Magnum Thrax: Future Fossil, Part 2 of 5

Advanced battle tank with anti-laser reflective armour

Thrax tromped back to the tank in a grouchy mood. The rest of the team was already gathered around the metal behemoth.

“Andromeda!” said Thrax. “What’d you find?”

“Women and children, sir. Dead but uneaten. Lots of blood,” she responded flatly. “The perpetrators were… without honour. These were civilians.”

Well, at least that explained where everyone was, thought Thrax.

Sister Cinnamon stepped in front of him. She bowed her head slightly and kissed her necklace cross. “It was a massacre of innocents, my lord and liege. They desecrated the alter with a great red circle, painted with the blood of the devout. It was sacrilege of the worst kind. Their heresy cannot go unanswered.”

“I’m just a squad lead,” Thrax grimaced. “Not a lord or liege. And, yeah, sure, we’ll smite them good when we find’em. If we do. Kitty?”

“Nobody home, boss-man.”

Thrax plunked his rifle atop the tank’s glacis plate and adjusted his laser battery bandolier. He thought aloud: “Okay, so there were claw marks in Betty’s, and bite wounds and blood and guts. So I’m thinking animal attack, and yet, the bodies weren’t eaten. Which is completely freakin’ weird because you’d expect that if it were animals, unless they weren’t hungry, in which case why were they killing everyone.”

“Something else, sir.” Andromeda pointed towards the canyon entrance. Dust was blowing in from the desert beyond. “Sand’s been swept over blood stains at the front of the compound. There was a fight there, but the bodies were removed.”

That didn’t sound good. Thrax rubbed his chin and considered. He had to watch what he said in front of the team; they might be androids, but they had simulated feelings and their morale could be affected by everything he said and did. So he wanted to think first, which he always found frustratingly hard to do. With no missteps, either, which was even harder. Don’t appear dumb, he admonished himself. “Okay. So… smart animals, then.”

“Oh, come on,” blurted Kitty, emotions boiling over. “We all know what everyone’s thinking. What you’re talking about, so stop beating around the bush like a wuss. Just say it!”

“Raptors,” breathed Andromeda softly. 

The word sent a chill down their collective spines. 

“Utahraptor Sapien,” said Miss Jade sagely, explicating upon what everyone already knew for no reason other than obsessive compulsion. “Enlarged brain casings. They exhibit more than just pack behaviour; they’ve been known to form nomadic, albeit stone age, societies across the Midwest.”

“Naw.” Thrax wasn't convinced. “Doesn’t make sense. What’d raptors want with a smeggin’ zinc mine? I mean, they don’t have the tech know-how to do squat with it.” 

“Oh, who knows? Who cares? Like it would make any difference,” replied Kitty, waving her rifle about. “You think raptors need reasons to kill people, huh? Unh-unh. They fix you with those dead, soulless eyes, an’ hold perfectly still, an’ wait. You never know what they’re gonna do till they do it; share a meat morsel, all nice like, or rip your freakin’ arm off. This one time–”

“Point made!” Thrax held up his hands. “They’re gone, if they were here, long gone. So, let’s all relax.”

Kitty gave him a condescending look. “Okay, well, you know what else is gone, Sherlock? The zinc. So what are we doing here, huh? You tell me.”

Thrax opened his mouth to respond, but found he had no witty retort to deploy. He was thankfully saved from embarrassment by a horrible, blood-curdling shriek. It faded into a wet, sloppy gurgle that didn’t sound healthy.

Everyone froze.

“You guys… I don't think they left,” whispered Candy, clutching her rifle.

“No shit,” snarked Kitty.

“Came from the mine shaft,” noted Thrax. “I think.” He scooped up his rifle and primed the fusion pile. “Ready up, team.” 

“Hold.” Andromeda hopped up on the tank, reached into an open hatch, and hauled out a mesh sack of plasma grenades.“These may come in handy.”

Thrax grinned. That was why he so liked Andy. 

A sudden gust blew sand in their faces. Thrax’s jacket flapped as the wind picked up. 

It was growing dark, and threatening clouds roiled overhead.

“Storm comin’. Let’s move, faux-people,” advised Thrax. “Before it rains acid. Or worse.”

“We’ll be safest underground,” offered Miss Jade.

