“Bollweevil?” gasps Salem, surprised and joyful.
Bollweevil screams raw and tries to get away. His legs aren’t working. He grabs a bench and scrambles.
“What a fortuitous encounter!” says Salem. He hooks fingers into Bollweevil’s nostrils and pulls up, and Bollweevil’s legs do work, then. Salem grabs his hair, then presses their lips together and puffs hot stale air.
Bollweevil’s unsure whose breath is worse.
“Say thank you.” Salem wipes his mouth.
“Thank you,” mutters Bollweevil. They’re the first words he’s been able to speak since Crane. “Thank you, thank you,” and he silently counts one-one. Two-two. Three-three.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
“Ignore her, little girl,” says the masked man.
“Alice,” says Alice.
His face quirks. “Very well,” he says. “McKinley. Bring me the water and salt, carefully. Remember–she can’t hurt you.”
“I know,” says Alice. “She hasn’t yet, why could she now?”
“He’s right,” says Nightmare sweetly. “It’d take me a while to break through this glass. A siege. I used to have terrible dreams about waiting forever in the dark… but mine weren’t as bad as my sister’s. About storms.”
Black lightning snaps; thunder cascades off the dome. Alice is startled, tripping, horror, the water spilling out of her hands.
The local’s working surprisingly well, but Antessa’s still sweating. “That’s normal,” says the burn artist, nametagged Knarl. “Your blood’s going to carry some heat…”
Knarl’s working the torch gently back and forth along her forearm, while another artist works on Wright. Wright grins at her, scared and excited.
“Okay!” Knarl flips up his shield. “Ready? Move your right arms across and grip.”
Wright and Antessa do and do. Antessa feels queasy at the touch of his slick, blistered skin, but she holds it. Wright holds her eyes, unsteady, still grinning.
“Now,” says Knarl, “ease off,” and they leave their fingerprints behind.
Kostic dies twice in the shower: once from a bullet, once from blood loss from a severed leg. He towels off and pulls on his robe. Over eggs he dies sixteen times in rapid succession (improvised explosive device).
“The boots or the wingtips?” asks his lover.
“The boots,” says Kostic, “field inspection. I’ll be late.”
Kostic puts on his fatigues and makes sure his stars are straight. He pulls his cap on in the mirror. He’s used to reading the motto backwards by now, Inaudita Nulla Vox, and as he turns to kiss his lover he drowns in his own blood.
“Never understood how these work without energy,” says Mario quietly, one hand on the Time Tube.
“It puts you in quantastasis,” says Rasmussen.
Mario nods.
“And then we, ah, wait.”
“Until what?”
“Until it opens, for a forward jump. Backwards–until we train replacements, retire and die, Earth falls into the Sun, the universe goes into blueshift and collapses, explodes again–and this is the tricky quantum bit, so you and the Tube spontaneously reassemble the same way–Earth boils out, life appears, civilization. The Tube opens. You step out.”
Mario stares.
“We have better methods now,” says Rasmussen, slightly embarrassed.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
The man Chili John calls Piper doesn’t have a pipe, but a what are they called? Panflute. The chimpfall is fresh. The whole town has come out to watch.
“This better be worth our time,” grumbles the chief.
“What?” says Chili John.
Piper’s dancing a slow, shuffling dance now. He’s moving the panflute; it doesn’t seem to make any sound. There is something shining just over his left shoulder, though.
Huh.
The crowd leans forward, trying to see. Piper moves. The glimmer moves. The crowd moves.
Chili John, his ears stuffed with rubber plugs, grins to himself. The chimps grin too.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
“That’s not what you told us at the scene,” says Pujols sharply.
“I said I’ll tell you everything I knew,” says Glory. She’s pale and dull. “I am.”
“Then let’s start with their names.”
“Never knew them,” Glory repeats. “Angel, Faith, Charity and Clementine? Google those, dipshit.”
“Relax, Glory,” says McNamara. “Officer Pujols is a little overeager. You want a cigarette?” Her eyes are a warm hazel.
“If I can put it out in your face,” says Glory, in the same tone. “Just ask me the questions, you fucking sow.” She keeps her hands in her lap, one in the other.
Pepper’s been digging through her grandfather’s paperbacks, which are unexpectedly supple and white. Must have come out right after they stopped printing on acidic paper, around the early Zeroes. Pepper loves their Anglo names: Gibson, Sterling, Stephenson.
“Only one of them got close, though,” she tells Augusto as they patch a panel. “They mostly thought the cities would collapse and turn into this technology jungle, like in the barrio, only cooler. Drugs and implants and hacker clicas–”
“They might,” says Augusto slowly. “You don’t know.”
They look up at the floating orb of Pittsburgh, a baby moon, green in the sunlight.
Bailey seems so tired. South feels guilty about the sand in his hair.
“The good news is they bought it,” says Bailey, as soon as the door’s closed. “Full budget, full season. The bad news–” He waits out the noise. “Is we’re a midseason replacement.”
They blink.
“We get double budgets for twelve episodes?” says Rebecca.
“No, they want twenty-three.” Bailey rubs his head. “They’ll choose twelve to air.”
“That’s–” South begins.
“That’s network politics.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Seven and Bailey lock eyes. “You know,” Bailey says, starting to grin.
“Anima in machina,” Seven whispers, delighted.
Jeremiah is the only fifteen-year-old boy in the world who understands about girls.
“I didn’t get her anything,” says Aaron, sweating.
“The flower shops are already closed,” says Jeremiah, counting Aaron’s money. “Go to the dumpster behind the closest one and pick out seven rose petals. Wash them with soap and water. Put them in a jewelry box.”
“Are you sure?” asks Aaron. Jeremiah is.
Jeremiah doesn’t have a girlfriend, not because he’s gay, but because he understands about girls. Maybe that means he can’t be bothered? Maybe that he’s too in love with all of them to choose.