Mother Figure sighs before the report card’s even open. “Oh,” she says. “I thought the tutors were helping.”
“But they are!” Boboli tugs at the card above the ST OMÖJLIGS SCHOOL OF STOCK seal. “I did fine in Background Noise and Dying, and I got four archetypes this term–”
“Sure, sweetie, but you know what’s bringing your average down.” She taps him on the head with the card.
“I hate Henchmanship,” he mumbles, but he likes it, really. Likes it so much he has to keep failing. He’s afraid what it’ll mean about him, if he shows how good he is.
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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Thursday, August 18, 2005
Shelly decides it’s September.
“Nobody said it could be September,” says Wedgwood, when he blows in the door. His eyes are wide. “You didn’t check to see if it could be September.”
“I hate August,” says Shelly.
Wedgwood hesitates. “Because August was when we–”
“Because it’s hot,” she says.
“It’s all slipping now,” he says, “you made it too heavy at this end.”
“So merry early Christmas,” says Shelly, “go away.”
“You’re careless,” he says as October tumbles into Labor Day.
“You’re too critical,” she says.
“I know.” He breezes out the window.
Shelly hits winter hard, and cracks her lips.
But Sun hated the light.
“She said ‘Earth hurts my eyes!'” Mishaal hunches his shoulders, and his firelight shadow becomes round and menacing. “‘I will eat its light.'”
She rose up and began to swallow it, but Earth only made more.
“Sun shrank in pain,” hisses Mishaal. “The bright light crushed her to a tiny ball!”
At last, Sun cut a hole in herself to let the light out; she could keep eating forever, then, even as she swelled and fell.
“Earth saves its light by night,” says Mishaal, “and Sun heals, and the stars are her blood on the sky.”