Thrax nodded in agreement with her statement of the obvious. “Good idea.” 

The team swarmed around the mine shaft opening. Miss Jade reached it first, and peered into the abyss. Thrax thought she seemed real eager to go below. A little too eager for his liking. She started to spout off some poetry: “‘Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.’ Millay.” 

“Oh please, girl, we don’t need you getting all dramatic on us,” said Kitty, peering down. “Whoa. It’s damn deep.” She spat her gum in, and it fell away into darkness. “You see that? Reeeeeal deep.”

Miss Jade was aghast. “Did… did you just litter? People live here, you know.”

Thrax shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“You’re both missing the point.”

“I think the people here are a little more concerned with their guts being littered all over.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right!”

Thrax held up a hand. “Let it go, Jade. It’s just legacy code talking. Now. Everyone go subvocal,” said Thrax, activating his tooth comm toggle. He motioned them onto the lift, but blocked the sexy nurse, who tried to totter aboard in her stylish boots. She seemed really sweet and innocent. “Candy, right? Yeah. I want you to stay up top. Operate the lift for us, then lock yourself down in the tank. Shoot anything with feathers, or scales. Or that moves.” 

Candy didn’t seem put out at all. She nodded eagerly. “Okay, Mister Thrax. Lower you down. Then, tank. Lock down. Shoot birds. Got it.” She smiled and showed great big, perfect teeth.

Her earnest enthusiasm freaked him out a little. Like she was getting her first assignment, ever. Thrax gave her a half-hearted grin and the thumbs up, then shut the lift gate. 

There was a flash of lightning, followed by a crack of thunder. Thrax looked up. The western sky was red and turbulent, like an angry lava lamp. His mom had one in their underground unit, back at The Pit. Electrically charged blobs of radioactive gas were coming their way. Fast. 

“Let's get underground. Hit it, Candy… Candy?”

Candy wasn't listening. Something had caught her eye, in back of the lift machinery. 

Movement.

Another flash. 

Thrax squinted. Light glinted off what he thought might be razor sharp teeth, for a brief moment, then they were swallowed up by comforting darkness. Could have been pipes. Plating. Trick of the light. Anxiety messing with his mind.

“Candy! C’mon! Lower us in! Then get back to the tank.”

“Oh sure, sure, sorry, Thrax,” she said apologetically, tottering over in her high heels to the lift controls. “This place gives me the creeps, that’s all. I get nervous kinda nervous.”

“No problem, Candy. Take a pill if you need to.” He tried not to worry about the cute medic android. She’d never survive on her own, poor thing. But someone had to lower them down. “Hit it, babe.”

Candy licked her lips and then threw all her weight against the lift mechanism’s oversized lever. With a jolt, the lift began trundling down into the dark abyss.

“Good luck, you guys!” called Candy from the ledge above. She blew them kisses.

Thrax didn’t think he’d ever see her again. But if she got eaten by raptors, they could just find her memory chip after it was passed through, well…

Kitty rolled her eyes and pretended to gag. “That girl is on something.”

“Not Candy,” said Thumper. “Too straight.”

“She’s high on life!” gushed Miss Jade. “The exhilaration of combat! Of adventure, the thrill of the unknown. Anything could be around the next corner!”

“Unh-huh,” said Kitty, looking at Miss Jade like she’d just admitted to having a highly infectious airborne disease. “Until you get your guts ripped out, girl.”

Sister Cinnamon began to pray. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me…”

“Amen to that,” said Thrax, and he double-checked his weapons.

Ten minutes later, and a thousand feet down, the dilapidated cage banged roughly against the shaft’s bottom.

Thrax snorted. The air smelled like wet rock grit. Acidic. He rolled back the gate and the team spilled out, weapons at the ready. They formed a half-circle, facing outward, just like he’d taught them, which was nice. They had been listening after all! 

Two tunnels led out of the chamber before them, one to the southeast and one southwest.

Thrax noticed strange glyphs lined the rough hewn walls. Like something his little sister might scrawl on the hallway walls back at The Pit. “Huh. Check it out: rock art, ladies.”

“Oh, my word! That’s bloody gorgeous!” declared Miss Jade, and she rushed past Thrax to the west wall. She ran her fingers over the deep, moist grooves.

“Miss Jade!” hissed Andromeda. “Back in formation!” 

