't think the Antarctica Nazis care about your thermodynamics." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"They got the little armbands," Norm continued, his voice dropping into that familiar halting cadence.

"And they're marchin' around. And they're German. And I gotta tell ya… Germany really worries me. I mean, you look at history, right?" Tillman tried to jump in.

"Well, thanks, Norm—""No, not you, Tillman," Norm interrupted, turning toward Tyson.

"I was talking to the former Heavyweight champion over here… uh, Tyson, who apparently looks a lot smaller in person. But as I was saying… This is the third time. The third time Germany has declared war on the whole world. You'd think by the third time, the rest of the countries would go, 'Hey, maybe we shouldn't let them have a pyramid in the ice. Maybe that's a bad idea for the neighborhood.'" Tillman laughed, trying to steer the ship.

"Yes, Norm, that is a good point. I mean, who do they think they are?"

"I heard they called dibs on Mars… so that checks out," Norm muttered.

"Some people say they're just scripts. Just little events. Then suddenly you're in a trench in the South Pole fighting a guy named Schmidt because he wants to control the 'reincarnation queue.' I don't want to be reincarnated, Neil. Once was enough. I don't want to come back as a fern in Antarctica." Tyson rolled his eyes, adjusting his suit jacket.

"Norm, there is no reincarnation queue. There is no pyramid. There is only an atmospheric greenhouse effect that, if it actually existed, would melt the entire Antarctic ice shelf in three minutes, causing global sea levels to rise by two hundred feet. We'd all be underwater. We wouldn't be watching it on a live feed; we'd be drowning."

"I think you're overthinking it," Norm said, leaning back and looking directly at the camera with deadpan sincerity.

"I think the Germans just like Antarctica. It's quiet. You get a pyramid, you get the ice, you don't have to talk to nobody. It's a good place to hide if you've upset the entire globe for the third time in a row." He paused, then added, "That hooded guy, though—the Architect, they're calling him. The one whose face keeps glitching out like bad cable TV? He shows up in the middle of the fight, takes over all the robot bodies, and starts asking for 'keys' and 'protocols.' That part felt real.

Like when your boss logs into your computer remotely and you can't move the mouse anymore. I hate that." Tillman chuckled, glancing at the cue cards.

"Well, whether it's physics-defying tropical weather, German world-domination schemes, or this mysterious Architect persona, one thing is for sure—everyone is talking about it."

"Yeah," Norm said, completely deadpan.

"I'm just worried about the fourth time. That and wet socks are when things get real." The audience erupted in laughter as Tyson shook his head, smiling despite himself.