“Do you understand what this means for science?” says Hawthorne, fizzing with excitement.
Senji glares at him, probably. “This isn’t a fun project. How did you manage to give me frictionless skin?”
“Except on your hands and feet!” says Hawthorne. “A breakthrough!”
“I can’t sit down without an infinite wedgie.”
“The Slip ‘N’ Slide potential alone!”
Senji tries to rub the bridge of his nose and fails. “I liked it better when you only experimented on yourself.”
“You said we were drifting apart,” says Hawthorne, hurt. “This is a meta–”
“IT’S NOT A METAPHOR I WANT MY EYEBROWS BACK,” says Senji.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Dittany’s title is Subminister of Electronic Diversion Policy, which means she gets paid to find new ways for the Glorious Leader to cheat at Halo. It’s hard. He’s terrible, so they can’t use timing tricks or button combos, and lately they just beat the hell out of the Live servers with a botnet until something cracks.
Caffeine is illegal here and the nights are killing her. Dittany pores over forums and tries to sneak in humane policies at the ministry council. She came here to teach English, but the only words the Glorious Leader wanted from her were “Jew noob fag.”
“Great artists must sacrifice for their JESUS OW,” says Iphigenia, jerking her hand away.
“I told you it would sting,” says Nicole. “And this is just disinfectant–you need a rabies shot.”
“They didn’t have rabies,” Iphigenia scowls. “They were just startled by the damn paparazzi.”
“You wore a gown made of live minks to an awards show. You didn’t anticipate some flash photography?”
“I’m sure we all take comfort in your perfect hindsight, Nicole.”
She sighs. “I said the same thing beforehand, so it’s foresight, actually. I also told you to wear panties.”
“What is this,” says Iphigenia, “a nunnery?”
By the time he steps inside he’s forgotten the number on the sign.
There’s light in the house but he can’t seem to cast a shadow. It’s almost a relief, to stop worrying when your hand will accidentally loose a monster. He ambles without purpose, taking pleasure in exploration: one room floored in knotty pine, another in oak, their walls shaded blue or celadon or tea rose pink. Multiplicity makes his greed for novelty easy. They never cease to provide.
In one of the rooms, he thought he saw stars through a window; but he has already forgotten where that was.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The tunnel’s strung with Cat 6 and harsh lights in cages. The air is warm as breath.
It must be miles. The lights begin to struggle; that generator isn’t going to last. Ashlock keeps looking at Tach. Tach says nothing.
At the end it’s a cavern, tall and dim. Warm bodies have worn a star of six depressions in the ice; they were sitting in their own waste. Gone now. Dead monitors on carts drip with condensation.
There’s a great shadow below them, deep in the ice.
Tach collapses. Ashlock grabs him, and sees that his eyes are empty and dark.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
If she can really read minds, Zocco’s sure she must not think much of him.
“Not that it’s anything like reading,” Chopine says, “and not that what I think of you should matter, but you happen to be wrong.”
A snatch of song, a brief sexual fantasy featuring her, and resentment sweep through Zocco’s mind; the last because she can tell when his kindness is forced, but not vice versa.
“You’re becoming more aware of your own thoughts already.”
The little cues in her voice say she’s mocking him, but gently. With affection?
“See,” Chopine smiles, “you can do it too.”
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
At the time, Elizabeth stoops to conquer, and maybe that is why they think she’ll crack like lobster.
“No offense,” she tells them, “I don’t sing for mobsters.”
“Sweetie, you don’t get it,” grins the moonlighting bouncer. Â “He don’t wanna hear ‘no’ from a blowsy flouncer.”
“Really.” She rolls up her sleeves. Â “What utter nonsense.”
“Now are you copacetic, or do we have to toss ya?”
Her eyes and smile are torches in a steel ensconcement. “Try it, but let’s hurry. Getting ready for my concert.”
After that the word gets out: Â avoid the songster.
Everybody knows she’s a motherfucking monster.
Billie Youngblood is the only gunslinger in a pantomime world.
“I’ve got ten Federal dollars,” she tells the shopkeep. “How many bullets will that buy?”
“I just-a look,” he replies, turning to shove little boxes around on the shelf behind the counter. One of the boxes has eggs in it. “Oh!” cries the shopkeep, diving to keep them from hitting the floor, making eleven miraculous catches, then slipping on the shattered twelfth and going pantaloons-up in a spectacular pratfall that smashes the rest.
Billie’s trigger finger itches, because one of the goddamn harlequins put itching powder on her trigger.
“An archaeologist is like a detective–for history!” Aniridia mutters to herself, the kind of platitude that assembles itself in your memories of childhood when you’re not looking. She wipes her dry brow; she’s tired but not thirsty. The floor is yielding up evidence.
She’s torn out a rough square of boards underlaid with dense stacks of newspaper, its print archaic and blurred with time. Monochrome faces stare up without expression. She’s filthed her hands with ink.
Aniridia is struck by the idea of one way out of this place, and then struck again, with the certainty that it won’t burn.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
They’ve counted twelve bodies so far. The neater ones merely blew their own heads off.
“There’s nothing here but death,” says Tach. “If we find the generator, we can unshield it, and a magnet that strong should kill the drive–”
“All that will do is kick the number into our heads and you know it,” says Ashlock. “Fuck and damn it. Kirrily. Why would Kirrily have come here?”
“Something secret,” says Tach, who’s trying to ignore the hexadecimal edging at his vision.
“And where do you put a secret in Antarctica?”
They find the ragged tunnel entrance in the loading bay.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011