Andy had a good point, thought Thrax, as usual. “Do what the lady says, Jade.”

“Yes, yes, of course, my apologies, just… one teeny-tiny moment, if you will,” responded Jade, her voice quivering. “This… this is remarkable, absolutely fantastic. More than I could have ever hoped for from his messages. Kal was right, everyone! These are rock gnome glyphs. I'm completely positive. Well. Ninety-percent positive, which is pretty close.”

“Gnome what?” queried Thrax. He didn’t like disruptive weird new things that were totally unrelated to the task at hand interrupting everything, and this sounded like one of those weird disruptive things.

“Rock gnomes,” replied Miss Jade, grinning wide. Her enthusiasm was admittedly a little infectious. “Igneous Notator. Silicon creatures The Ancients created. Organic tools, you might say. They live inside solid rock, swimming about, sweeping up minerals, barely more than information waves. Really amazing. They defecate bricks of these indigestible elements, and The Ancients would harvest them. A totally symbiotic relationship with an entirely new form of life.” 

“Oh, gross,” said Kitty, making a face. “They harvested shit? That’s disgusting.”

Thrax kind of agreed, but Miss Jade rounded on Kitty, indignant. “Oh, honestly! Their feces are made of silicon. Could you please stop being juvenile, just for a moment?” she demanded. “This is a remarkable life form, unlike anything else on earth. The creation of it goes far beyond resurrecting an extinct species. That's a trifle! This is an industrial engineering feat of sheer, unparalleled genius! Proof of The Ancient’s god like ability.” She looked back at the glyphs approvingly. “These are so very sexy.”

Kitty was having none of it. “Girl, they’re chicken scratch on a rock wall. You think that’s sexy, you got bigger problems than me.”

“What difference does it make?” said Thrax. “Look where the genius of The Ancients got them. Wiped out, save for a porn emporium bunker. We’re the last remnant. Wait… Can you read the glyphs?”

Miss Jade adjusted her glasses. “A little. I recognize a few of the more common symbols. That’s ‘home’. There… ‘Love’. And I think that’s… ‘Don’t trespass.’ Yes, that’s it. Then things about, uh, pain of death, burn for all eternity, damn the human creators, followed by dozens of expletives. Um, yes. Die forever, you bastards. You get the gist.”

Thrax smirked. “Nice.”

“Do… do they believe in God?” asked Cinnamon. “The rock things? They must be offered the chance of salvation. Their human creators may never have offered them the opportunity.”

“Girl, damn, you is stubborn,” said Kitty. “You’ve been trying to convert those pervs back at the pit for decades, and no luck. And now you’re going to try and convert a rock. That is hard core in my books.”

“They just need to stay out of our way,” said Thrax. 

Miss Jade shrugged and pressed an ear against the slick rock wall. “I can hear a rushing noise!” She bit her lower lip. “I think there’s an underground river behind the rock. A rather big one.” She stepped back and observed the wall.

Thrax was distracted by a call from the far side of the chamber. Andromeda stood before the southwest tunnel. “Sir! There’s air coming from this direction,” she said. “Very slight. And noises. Growls. Sound like raptors to me.”

“Sweet,” said Thrax, growing enthused. Growls suggested both action and answers were ahead, nice and simple like. “Southwest it is.”

Rock crackled overhead. 

Instantly Thrax swept his gun along the roof of the chamber. 

Nothing. Just rock.

Damn his newbie jitters. 

The team entered the tunnel, Thrax in lead. The tunnel angled gently downward. Five hundred meters on they heard chanting ahead. Voices that were a mix between growls and aggressive chirps. 

Thrax knew the sound: raptors for sure.

*****

For more Magnum Thrax, see the novel, Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom. 

Available on Amazon. 

starsIt's Mad Max on crack – Glen Conley

"Underneath this outlandish story’s brash exterior lies astute social commentary and sharp, unapologetic humor." – Kirkus Reviews

Magnum Thrax: Future Fossil, Part 1 of 5

I wrote this Magnum Thrax short story as an action piece. In hindsight, it may have a bit too much action. Live and learn. The story's set in a satiric sci-fi trope fest, a post-modern post-apocalypse. I'll be posting some notes on the why's of Magnum Thrax after the story concludes.

Enjoy!

