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Disposition

Author's Note:

Wrote this out of a mixture of excitement for the new album and boredom because it's been a while since I've written anything.
Wish me luck.

Everything seemed normal in the small Arizona town of Jerome, blistering heat and wind kicking sand everywhere. A short bald man stood quietly in the middle of a vineyard. He seemed a bit on edge, in his hands was a paintball gun. Being a man of considerable wealth and status had its consequences, as he dealt with a lot of stalkers.

This was his vineyard and he was going to defend it. He was an Army veteran and was also trained in the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. To put it simply, he was not someone to be trifled with. However, he had his admirers and some of these admirers were a little crazy.

He heard footsteps along the adjacent row of grapevines. His paintball gun was already prepared, the leaves began to rustle. A man emerged from the grapevines and turned to face him, "MAYNARD!"

As one would expect, this scared the hell out of him and he proceeded to mag dump his weapon and pelt this intruder with paintballs.

"You know, I really don't get why it is so hard for people to understand that I don't like to be fucked with. I don't bother anybody, I keep to myself and I still have psychos like you out here trying to hunt me down. Leave me be, if you want to see me so badly, buy a ticket to a concert. It's cheaper than coming all the way out here to Arizona and you won't get sprayed with paintballs. I bet you'll be feeling that when you wake up tomorrow," he pushed his glasses back up as they had almost fallen off.

The guy was sprawled out on the ground, writhing in pain, whimpering.

This caused Maynard to laugh, "Stop being a bitch, you brought this on yourself. I do feel a little remorseful, so here's a little something for your trouble."

He took out a plastic card and handed it to the man. In bold red letters was the name JESUS H. CHRIST. The guy stared at it confused, "Jesus H. Christ?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Maynard started walking away.

The other guy flipped the card to see it was autographed, "Really? You signed it?"

Maynard turned and looked back to the guy, "Yeah, you're welcome, man."

The two men went their separate ways.


Maynard looked down at his watch, "Oh, shit, we were supposed to be developing that new album."

He unlocked his car and hopped into the driver seat, cranked the ignition, and reversed. He sped off to the small airport in the town. He had to fly to LA which would only be an hour and a half flight. It surely beat a 7 hour drive.


Maynard arrived at the studio. His bandmates were already there practicing. A long haired blonde man looked up from his drums, "Took you long enough. Everything alright?"

"Yeah, Danny, we're good. I was just bullshitting at the vineyard," Maynard summed up the situation.

"Well, I'm super excited to drop this album, it's been 13 years, man, we need one," Danny tapped his foot on one of his pedals, hitting the bass drum multiple times.

A dark-haired bearded man nodded in agreement, "It takes time to do these things. It's like painting on oil and canvas. If you see something you don't like, we have to sand it down. It's taken us years because we're good at what we do and we settle for nothing less than perfection."

"Hell yeah, Adam, that work has paid off too. I was hoping we could get it done later this month, but we still need to add finishing touches. It'll be August before we can release it," Maynard added.

"Oh, damn, I told that guy we'd be done by mid-April," Danny sighed.

"Why do you always do that?" Adam laughed.

"I legitimately thought we would be done by the middle of this month," Danny shrugged.

"They'll get the album when we feel like releasing it. They'd better be glad we're dropping one at all. We could've been like 'Alright, we're done.' after we dropped 10,000 Days. While they've been whining, we've been working," Maynard was visibly annoyed.

The bassist hadn't said much during this. He wore oval framed glasses. He also had a beard, but it was a little grey, his hair was cut short as well. He spoke with an English accent because he was from Kent. He turned to Maynard, "It's not that serious, mate, relax. We'll get this done and they'll love it."

Maynard took a deep breath and nodded, "Yeah, you're right, Justin. I'm anxious though, people didn't seem to like Eat the Elephant all that much."

"Are you kidding me? It was 3rd in the Billboard 200 when it dropped last year, people loved it," Justin was confused by that.

"I guess. Still heard a lot of complaints, even from people who support us. Viewed it as lackluster. I was like 'Whatever, man, you're still gonna buy it'," Maynard joked.

"It wouldn't surprise me if they did. Your voice and Howerdel's complement each other well. I'm not surprised that your other project is still popular," Justin tried to talk some sense into him.

"Means a lot, man, I appreciate that. I knew when Paul left that you were the right guy to replace him, you've been a great addition. Every album we've done has sounded just as good if not better than Undertow. I'm stoked about it, truly," Maynard threw words of encouragement Justin's way as well.

Adam and Danny were jamming in the corner. Justin walked over to his amp while Maynard approached the microphone. Something weird happened when Justin plugged his bass guitar up to it. The amp sparked and caught fire. This sent an electric shock throughout the other bandmates. They hurriedly threw a blanket over the flaming amp, trying to stop it from burning. The smoke inhalation caused the four of them to pass out though.


The members of Tool woke up, coughing profusely. Danny looked around and assessed the situation, "Does anything look different to you?"

Maynard scanned the room they were in, "No burn damage. No smoke, the detector isn't going off. What's going on?"

Adam walked up to a window and looked outside, "Uh, guys, we're not in Los Angeles anymore."

The other three band members looked with him. People with abnormal skin colors were walking around. One lady had yellow skin and orange hair, there was a guy with pale blue skin and orange hair.

"What the hell's going on here? Where are we? I've been sober a long time, I highly doubt I'm tripping right now, I also haven't had anything to drink so I know I'm not drunk," Maynard rambled in confusion.

"Well, we see it too, so we know you're not bugging, man," Danny reassured him.

"Well, damn, when I said I wanted LA to be flushed away, I didn't think it would actually happen. This is kind of cool," he relaxed a little.

"It is probably within our best interest to go out there and figure out where we are," Adam concluded.

Maynard hesitated, "Wait, no one's gonna know who I am here. I have nothing to worry about."

"Maynard, you've got to stop being such a recluse, man, it ain't healthy," Adam joked.

"Let me worry about me, Adam. We're all men who enjoy solitude anyway," Maynard countered.

"Touché," Adam agreed.

"We might as well go explore. Let's go, fellas," Danny took the lead.

The rest of them followed. The place looked like home, but didn't feel like home. There was no telling what dimension they were in now, but they intended to find out.

End of Chapter 1!