She had no pants clean so she wore the damn overalls, damn it, and everyone will think she actually wore a costume to school. A Farmer Tally costume.
“You need a straw hat,” chuckles Theo, behind her.
“Hrk,” says Tally.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you!” He pounds on her back. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
“Not dressed up,” Tally manages, “only losers dress up.” She couldn’t look stupider in front of him.
“You don’t like my costume?” he says soberly. An endless pause.
And he winks and it kills her, just kills her, the way Halloween kills October.
But she doesn’t understand it very well.
“Chime tine keen veal well rill dial chime,” she replies, and her words are a piping octave, her voice a hand on uneven floorboards: what might, elsewhere, be called a marimba.
The man has stopped bleeding. “You can count, then,” he says. “Good.”
Millicent traces a lemniscate around Cosette’s ankles. Cosette picks the kitten up and watches the man’s hand, which is holding a short and brutal tailed whip.
“Don’t ever forget how to count,” he grunts.
“Marrow callow hollow minnow?”
“Count the stars if you have to. Just make sure you don’t finish.”
“Rosebud is his dog,” says Mario. “Haley Joel Osment’s dead. Norman Bates is a drag king, and the Village is a reality show. The lawyer made up Keyser Soze. Tyler Durden is Jack’s long-lost brother, the Blair Witch is the girl, and Obi-Wan is Luke’s father.”
Girard checks each of them off on his list. “Right. Thank you.”
Mario waits.
“You can go now,” says Girard. “The evaluation’s done.”
“That’s–I’m right, right?” says Mario. “We didn’t change anything in the past, so the culture matrix matches. Right?”
“Can’t tell you,” says Girard brightly. “Don’t want to spoil anything.”
Thursday, October 27, 2005
“Not all of us,” puffs Shawn, staggering out onto the roof, “can get up here so fast.”
“You didn’t even spill my latte!” says Lissa happily. “Remind me to tip you.”
“Ha ha.” Shawn hands her the drink. “What do you do? While you’re waiting for me?”
She sips her coffee and walks to the roof’s edge. “Look at the skyline,” she says. “I love it. I don’t think I could do this kind of thing anywhere else.”
Shawn grins. “Nothing as urban as a superhero.”
Lissa turns to smile back at him, and a giant robot lizard steps on her.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Toe trips.
“Oh shit,” says Tyler. Daniel and Alex spin around, facing out, searching the trees and buildings.
“What?” says Dylan, helping Toe up. “It looked like you just tripped.”
“You don’t understand,” mumbles Toe, pale and wild.
“We never trip,” says Alex.
“Not since this whole thing started,” says Daniel.
“Are you guys joking?” Phillip looks back and forth between them. “You have to say if you’re joking–” But he watches Alex take up a stance and there’s no power in it. Nothing. He looks like a teenager playing Matrix.
“It’s gone,” Daniel whispers. “The Liquid Kung Fu is gone…”
“Look out!” says Blaise, gagging. “I’m gonna buzzcast!”
Jean holds out the bucket, turning away and closing his eyes; Fermi watches with beady interest. Blaise horks and chokes and finally gets it out, a new phrase: ray-trace marketing.
“What does that even mean?” Fermi says.
“We never know at first.” Jean rinses it in the sink. “Not until we’ve dropped it into the right water-cooler talks and hidden it in hotshot PDAs.”
“Maybe it’s like pinging your target demo with throwaway campaigns, as a way to mine–”
“Not done yet,” groans Blaise, and gets p2geist all over Fermi’s shoes.
Outer space is wet, apparently.
“Your–your hand isn’t exploding,” crackles Nixon over the radio. “Or freezing. Your hand isn’t–”
“No,” says Truly, frowning, waving it around gloveless. “I mean, it is pretty cold.”
“Of course!” giggles Nixon. “Nobody ever tried just sticking a hand out the window up here oh God!” Nixon is kind of cracking up.
“That fucker Hooke was right,” Truly murmurs. “He was right about aether! Which means…”
She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and unrings her helmet. There it is: the Music of the Spheres!
Which, she notes with mounting suspicion, sounds like Skynyrd.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
“He went to your concert last night,” says the phone tearfully, “and we’re looking everywhere–”
Dusty hears a noise beneath his feet and snaps the phone shut. “Stowaway!” he shouts.
Snozz lunges from his bunk, revolver already blowing holes in the floor. Dusty scrambles to the driver, who’s yelling “What the shit! What the SHIT!”
“Pull over,” Dusty orders.
“I will if he doesn’t shoot out my brake line! Why is–”
“Kids grow up too fast on a tour bus,” says Dusty grimly.
“So?”
“You don’t understand,” says Dusty. The bus does stop then, very suddenly. It begins to tilt forward.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005