The leopard spotted tank raced across the searing hot salt flats, pulling a train of wagons loaded with oak barrels. A large, Vegas-style sign spun atop the turret, emblazoned with ‘Pleasurepit Five’ in neon pink. 

The vehicle slowed as it approached a rock formation that jutted out of the salt ocean. Their it paused for a moment, engine revving. 

The ruin of a big purple transport rig lay forlorn in the sand to the right. The front windshield was shattered, and the glittering purple paint was streaked by ragged claw marks. 

Far above, in the crystal blue sky, advertising clouds drifted, shilling products that hadn’t been made for a thousand years.

The tank's cupola swivelled towards a cleft in the rock to the left, wide enough for a vehicle. There were signs on either side of the entrance, promising water and goods for gold, and death for those who couldn’t pay.

The engine roared. Greasy smoke belched from rusted exhaust pipes. The tank charged up into the narrow passage, clipping the sides of the granite canyon. Sparks and stone chips sprayed out form each impact as the tank raced recklessly forward. 

Several harrowing hairpin turns later, the metal beast pulled out of the canyon’s cool shadows into a gloriously sunlit sand cove. The walls were lined with stacked, makeshift residences constructed out of salvaged materials looted from ancient buildings. Along the north face, cog wheels mounted on steel supports suspended a rickety freight elevator over a thirty-foot wide hole in the ground. Above it was a wooden sign that proclaimed, "Welcome to Utan Oasis."

The top turret hatch popped open, and an impossibly good looking man stuck his head out, with a full head of glorious hair, sharp cheek bones and square jaw. Obviously genetically enhanced. He wore wrap around sunglasses and a Seventies-style white disco suit that never, ever got dirty. 

His name was Magnum Thrax. He was eighteen and he still had zits.

“Kal!” he called. “Kal! Where are ya, buddy? It’s Thrax!”

Silence. 

“KAL!!!"

Thrax swore. It’d been a week since he’d last had radio contact with his friend. He bit his lip and scanned the compound.

No one in sight.

Dust blew. An unsecured door clattered in the wind.

Thrax tapped the tank’s top with the butt of his rifle, and hauled himself out. “C’mon, ladies. Time to play hide and seek.”

Other hatches clanged open and five impossibly beautiful women, wearing skimpy outfits of latex, fishnets, and camouflage, clambered out. They hefted incongruously large energy weapons that hummed with gigawatt-voltage menace. 

“Hi Mr. Thrax; no sign of your friend, then?” asked one wearing classic Iris van Herpen boots. She wore a white armband with a red cross on it. Thrax struggled to remember her name. Candy. That was it! The team medic.

“Nope, nada. I gotta find him,” proclaimed Thrax, roughly running a hand through his hair. "I just gotta!" 

“Aw, hey, hey now,” soothed Candy, her voice welling with empathy. "It'll be okay, you'll see.” 

“Damn well better,” growled Thrax. “If he’s lost Lil’ Eastwood, I’m gonna kick his ass!”

Candy scrunched her pert nose and gave him a confused look. “Eastwood?”

“Thrax's gun,” explained Kitty, leaning over Candy's shoulder. She squinted up at Thrax, who was backlit by the summer sun. “You and that stupid magnum. Who names a gun, anyway?” 

Thrax bristled. “Everyone names guns. It happens to be very common.” He looked to the others for confirmation. “Am I right? Like naming a sword, or a hat.”

Kitty shut off her mobile entertainment unit and slipped it into her back pocket. The latex sucked it tight to her skin. “It’s still dumb. And we’re here for the zinc load, not Kal, and not your gun.” 

“Wait.” Thrax was still hung up on the naming thing. “I seem to remember it was you who named the tank, ‘Big Bad Bitch’.” 

Kitty gave him her zinger look. “Well, yeah. It’s a tank. Anyway, Kal should never have gone ahead in the first place. That’s his bad move and he should suck up the consequences. We just need to find the zinc for our reploboxes and split.”

Thrax ignored her and pointed at the tallest, most regal of the androids, his squad sarge, Andromeda. “Andy, take Sister Cinnamon and check the church. Could be a, you know, service or somethin’ goin’ on.”

“Yessir!” Andromeda levelled her weapon and headed off, followed by Cinnamon. Their six-inch high combat boot heels scuffed up dust as they skittered sexily away.

