“Are you a relative?” asks the triage doctor in Hungarian, Romanian, German and English.
“Oh! No! I don’t know her.”
“Angel of mercy,” she smiles.
“I shot her.”
The smile drops. “You are armed?”
“Yeah.” Zach checks his pants. “Whoops! No. Crap!”
“Your bulletproof vest. Police?”
“No, no, assassin. I was hired to kill this girl. Not that girl. Another girl. But she’s got this mommy complex so she left me with these guys, but then Hidebound, who’s supposed to be my–”
“You have a concussion,” she sighs.
“I’m still technically an intern,” says Zach, choking up for some stupid reason.
“We have always been at war with Prescription,” Golda intones.
“I’m not sure it qualifies as war,” says Nestor. “It’s more a dynamic tension that informs–”
“It is too a war!”
“That sounds like received wisdom speaking.”
“It’s not!” Golda backpedals. “It’s description! That’s what we do!”
“That’s an interesting circular problem,” says Roan. “If people choose to become Descriptivists based on our self-description, have we then prescribed a philosophy of–”
“Shut up, Roan,” says Nestor.
“Don’t tell her to shut up!” says Golda.
“Don’t end a sentence with a preposi–” is all he manages before they tear him apart.
“Warning!” chirps the schedule. “This meeting takes place in the past.”
Sighing, Mauro queues up at the tempovator. At length he steps in and drops back to 2008.
“All right,” says Beatriz, “let’s get started.”
“Can we please stop reliving this?” says Mauro. “I’m from 2010. We cut some stuff for blind kids, bump the liquor tax, nobody’s happy, everything’s fine. Okay?”
“We’ll come up with a better idea!”
Mauro looks around: they’re so old. “Where are the versions of us who were here the first time?”
“Stacked in the freezer,” says Tams.
“We’re thinking of selling their organs,” says Beatriz.
Yael almost drops the candle, scrambling over, while Silhouine sits down with her mouth open. Then she shuts it. “Ooooowwwww,” she notes.
“It could be tipped with something,” says Yael, the quickness of her speech letting fear in around the edges. “I have to take it out, all right?”
Silhouine blinks and pats at her head.
“All right,” says Yael, and yanks. Only a little blood comes out.
“THAT IS REALLY A LOT WORSE,” says Silhouine. “What time is it.”
“What?” says Yael.
“The stupid room is a stupid clock,” says Silhouine, who is beginning to realize that smells have colors.
Most fights go to the ground, especially fights that begin with tackles, and on the ground strength beats quickness. The Vulpine Phalanger knows this, which is why she’s got her punch dagger out. Hidebound’s block is insufficient. He and his ear come to a parting of the ways.
He levers her off and several yards back in a fit of screaming strength. The police, single-tracked and spooked, spray them with rubber bullets. Rubber bullets hurt like regular bullets without the common decency to break your skin. The two withdraw in haste and opposite directions.
One of them leaves a trail.