The weather at Amusement Park is beautiful: crowds clog the footpaths and wrap lines around the rides. Callum and Jacinta lose themselves easily.
“We’ve got to lift more merchandise from Gift Shop next week,” Callum gloats.
“Yeah, security here is crap!” says Jacinta.
“Oh NOOOO,” replies Callum, as a mouse pointer picks him up and shakes him. AmusementBuxx scatter from his pockets; the crowd (Jacinta included) collects them with gusto.
Callum wanders around the prison enclosure, bumping into bars and yelling, until he gets plucked out and fed to the bears.
Amusement Park is pretty much the best park in State/Province.
“So what you do is click the refresh button,” says Magret, “and just keep on clicking it until it says the count is done. Then you print that out and walk it down to Detton.”
Erhard waits.
“Oh, that’s… that’s all there is,” he says, at length.
“Yep!” Magret beams.
“This is a job,” says Erhard, choosing words with care, “that a monkey could do.”
Magret’s smile inverts. “That is absolutely untrue! We have tried it with monkeys and they can’t stay focused. They need more mental stimulation.”
Erhard feels his spine weaken a little.
“They also cost more,” Magret says.
This is a con for one artist, two shills and as many marks as you can get your filthy hands on.
- First, become Pestilence incarnate. Next, have your shills pose as explorers and compete for the favor of a moneyed patron (not the mark!). He or she will feel compelled to fund one or the other, on the promise of enormous return on investment.
- The chosen shill will “discover” a populated area. These are the marks! Unleash yourself! The area will become nonpopulated. Return the patron’s investment, which is paltry compared to the natural resources now at your command.
- Profit!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Theora’s not sure who came up with this protest formation but she likes it: there are a dozen of them, bound with gaff tape, turtled together like legionnaires against the bullhorns and the tear gas. Their signs are painted on riot shields.
The problem with this particular turtle is it seems to have no head.
“Embassy row is this way,” insists a man with regrettable dreadlocks. The police, behind them, look hesitant.
“Fuck that, the pigs are right there!” Theora howls with glee.
“Would you please stop elbowing me I am wearing a VEST FULL OF BOMBS DON’T SHOOT,” says Nasser.
They’ve shoved him in the back and buckled him in, treating him like a five-year-old, treating him as if a little time in the spotlight is going to turn him into a slobbering drunk. As if they’re so much wiser! As if they behaved any better when they were Narrator.
Brunhilde’s eyes show white and she bites her lip when she smiles back between the seats at him. “I promise you can have your keys back once you”re more used to it, okay?” she says.
The Narrator knows she is lying, though (she is a total bitch like that).
In a moment, Francine is going to reach out and touch his shoulder. She’s learned that this is beyond her control; her will, when he needs comfort, is not her own.
But she can change what “moment” means.
A spider spins a web from the tip of her finger. The silk turns to cobweb, the cobweb to dust. Through the French doors the path of the sun elongates into streaks of fire. Buildings sprout buildings. Mountains lose their tops.
A geological heartbeat is measured in the movement of magma. Still and outstretched, Francine waits for her hot stone blood to recede.
“It was… after four when we came in here?” says Yael. “So by now it’s nearly–”
Silhouine is up, scrambling toward one of the corridors. “Five o’clock tastes like burning dust,” she pants.
“How do you even know which one is twelve?” says Yael, following. “Also, what?”
“The candle told me,” says Silhouine, and hurries into darkness.
Yael blinks down at the little stub and sees that its flame is, in fact, streaming steadily toward a different portal in some invisible breeze. She hurries after her friend, thinking, they always hurry. Can’t they take their time getting to the next disaster?