Thrax scanned the otherwise empty compound. “Where are all the Utans?” he muttered. The place was usually crawling with the ugly fellas. He lit an atomic cigarette, took a deep drag, and hopped off the tank’s hull. If the residents weren’t in church, in bed, or at work, they'd be drinking, belching, and barfing in Betties’ Norstar Bar. 

He strolled towards it, puffing on the glowing green atomic cig.

Three androids, Kitty, Miss Jade, and Thumper, spread out and followed behind him, weapons at the ready. Candy stayed with the tank, which was just as well. As a medbot, she wasn’t a fighter.

Thrax leapt up the steps and barged inside.

He wished he hadn’t: the stench of decaying flesh inside was overwhelming. Bodies were strewn all over: sprawled over tables, on the floor, or disemboweled where they’d sat. Entrails were smeared on the bar. Thrax spat out the cig and covered his mouth with a handkerchief. Working quickly, he walked by the bodies, checking faces. 

Kal wasn’t among them. 

Whew!

Bile rose in his throat. He began to gag, and there was no stopping it. 

He stumbled out, vomiting as he went, adding to the colourful crimson mess. As he stood panting and trying to recover his equilibrium, he noticed that the door and surrounding corrugated metal sheets were riddled with bullet and energy bolt holes. 

Thrax heaved up more food bits. The sun beat down on his back as the last remnants of his lunch splattered over cracked wood boards. He sighed, wiped the drool from his lower lip and straightened up. 

The team was standing before him, expressions of disgust written all over their pretty faces. 

Crap.

Well, screw’em. Who cared what a bunch of synthetics thought, anyway?

He jerked a thumb at the bar. “All dead.” Drinking at Betty's would never be quite the same again.

“Oh, man, now that’s just nasty,” said Kitty, looking at Thrax’s well digested lunch. “Why didn't you just turn off your sense of smell, boss-man?”

Dammit, thought Thrax. Kitty was right: like the androids, Thrax wore an invisible, full body nano-suit that protected him from radiation and contamination. But it was on manual. With a thought, he activated the auto-defenses. Next week he’d get one of those virtual avatar assistants to keep track of these things. Maybe the Monroe AI model. She had a sexy voice. “Okay, olfactory sensors blocked. Now: Kitty, Miss Jade, I want you to sweep and clear. Hostiles could still be here. Thumper, you’re with me.” 

“Wait, hold on there, kiddo,” groused Kitty. “You're sending me with Jade? You know she’s the newbie, right? I just don't think that’s happening, unh-unh.”

“Shut it, trooper,” snapped Thrax, regretting that he’d sent off Andromeda, his squad sergeant. It was only his second mission, though. He'd just turned eighteen, so Kitty-Big-Mouth wasn’t about to acknowledge his authority without a fight, despite Thrax being rated fully human, and then some. He had good genes. Amazingly good genes, as a matter of fact. Everyone in The Pit knew it. Meanwhile, her android code was dodgy. These androids weren’t military grade, just sexbot models repurposed for combat by self-taught coders out of pure desperation. They were the defenders of Pleasurepit Five Sex Emporium, the last bastion of human civilization. It wasn’t a great museum, or a university, or a monastery. It was just a sex emporium.

Thrax wondered if that was ironic.

“Bad enough I’m here at all, and ya’ll know it, too. I was supposed to be guarding the grain silos back at The Pit. No way I'm going with Jade into some monster buffet,” said Kitty defiantly, doubling down. “She's a desk jockey, and she never shuts up, either. Give us totally away. No offence, girl.”

Miss Jade bristled. “Seriously? That… that is totally unfair. I earned the right to be here. I studied combat manuals for weeks, and I completed all the basic firearm regulation and maintenance simulations.” She tugged her micro mini dress down and smoothed the plastic. “I happen to have been going over mission relevant background.”

"Uh-huh. The Big Bang?”

Jade shrugged and looked at her immaculately buffed boots. “I wanted context.”

“Whatever,” groaned Thrax, bored of their bickering. He reached over and snapped a switch on Jade’s bulky laser rifle. “It helps if you turn the safety off.”

