Hugo bellows a laugh. “How many of you do I have to throw off?”
“You came into my home,” says Daniel. “You threatened my family.”
“I also killed your friend,” says Hugo.
“Sure,” says Daniel, “that too.”
The sword comes up lower than Daniel expected, so he changes plans and runs up the blade. Putting his knee in Hugo’s face feels good.
Hugo screams with his mess of a mouth and brings it up again. This time Daniel steps aside and touches the point on Hugo’s wrist that opens his fingers. The sword flips up, way above them, end over end.
The chimpfall in Puebla is like dew, not rain: around four a.m. they start to accrete on awnings and car roofs, anything flat that stays cool. But they don’t evaporate in the sun.
“They just sit in the street,” grumbles the chief, “not like we need streets in the morning, and eventually they move off some random way. To make room for the next ones! I’d blow their monkey brains out–”
“But they’re endangered,” Chili John nods.
“I’m ’bout to endanger ’em. I don’t know what you’re planning, stranger, but…”
“Can’t fight spontaneous generation, Chief,” grins Chili John, “without a degenerate.”
Cosette walks through the door of one hundred North one hundred Up and the walls are gone.
It’s flat, empty and cobbled, twenty feet wide, two yellow lights and some dead leaves. There’s a bench and a sign that says 12. The tracks below are exactly as long as the platform. Beyond the platform, it’s black.
Her footsteps sound different: this place is open, echoless. Cosette walks to the bench and tucks the last map page inside her jumper. She sits with Millicent on her lap. She watches a lonely moth whirl around one cast-iron lamp, brave against the dark.
It’s easy to make an episode a marathon, when they’re there to watch. Elaine and Sterling get up on Saturday and the VCR’s still on, so why not see what happens next? They pull up blankets. “I’m gonna shower,” says Elaine, “you want a pizza?”
Sterling sorts her brother’s fansub tapes, stacks of them, yellowing meticulous labels. “Nobody does anything in anime,” he laughs, “without doing it,” and Elaine thinks maybe they’re the same. Face forward, hands splayed, action lines through the TV forever! There will always be Bubblegum. There will always be pizza. Grace, grace, and the lie of summer.
“Please, sit down,” croons Madam Zaganza, Personal Readings.
Holly stands. Her hand’s still bandaged. “My friend Rowan,” she says, “she did this.”
“Good! Then you know to shuffle–”
“I caused the drought,” Holly blurts. “I killed all those people.”
“Oh, honey,” says Zaganza. She pulls off the turban and becomes a tired man in lipstick. “Sit down. You know how many people have told me that?”
“I’m different,” Holly whispers. “I was–Rose and Roger–and the rain doesn’t fall–”
“It falls on the just and the unjust.” Zaganza smiles sadly. “You don’t change the weather, honey. The weather changes you.”
“It’s a-a-a cave,” says the Cold Man.
“How far did hough.” Rita’s still coughing up rock dust. “Did we fall? Jesus faagh.”
“Oh,” he says, and pokes his head into the shaft of light. “I forg-g-got you c-can’t–”
She waves him off and tries to stand. Nothing gives yet. She spits.
“No flashlight,” she murmurs.
“I-I can sssee,” he says. “C-can you see m-m-me?” He steps back. She can, though she can’t see anything around him.
“Yes,” she says.
“Y-you shouldn’t,” he smiles. “Bu-b-but that’s g-g-g-good.”
He holds out one gloved hand, and for the second time, she takes it.
“Hey, guys!” Rita knocks on the silver door with her silver hand. “It’s me. Mary? Sandra?” She shivers a little; she’ll get used to that. Surely. “I think I figured out that tape. You’re not gonna believe–”
The blast pillows from under the door so slow that at first, she doesn’t realize she’s already grounded. The concussion rolls out like boulders. She leans back, streams it around, lets the ley take the heat.
Did it kill them? Did they set it? Does it matter? Rita grits into the bomb, eyes streaming, getting colder. Shrapnel falls sharp into orbits around her fists.
“Let’s count atheists,” Rita murmurs eventually. “One.”
“T-two,” says the Cold Man, “but it-t’s n-n-not mmmuch of a f-f-fox foxhole.”
It doesn’t have to be. Rita imagined war as tracers and shelling, or tanks painted desert tan, but Chile is quiet. They can’t afford tanks here. Bombs are passé.
“You’re not–” Rita starts, then waits as somebody’s Uzi knockoff chatters nearby. “Not cold. I mean, I can tell you have body heat.”
“It’s ab-b-b-out electromagnet-t-t-tism,” he says. “And-and per-p-perceptions.” He snaps his fingers and produces a four of diamonds. “W-w-watch this,” he grins, and then they fall through the floor.