Miss Jade blushed beat red. “I knew that, Mister Thrax, I was just diligently waiting for the right moment. And, point of fact, regulations specifically state that weapons should be kept on safety until–”

“Oh, bull, girl!” Kitty got in her face and wagged a finger. “Regulations get people killed, ya know, which is why you shouldn’t be here. And why I’m not going with you.”

“Enough!” Thrax restrained the urge to pop an artery. “You two got your orders, I’m not changing them, so make the best of it. Go. Now!”

Kitty blew a gum bubble at him, then popped it. “Fine. Make ya feel big, does it?”

“And go left,” added Thrax. “Check the living quarters. Me and Thumper will check the warehouses.”

“‘Thumper and I’,” Jade corrected, prissily. “Precision in all things, Mister Thrax. Holistic nature of life.”

Thrax ignored her. Foxy librarian sexbots like Jade were extremely punctilious. Great at planning, and organizing your archaic book collection, but damn annoying in the field. And she was always trying to get him to read. Read! What era did she think they were in? No one did that crap anymore! If it wasn’t text in a video game, or on a piece of munitions, Thrax wasn’t interested. Reading was for old people. Everyone used neural taps, anyway. Jade’s saving grace? Her base model was the Foxy Librarian, so she followed orders and procedures, wasn’t nearly as annoying as Kitty, and had a head full of facts, figures and obscure knowledge, which came in handy at the oddest of times.

Thrax spat and trotted over to the first warehouse, followed by Thumper. It was a big ugly thing, mostly embedded in solid rock. He motioned for the voluptuous android to pull back the door. It slid easily on greased tracks. 

Thrax scanned the interior with his weapon’s sensors.

Empty. 

No life form readings, and even worse–no zinc. 

“You are soooo screwed, mission leader,” observed Thumper. “If you go back empty handed, they’re gonna–”

Thrax spun about, anger and expletives flooding his adolescent brain. He kicked the dirt and had a little spastic frustration fit. “Damn freakin’ fubarks!” he swore through gritted teeth, trying to keep his volume down. “So unfair!” 

“So’s the lot of an android,” said Thumper dryly. Her model was athletic, rambunctious, and not very tactful. 

But neither was Thrax.

Thrax took a few deep breaths and calmed himself down. Thumper had a point. “True. The humans at The Pit, all of us would be dead without you. We owe you androids everything.”

“Huh,” said Thumper, taken aback. She started to say something, then stopped.

“What? Spill it,” said Thrax. 

“I just… don’t think any human’s ever bothered to tell me that before. Thanks. I always thought you were dicks.” 

“Dicks? That’s what you think of your creators?”

“Well… I mean, yeah. It’s egocentric to create entire species who’s only purpose is to fulfill your sick, twisted, depraved fantasies. Honestly, the stuff with the plastic and the fish and those rings–”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture. No need for details.” His future was on the line with this mission. The Sex Emporium’s Grand Council of Elders, Protectors of the Ancient Enlightenment, had made that real clear. For an element so rare, Zinc was essential for their reploboxes to make vital equipment.

If he didn’t get that zinc, his ass was grass!

*****

For more Magnum Thrax, see the novel, Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom. 

Available on Amazon. 

starsIt's Mad Max on crack – Glen Conley

"Underneath this outlandish story’s brash exterior lies astute social commentary and sharp, unapologetic humor." – Kirkus Reviews

Announcing Magnum Thrax and the Cola Cults

The Great Temple of the Cola Gods, a gathering site for the nomadic tribes

Thrax and team return home to The Pit, only to find a gigantic 3-C Cola battle-crawler towering over it, bristling with armaments. Everyone they knew is now hopelessly addicted to their beverage. 

The Sales-Priests try to get Thrax hooked, but he’s already addicted to Cocainola, 3-C's deadly rival brand. Cocainola’s in-product defense memes protect him from becoming a 3-C slave.

Thrax’s loved ones are forced to go on a suicidal Cola Crusade to destroy Cocainola's impenetrable headquarters, fired up by Sales-Priest sermons.

With the help of a Cocainola agent, Thrax sets out to save the inhabitants of The Pit from certain death. But to do that he has to defeat the God-Rex of Cocainola: a T-Rex with the dual-brain of P.T. Barnum and David Ogleme.

Can Thrax save his loved ones and his favorite beverage?

Find out in Magnum Thrax and the Cola Cults!